BRATISLAVA, February 20, (WEBNOVINY) – The much disputed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) in its current form brings no effective and positive changes towards better intellectual property protection but only repression, said Slovak Economy Minister Juraj Miskov at a discussion this Monday. The minister says the international treaty in its current form contains inaccuracies which could contain risks and that his position to the agreement has been unambiguous from the beginning. “I will not support a treaty which could in any way curb fundamental human rights, mainly freedom and privacy of an individual and which will superordinate intellectual property protection to these fundamental human rights. I’m convinced that Slovak legal system and legislation now operate sufficiently without this treaty,” said Miskov.
“ACTA will not change a single line in the legislation which currently targets European citizens,” said Pedro Velasco of The Directorate General for Trade of the European Commission. “Whatever was illegal before adopting ACTA would stay illegal after it’s adopted; what was legal will stay legal,” said Velasco. According to him no human right will be curbed by the agreement as it offers guarantees of their protection.
EC also denies that ACTA would limit access to the internet or introduce censorship. Similarly to US draft SOPA, the goal of ACTA is to fight circulation of illegal copies or counterfeits whether it’s clothes, medicaments, audio or video recordings or different products. It would introduce an obligation for internet service providers to give information on websites and users suspect of copyright infringements to organs other than competent national authorities and would make penalizing these suspects easier.
Representatives of 22 EU countries signed ACTA in January 2012 in addition to USA, Canada, Mexico, Australia, New Zealand, Japan, South Korea, Singapore and Morocco. No country ratified it so far. However, last Friday Polish Prime Minister Donald Tusk informed his country would not adopt it in spite of having signed it as ACTA does not reflect the reality of the 21st century. Tusk was also critical of the agreement’s ambiguity which could lead to various countries interpreting it in various ways.
SITA