[Linux-bruxelles] Appel à soutenir la Société civile contre ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement)

[Nicolas Pettiaux]

Merci d'envoyer aujourd'hui  (avant le 23/6) un email à
acta.declaration at gmail.com

avec vos noms, titre, organisation, place (Ville et Pays de travail)
pour marquer votre soutien  à la déclaration
http://www.wcl.american.edu/pijip/go/blog-post/urgent-acta-communique

Je ne connais malheureusement pas encore de traduction en français du texte.

Cela va dans le même sens que les actions de la Quadrature du Net
(http://www.laquadrature.net/fr/ACTA)

Merci de faire passer à vos connaissances

---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Robin Gross <robin at ipjustice.org>
Date: Sun, Jun 20, 2010 at 12:36 AM
Subject: Call for Support of International Civil Society Declaration
Against ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement)



Dear Friends,
As you are probably aware, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement
(ACTA) is a dangerous proposal to radically expand intellectual
property rights at the global level.  The draft agreement has been
negotiated in secret, without inclusion of developing nation
perspectives, and without any participation from civil society or
regard for the global public interest.  ACTA specifically targets the
Internet and regulates the flow of information in a digital
environment.  ACTA would create significant negative consequences for
fundamental freedoms, access to medicines, innovation, the balance of
public/private interests, access to knowledge and culture, to name a
few of its problems.  ACTA represents a "wish list" from Hollywood and
Big Pharma which will be imposed unilaterally on developing countries
through trade pressure from the US, Europe and other wealthy states.
Please consider signing on to the below (draft) International Civil
Society Declaration, which was the result of a meeting in Washington,
DC this week of over 90 academics from 5 continents, public interest
organizations and other legal experts concerned with the public
interest aspects of ACTA.  The meeting of international experts was
hosted by American University Washington College of Law Program on
Information Justice and Intellectual Property (PIJIP).
Both organizations and individuals are welcome to sign-on to the
statement until 23 June 9am (US East Coast time) by email to <
acta.declaration at gmail.com >.
Further details for sign-on and proposing edits to the draft
declaration are below.  Please take a moment and read the declaration
and consider signing-on and adding your support to raise awareness on
ACTA.  And also please help to spread the word and gather additional
civil society support from your own networks and contacts by
forwarding this email on to others or reference to the website:
http://www.wcl.american.edu/pijip/go/blog-post/urgent-acta-communique
for details.
The next closed-door ACTA negotiations are scheduled for 28 June - 2
July 2010 in Lucerne, Switzerland, and the US promises a final
agreement will be concluded shortly thereafter.  Time is of the
essence to act on ACTA.
Thank you for any support and assistance you can provide to raise
awareness on the public interest concerns with ACTA.  It is only
through global grass-roots efforts and small individual actions made
by many people that we can fight to overcome this flawed treaty.
All best,
Robin Gross
Begin forwarded message:

From: "Sean Flynn" <sflynn at wcl.american.edu>
Date: June 19, 2010 10:30:38 AM PDT
To: "Robin Gross" <robin at ipjustice.org>
Subject: acta communique

The DRAFT statement below reflects the conclusions reached at a
meeting of over 90 academics, practitioners and public interest
organizations from five continents gathered at American University
Washington College of Law, June 16-18, 2010. The statement is now open
to endorsements.

The latest version of the draft communiqué is now posted to a public
blog post at:

http://wcl.american.edu/pijip/go/acta-communique

Please share the draft with others, circulate on your blogs, etc.

THIS DRAFT STATEMENT IS NOW OPEN FOR INDIVIDUAL AND ORGANIZATIONAL
ENDORSEMENTS AS WELL AS EDITING COMMENTS.
•             Please send signatures to: acta.declaration at gmail.com
•             Please send edits to: pijip at wcl.american.edu

EDITING SUGGESTIONS
WILL BE ACCEPTED UNTIL NOON MONDAY JUNE 21. THE FINAL TEXT WITH EDITS
INCLUDED WILL BE RELEASED BY 5PM MONDAY JUNE 21.

THE FINAL STATEMENT WILL BE RELEASED TO THE PUBLIC WITH ENDORSEMENTS
ON WEDNESDAY JUNE 23 AT 10AM. ENDORSEMENTS WILL BE ACCEPTED UNTIL JUNE
23 AT 9AM.

ENDORSEMENTS:
WE WILL ACCEPT PROVISIONAL ENDORSEMENTS NOW. ENDORSERS WILL BE GIVEN
THE OPTION TO OPT-OUT WHEN THE FINAL TEXT IS CIRCULATED BY 5PM MONDAY
JUNE 21.

FOR INDIVIDUAL ENDORSEMENTS, SEND YOUR NAME, TITLE AND ORGANIZATION
AND PLACE (CITY, COUNTRY) OF OCCUPATION to acta.declaration at gmail.com

FOR ORGANIZATIONAL ENDORSEMENTS, ENTER THE NAME OF THE ORGANIZATION
AND PLACE(S) (CITY(IES), COUNTRY(IES))  IN WHICH THE ORGANIZATION HAS
OFFICES to acta.declaration at gmail.com.

