Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement Research Articles

International and domestic experience of intellectual property legal protection on the Internet and separate methods of police crimes detection in this area

The history of the development of international legislation and the conclusion of international treaties regarding the protection of intellectual property, starting with the Berne Convention on the Protection of Literary and Artistic Works, was considered. The World Convention on Copyright, the Agreement on Trade Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights, and the Copyright Agreement of the World Intellectual Property Organization were analyzed. An attempt to sign an Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement was tracked. The history of the adoption of laws on the protection of intellectual property in the USA “On Combating Online Piracy” (SOPA) and “On Prevention of Real Network Threats to Economic Creativity and Theft of Intellectual Property” (PIPA) was studied.
 The legal framework of the EU regarding the protection of intellectual property rights on the Internet, in particular Directive No. 2019/789 of the European Parliament and the Council dated April 17, 2019, which establishes the application of the provisions of copyright and related rights to individual online broadcasts of broadcasting organizations and retransmissions of radio and television programs, and Directive No. 2019/790 of the European Parliament and the Council dated April 17, 2019 on copyright and related rights in the single digital market were concidered. The legislative framework of Ukraine aimed at protecting intellectual property rights and preventing illegal distribution of media content was analyzed, in particular the Laws of Ukraine “On Copyright and Related Rights” and “On State Support of Cinematography”. Forms of illegal distribution of media content are defined. An analysis of telecommunication means on the Internet identification methods during forensic telecommunications examination was carried out. The methods used now were considered, and their main shortcomings were described. Alternative methods of identification were proposed.

Bilateral Trade and Investment Agreements and the Harmonisation of Copyright Law at International Level: Lessons to be Learned from the TTIP

The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership, better known under the name “TTIP”, is a bilateral trade and investment agreement that has been negotiated between the European Union and the United States since 2013. The respective administrations on both sides of the Atlantic have several times indicated their desire to resume the negotiations that have been put on hold (but not officially abandoned) after the last US presidential elections. If it is currently uncertain what will be the fate of the TTIP, the topic could be revived as the EU Council in April gave a new mandate to the European Commission to negotiate a Bilateral Trade Agreement with the US, without it being entirely clear what will be the exact scope of the negotiations. More generally, the dynamics of signing bilateral trade and investment agreements with third countries is steadily going forward so that lessons can certainly be learned from the TTIP experience, no matter what happens in the future with its negotiations. The proposed TTIP agreement has given rise to a number of concerns within European public opinion, in particular because of the secret nature of the discussions, which raised questions about the potential contents of the texts and the commitments made on both sides. These concerns recall those expressed at the time of the negotiations on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), which mobilised significant concern among public opinion in Europe and ultimately led to the rejection of the Agreement by a large majority in the European Parliament in July 2012. The TTIP, although it obviously has a much broader content than ACTA, likewise contains provisions dedicated to intellectual property rights and more particularly to copyright. Its principal characteristic, however, lies in the inclusion of intellectual property rights in the list of investments protected by a specific section of the agreement. If implemented, the enforcement of this protection would be entrusted to arbitration tribunals or to a special court for the protection of investments that is yet to be set up. Hence the question arises as to whether the regulation of intellectual property by the European Union or one of its Member States, in a way that would affect the scope of the intellectual property rights held by certain large private companies, could be considered as a potential threat to their investments. If this was the case, proceedings could be brought against the EU or one of its Member States, leading to the risk of considerable limitations being imposed on legislators in the necessary implementation of a balanced and effective copyright law in Europe.

Copyright Anti-Circumvention & Free Trade

The article examines the contrasting implementation of Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Internet Treaties’ anti-circumvention obligation and its free trade implications. While the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA)’s implementation established a brand new exclusive right of access control for rightholders, the EU’s InfoSoc Directive attempted to balance rightholder’s access control with interests of fair use beneficiaries. Examination of copyright’s private right nature shows access control in anti-circumvention finds no support from traditional theory, and actually turns copyright into a negative right in rem. Further examination on copyright limitations and exceptions shows that the anti-circumvention mechanism sits right at the centre of the dynamics between the idea-expression dichotomy, and the tension between rights and obligations. Critical examination of the circumstances of treaty conclusion of the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and Internet Treaties respectively shows that neither framework’s settlements have successfully balanced rights and obligations, or private rights and public access. New development of regional trade fragmentation from Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), to the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), to the Regional Comprehensive Economic Partnership (RCEP), brings the anti-circumvention diversity further into a terrain of uncertainty. The article concludes with a call for attention to access control’s negative impact on public information access and the balance of rights and obligations.

