By: MarkJ - 24 November, 2010 (2:10 PM) - Score: 7089 - Security, Piracy

The European Parliament has adopted a new resolution that effectively approves the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), which seeks to establish international standards on intellectual property rights (copyright) enforcement (i.e. such as through broadband ISPs or at airports etc.).

Calling it a "step in the right direction", the parliament welcomed a number of recent moves to soften some of ACTA's more aggressive text. Crucially, the European Commission (EC) recently stated that "neither personal searches nor the so-called ‘three strikes’ procedure will be introduced by this agreement".

The new resolution was approved today with 331 votes in favour, 294 against, and 11 abstentions. However MEP's also called on the EC "to confirm that ACTA’s implementation will have no impact on fundamental rights and data protection, on the ongoing EU efforts to harmonise intellectual property rights enforcement measures, or on e-commerce".


It's worth pointing out that ACTA itself won't have much effect in either Europe or the UK (i.e. Digital Economy Act 2010). It does not go beyond or require any changes in the existing EU intellectual property rights legislation and EU/UK law in general is "already considerably more advanced," said MEP's. However not everybody agrees with that and our October study of the near final text revealed some remaining problem areas (here).


Participants in the negotiations included Australia, Canada, the European Union (EU) - represented by the European Commission (EC), the EU Presidency and EU Member States + Japan, Korea, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland and of course the United States of America (USA).

A technical meeting to finalise the legal wording will take place in Sydney (Australia) between 30th November and 3rd December 2010.