Japan's Ministry of Economy, Trade and Industry (METI) and the European Commission (EC) have confirmed that almost 40 countries have now reached a deal on the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). The treaty seeks to establish international standards on intellectual property rights (copyright) enforcement, although many fear that it could lead to unfair restrictions, especially with regards to broadband ISPs and internet access (i.e. "illegal" p2p file sharing).

It emerged last month that no democratic institution in the UK had seen the official ACTA draft and parliament has not even been involved in the negotiating process (here). Democratically elected MEP's in the European Parliament (MEPs), which signed a Written Declaration calling for fundamental rights to be respected in ACTA, will probably only be given the chance to either approve or reject it.

Participants in the negotiations include Australia, Canada, the European Union (EU) - represented by the 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 leak of the latest ACTA draft during early September 2010 (here) appeared to remove aspects that could have turned UK and EU Internet Service Providers into copyright police (e.g. forced monitoring of customers internet activity and making ISPs responsible for third party content).

The feared "three strikes" proposal, which sought to target "suspected" unlawful p2p copyright file sharers and even disconnect them from their ISP if they failed to halt such activity, had also been cut out from draft the agreement.

It's understood that an official version of the ACTA treaty will soon be published and we will scrutinise it to see whether the above adjustments have been retained or not. However it should be said that, despite today's announcements, many areas of the deal have not yet been completely decided and are subject to future adjustment.


It remains to be seen whether some of the other proposals, such as giving customs officials the absurd power to search and potentially seize your iPod / mp3 music player (i.e. counterfeit goods) on the off chance that it might contain illegal music tracks, are still present. Sadly they probably are.