Effects of TRIPSPlus Provisions in International Trade Agreements Upon Access to Medicines in Developing Countries

Though the UN has envisaged that accessibility to essential medicines is a basic human right, a large number of people in developing countries are denied access to essential medicines. Multinational corporations that have branded medicines have a tendency to choke the supply chain of cheaper generic medicines using the weapon of intellectual property rights. The Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement) has set the minimum standard of protection of Intellectual Property but it has provisions of flexibilities such as compulsory licenses, parallel imports limitations to patent rights, etc., which can be used by member states to provide their people with access to these essential medicines. However, countries like the US are using provisions which are over and above the flexibilities incorporated in TRIPS to deny access to essential medicines to people in developing countries. This paper examines the accessibility of essential medicines to the populations of developing countries, as affected by free trade agreements, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), the Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP), and the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), and argues that developing countries should cooperate to deter the US from choking the supply lines of essential medicines to the poor and needy.

The connection between parliamentary and extra-parliamentary opposition in the EU. From ACTA to the financial crisis

With no formal division between majority and opposition in the parliamentary arena, the European Union (EU) calls for an approach to political opposition which considers the role of civil society. This article explores the case of opposition to the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) within and without the European Parliament (EP) through a political opportunity approach, using the case to reflect on conditions for effective opposition in the EU. The ACTA campaign saw opposed actors within the EP and digital rights groups work together to build coalitions against the agreement. Protests then opened the way for these groups to broker a change of position among other actors, allowing a majority rejection. The ACTA case suggests the need for advocacy by organised groups both within and without the Parliament to construct majorities. Comparisons to similarly successful campaigns bolster this view, as do examples of less effective opposition.

Grupuskulaarne identiteediloome paremäärmuslaste võrgusuhtluses / The Formation of Groupuscular Identity in the Web Communication of the Estonian Extreme Right

Grupuskulaarne identiteediloome paremäärmuslaste võrgusuhtluses / The Formation of Groupuscular Identity in the Web Communication of the Estonian Extreme Right

Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement and Access to Medicines in Developing Countries

Background and Aim: Among the existing agreements to protect intellectual property rights, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) has set the highest level of enforcement standards. This study tries to clarify and identify differences between the ACTA provisions and innovations with other international regulations and its effects on the universal access to medicines in developing countries. Materials and Methods: In this qualitative research, document analysis method was applied. By using this method and analyzing the characteristics of the ACTA regulations, we will discussed its effects on the universal access to the medicines and public health. Findings: ACTA negotiators have created an agreement that shifts international hard law rules and soft law encouragements toward making enforcement of intellectual property rights in courts and borders, less costly, and more deterrent in the level of penalties through omission of the felexibility of TRIPS Agreement, and required transprancy and participation. So that, it increases the risks and consequences of wrongful searches, seizures, lawsuits and other enforcement actions for those relying on intellectual property limitations and exceptions to access markets. This is likely to make affordable medicines more expencive and rare in many developing countries and threaten the public health. Conclusion: The ACTA must be interperated and performed so that the right of committed countries to health and access to medicines be protected; when access to some medicines requires to breach the intellectual property rights, intrernational inhibition and access to them should be prevented through a common accepted approach. Please cite this article as: Zahedi M, Erfanmanesh MH, Houshmand N. Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement and Access to Medicines in Developing Countries. Bioethics Journal 2017; 7(25): 45-62.

ACTA as Media Gatekeeping Factor

This paper explores the influence of regulatory instruments in media content gatekeeping model and especially, the impact of ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) in online media industries. The author argues that both developments in the regulatory field worldwide as well as the emerging role of international agreements' negotiators on internet access and security issues are going to influence also the media gatekeeping model. The analysis shows that even an updated by the ICTs' evolutions media gatekeeping model should follow the developments on regulations' global debate related to online media and on their impact to the electronic and mobile (e/m) business models. The actions taken by EU institutions indicate the establishment of EU as a global negotiator in cultural industries as well as the global internet users' communities as an informal negotiator for online media issues.

