ACTA Document Leaked, Looks Slightly More Promising

A brief of the ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) bill, which is part of a European Commission move to protect copyright, was leaked this week by French advocacy group La Quadrature du Net. There had been conflict as to how much transparency there should be in drafting the bill, which had already been shrouded in secrecy.

In the new document (available here in full) described as “informal predecisional deliberative draft”, there seems to be a down-scaling of the powers copyright claimants could have. In the previous document, there was a suggestion that consumers who commit piracy could come under criminal investigation and, potentially, prosecution. In this draft, the EU seems to want to drop that proposal, protecting normal people from being sued RIAA-style (but not piracy on a commercial scale). However, the US wants to give that choice to the the countries signing up to ACTA, meaning some nations could have the power and others not.

There’s also a retreat on the power that copyright holders would have. The new brief requires a court to decide on ISP’s giving customer’s information to content companies or licence holders. There is also a move away from the “three strikes” rule, where ISPs have to monitor customer’s activity and cut them off after three warnings. The amount that a defendant can be charged in court has also been questioned, with EU negotiators wanting any sum to be “fair and proportionate.”

While still worrying, and in no way a final proposal, this is certainly a step in the right direction. Giving content companies a way to combat piracy is important, but ensuring that consumers are protected has to be the main priority. The US obviously has a lot of opposition to much of what has been drafted in this document, probably because of pressure groups such as the IIPA which included both the RIAA and MPAA.

The law is far from complete, something I really must stress, but if it continues in this fashion it could be a more consumer-focused bill, while still enabling copyright holders to protect themselves from piracy on the commercial scale.