Access and Control. The Political Economy of Online Copyright Enforcement in the European Union

This paper presents the main results of this author’s doctoral research on recent policy initiatives dealing with the online enforcement of copyright in the European Union. Strong online copyright enforcement is subject to intense policy debates in the European Union. Of the five policy initiatives analyzed, two pass into law (2009 French and 2010 UK graduated response laws), two result in stalemates (2008 Creative Content Online and 2010 E-Commerce Directive consultations) and one is rejected (2011 Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement). At the level of the European Union, online copyright enforcement policies hardly change. At the level of certain member states however, strong enforcement policies are adopted. This paper claims that the outcome of the policy initiatives is determined by an intricate interplay of ideas, discourses, interests and institutions. Policy stakeholders compete to see their ideas and interests adopted into policy. This study argues that their views on creativity and knowledge and stances on the role of copyright and the Internet in society determine their ideas and interests on online copyright enforcement. Analysis of the cases also reveals that the meager outcome of the online copyright enforcement initiatives at the level of the European Union is due to the lack of common interests between the media and Internet & technology industries. Currently, the Internet & technology industries have little incentive to proactively enforce copyright online. At the same time, the cases indicate that civil society actors succeed in giving pushback on online copyright enforcement policies. In the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, they even reverse European Union plans. Finally, stakeholders cunningly choose institutional rules and settings that favor their views. In the online copyright enforcement debate, copyright is often portrayed as opposed to intermediary liability rules and fundamental rights. This picture is painted too starkly black and white, but it is true that the role of Internet intermediaries in intervening in their networks is at the crux of the debate today. This study raises concern about the use of monitoring, blocking and filtering technology to regulate the availability of creative content.

The Dangers of Limited Member Treaties: The ACTA Case

In the context of the initiative for Upgrading the Single Market, the Commission has put forward a re-evaluated approach to trade – Trade for All. The EU prioritises a return to global trade negotiations and puts forward a three-prong strategy for re-invigorating the World Trade Organisation’s role in trade negotiations. The first two prongs – the WTO to play a central role and single issue focused negotiations – are fairly straight-forward. However the third prong – letting subsets of nations advance particular agendas, with others to follow later – raises some concerns. While the Trade Facilitation Agreement appears to be a successful example of this, the ill-fated Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is another story. The European Commission was a strong advocate of this proposed treaty, but it was roundly rejected by the European Parliament. This paper reviews the experience of the ACTA negotiations to identify important lessons if the EU is to pursue limited membership treaties with greater success.

Systemic Representation: Democracy, Deliberation, and Nonelectoral Representatives

This article explores the relationship between non-electoral representatives and democratic legitimacy by combining the recent constructivist turn in political representation with systemic work in deliberative theory. Two core arguments are advanced. First, non-electoral representatives should be judged by their position in a wider democratic system. Second, deliberative democracy offers a productive toolkit by which to evaluate these agents. I develop a framework of systemic representation which depicts the elemental parts of a democratic system and assigns normative standards according to the space occupied. The framework gives priority of democratic analysis to the systemic level. This helps mitigate a central concern in the constructivist turn which suggests that representatives mobilize constituencies in ways that are susceptible to framing and manipulation. I engage in case-study analysis of the collapsed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement to unpack the different spaces occupied by non-electoral representative and elucidate the varied democratic demands that hinge on this positioning.

Democratizing EU External Relations: The European Parliament’s Informal Role in SWIFT, ACTA, and TTIP

Since 1958, the European Parliament (EP) has come a long way from being a talking shop to being a powerful legislative organ. In the European Union’s external relations, the EP’s role was initially very weak, when it was sometimes not even consulted on international agreements. The Lisbon Treaty strengthened the parliamentary role in external relations covering policies where the ordinary legislative procedure applies by ascribing the EP the right to ratification of international agreements. Formally limited to voting on final agreements, the EP has widely expanded its informal role in external relations since the Lisbon Treaty’s entry into force in December 2009. Now, its role goes beyond the provisions as laid out in the Lisbon Treaty and even the role of national parliaments in international agreements. Since the negotiations on a Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP), the EP has been active at all stages of negotiations – negotiation directives, negotiation rounds, ratification of agreement, and implementation of agreement – which activities reach as far as influencing the agreements’ substance. Analysing with what strategies the EP has achieved this involvement – by providing original data from fifteen semi-structured interviews with EU officials – this article assesses the EP’s informal role in the negotiation of international agreements since the Lisbon Treaty in three in-depth case studies: the SWIFT agreement, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), and the ongoing TTIP negotiations.

The Good, the Bad, and the Commons: A Critical Review of Popular Discourse on Piracy and Power During Anti-ACTA Protests

The article analyses popular discourse on and power that emerged as a result of people's online anti-ACTA Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement engagement in Poland. Drawing upon a social semiotic visual analysis of 921 ACTA-related images shared online in 2012, author analyzes a collective reconstruction of concept of piracy and popular narrative of conflict in terms of its sides and subject. The study reveals how anti-ACTA images form a medium of national popular culture adaptation of global pop- and countercultural modalities. The protesters appropriated them to oppose another attempt at global copyright enforcement. New media became not only tool and environment for these activities but were also collectively depicted as the commons, endangered by agreement.

EUROPEAN UNION INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY STANDARDS IN THE FRAMEWORK OF THE ONGOING NEGOTIATIONS OF A FREE TRADE AGREEMENT BETWEEN THE EU AND INDIA

The negotiations of a free trade agreement (FTA) between India and the European Union started in mid-2007 and have yet to be concluded. Negotiations surrounding the intellectual property rights chapter have been a major stumbling block given that the parties have differing agendas in this area. This article examines the negotiating parties’ positions on sensitive issues such as availability of patents, patent exceptions, data exclusivity and technology. Another major question refers to both parties positions towards the so name TRIPS-plus agreements, as the Anti-counterfeiting Free Trade Agreement. Whilst the EU is a firm promoter of this type of agreement, India is openly against it. Despite the different views on intellectual property rights, the EU is close to accepting Indian positions.

Political Freedom and Intellectual Property Rights: Conflict of values

Abstract The paper critically observes the current legal and political happenings around the international multilateral Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), including criticism for its rejection by the European Parliament in the year of 2012. This example is treated in the sense of the collision of values in today’s information society, e.g. political freedom on the one hand, and intellectual property rights on the other. The collision of values is balanced fairly by the laws, for example by the statutory licenses and compulsory licenses, too. This text also critically considers some aspects of the contemporary political ideology of information. The author considers the majority of the European public reaction to the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement as fearful, irrational and populist by politicians. “Electronic Violence” remains violence like any other and everyone must have the courage to face it. The information society itself is based on the same values as any other human society. Likewise, the information society is prone to various vices, such as greed for foreign assets without any compensation. This greed is only masked by political rhetoric about freedom and human rights. Therefore, it is necessary to distinguish between legal ideology of information from legally regulated economic shifts.

Network exceptionalism: online action, discourse and the opposition to SOPA and ACTA

Advocacy campaigns opposing the Stop Online Piracy Act and the Anti-counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) illustrate that the dynamics of networked activism have symbolic as well as structural aspects, with implications for scholars and activists who have focused on the coordination possibilities of networks. This paper analyses the creation and movement of discourses of ‘network exceptionalism’ between advocates, online culture and news media. Networks operate functionally to disseminate ideas and link together people participating in social action (e.g. by embedding aspects of discourse in memes, which then propagate ideas swiftly), but also symbolically, inflecting discourses towards a focus on the exceptional – and essential – qualities of the internet. These discourses embed fears about the fragility and indispensability of the internet, as well as thrilling and threatening elements like Anonymous. They are carried by memes that link the structural dynamics of networked activism to the discourses of illness, threat and utility, and gain different inflections through the European campaigns to oppose ACTA. These discourses not only create spaces for discussing and expanding upon the value of the internet to communication rights, but also leave room for interpretations that may undermine these advocacy projects.

The ACTA Committee

In discussing the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), most policymakers and commentators have focused on either the lack of transparency and accountability in the negotiation process or the problems raised by the TRIPS-plus standards included in the Agreement. While these issues deserve our urgent attention, it is important not to ignore the institutional arrangements laid out in Chapter V of the Agreement. In the long run, this chapter is likely to become the most far-reaching and dangerous of all the chapters in ACTA. Behind only the chapter on substantive standards, Chapter V is the second longest chapter in the Agreement. Included in this chapter are provisions creating and governing a little institution called the "ACTA Committee." On its face, those provisions are boring, mundane, and highly administrative. In reality, they govern matters ranging from membership to amendments to rules and procedures. Those provisions also help institutionalize ACTA as a freestanding, self-evolving forum. As a result, they have the potential to determine the future development of not only ACTA, but also the international intellectual property system. This chapter explains why the ACTA Committee could become such a powerful institution. It begins by providing an overview of the provisions governing the Committee. It then explains how the ACTA Committee provides a freestanding, self-evolving architecture to facilitate the ratcheting up of international intellectual property standards. The chapter concludes with a discussion of the Committee's ramifications for both developing countries and the international intellectual property system.

The anti-counterfeiting trade agreement: the ethical analysis of a failure, and its lessons

The anti-counterfeiting trade agreement (ACTA) was originally meant to harmonise and enforce intellectual property rights (IPR) provisions in existing trade agreements within a wider group of countries. This was commendable in itself, so ACTA's failure was all the more disappointing. In this article, I wish to contribute to the post-ACTA debate by proposing a specific analysis of the ethical reasons why ACTA failed, and what we can learn from them. I argue that five kinds of objections--namely, secret negotiations, lack of consultation, vagueness of formulation, negotiations outside any international body, and the creation of a new governing body outside already existing forums--had only indirect ethical implications. This takes nothing away from their seriousness but it does make them less compelling, because agreements should be evaluated, ethically, for what they are, rather than for the alleged reasons why they are being proposed. I then argue that ACTA would have caused three ethical problems: an excessive and misplaced kind of responsibility, a radical decrease in freedom of expression, and a severe reduction in information privacy. I conclude by indicating three lessons that can help us in shaping a potential ACTA 2.0. First, we should acknowledge the increasingly vital importance of the framework of implicit expectations, attitudes, and practices that can facilitate and promote morally good decisions and actions. ACTA failed to perceive that it would have undermined the very framework that it was supposed to foster, namely one promoting some of the best and most successful aspects of our information society. Second, we should realise that, in advanced information societies, any regulation affecting how people deal with information is now bound to influence the whole `onlife' habitat within which they live. So enforcing IPR becomes an environmental problem. Third, since legal documents, such as ACTA, emerge from within the infosphere that they affect, we should apply to the process itself, which one day may lead to a post-ACTA treaty, the very framework and ethical values that we would like to see promoted by it.

‘Freedom of speech’ in the self-descriptions of the Estonian extreme right groupuscules

This article analyses the processes of identification that prevail on the websites of the Estonian extreme right. The extreme-right activists tend to articulate their nationalist ideas by relying on the signifiers adopted from the generally accepted discourses of multiculturalism. In order to explain this seemingly incompatible meaning generation, we employ the concepts of the hegemonic logic of signification and the empty signifier, as elaborated by Laclau, as well as the concept of the self-description and the self-model from the theoretical framework of cultural semiotics. Our analysis is based on the unexpectedly insistent public feedback that followed the discussions of Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement ratification in Estonia.

Plurilateral Agreements: A Viable Alternative to the World Trade Organization?

The paper looks at some issue-based plurilateral agreements — such as the Information Technology Agreement (ITA), the Financial Services and Basic Telecommunication Services Agreements, and the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) — with the aim of pointing to their crucial role in resolving the stalemate at the WTO and the Doha Round and the accelerating proliferation of free trade agreements (FTAs). It also suggests possible areas where new plurilateral agreements — whether single or multiple issue-based — can be developed. The paper highlights the importance of plurilateral agreements as a mechanism complementary to the WTO and FTAs in enhancing the governance of the global trade system, and outlines conditions that need to be fulfilled to address the needs of developing countries.