INDIVIDUALS WITHIN SIGNATORY ORGANIZATIONS MAY ENDORSE AS INDIVIDUALS
AS WELL AS BEING PART OF THE ORGANIZATIONAL ENDORSEMENT.

PLEASE CIRCULATE WIDELY.



DRAFT Urgent Communique: Consultation of International Experts on ACTA
and the Public Interest

Release Date: June 23, 2010

American University Washington College of Law

Washington, D.C.

http://wcl.american.edu/pijip/go/acta-communique

International Experts Find that Pending Anti-Counterfeiting Trade
Agreement Threatens Public Interests

We find that the terms of the agreement threaten numerous public
interests, including nearly every concern specifically disclaimed by
the negotiators in their announcement.

The proposed agreement is a deeply flawed product of a deeply flawed process.

What started as a proposal to coordinate customs enforcement offices
has morphed into a massive new international intellectual property
(IP) and internet regulation with grave consequences for the global
economy and governments' ability to promote and protect public
interests.

Any agreement of this scope and consequence must be based on a broad
and consultative process and reflect a full range of public interest
concerns. As detailed below, this text fails to meet these standards.

Recognizing that the terms of the agreement are under negotiation, a
fair reading of the proposed text as a whole leads to our conclusions
that ACTA:

THE INTERNET
-Encourages internet service providers to police users of the internet
without adequate court oversight or due process;

-Globalizes 'anti-circumvention' provisions which threaten innovation,
competition, open source business models, interoperability, copyright
exceptions, and user choice;

FREE TRADE AND ACCESS TO MEDICINES
-Disrupts the free trade in legitimate generic medicines and other
goods, and sacrifices the foundational principle that IP rights are
territorial, by requiring customs authorities to seize goods in
transit countries even when they do not violate any law of the
producing and importing countries;

-Does little or nothing to address the problem of medicines with
insufficient or wrong ingredients as the majority of these are not IP
but regulatory system problems.

-Extends the powers of custom officials to search and seize a wide
range of goods, including computers and other electronic devices,
without adequate safeguards against unwarranted confiscations and
privacy invasions;

-Extends 'ex officio' border search and seizures from willful,
commercial scale trademark counterfeiting to a broad range of
intellectual property infringements, including “confusingly similar”
trademark violations, copyright infringement standards that require
interpretation of "fair use" or similar user rights, and even to
patent cases which frequently involve complex questions of law and
fact that are difficult to adjudicate even by specialist courts after
full adjudicative processes;

FUNDAMENTAL RIGHTS AND FREEDOMS
-Will curtail full enjoyment of fundamental rights and liberties,
including rights to privacy and the protection of personal data,
health, access to information, free expression, due process and
presumptions of innocence, cultural participation, and other
internationally protected human rights;

SCOPE AND NATURE OF IP LAW
Distorts the balance fundamental to IP law between the rights and
interests of proprietors and users, including by

introducing very specific rights and remedies for rights holders
without correlative requirements to provide exceptions, limitations,
and due process safeguards for users;
shifting enforcement from private civil mechanisms to public
authorities and third parties, including to customs officials,
criminal prosecutors and internet service providers -- in ways that
are likely to be more sensitive to proprietary concerns and less
sensitive to user concerns;
omitting liability and disincentives for abuses of enforcement
processes by right holders; and
requiring the adoption of automatic damages assessments unrelated to
any proven harm;

-Alters the traditional and constitutionally mandated law making
processes for IP by:

locking in and exporting controversial aspects of US and EU
enforcement practices whcih have already proven problematic,
foreclosing future legislative improvements in response to changes in
technology or policy;
requiring substantive changes to intellectual property laws of a large
number of negotiating countries.

INTERNATIONAL TRADE AND DEVELOPMENT
-Will disproportionately harm development and social welfare of the
poor, particularly in developing countries, including through raising
unjustifiable trade barriers to imports and exports of needed
medicines and other knowledge embedded goods;

-Contains provisions inconsistent with the WTO Agreement on Trade
Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS Agreement);

-Conflicts with the World Trade Organization Doha Declaration on TRIPS
and Public Health and World Health Assembly Resolution 61.21 by
limiting the ability of countries to exercise to the full
flexibilities in the TRIPS agreement that can promote access to needed
medicines;

-Circumvents and undermines the commitments agreed to under the World
Intellectual Property Organization development agenda, particularly
recommendation 45 committing to “approach intellectual property
enforcement in the context of broader societal interests and
especially development-oriented concerns," and "in accordance with
Article 7 of the TRIPS Agreement";

INSTITUTIONAL ISSUES
-Creates a new and redundant international administration for IP
issues outside of WIPO or the WTO with broad powers but limited
transparency, threatening multilateralism in international IP norm
setting;

-Encourages technical assistance, public awareness campaigns, and
partnerships with the private sector that appear designed to promote
only the interests of IP owners;

CONCLUSIONS ABOUT THE DEMOCRATIC PROCESS

The current process for considering public input into ACTA is
fundamentally flawed in numerous respects. In many countries, the only
consultations taking place are with select members of the public,
off-the-record and without benefit of sharing the latest version of
the rapidly changing text. There is little possibility that a fair and
balanced agreement that protects and promotes public interests can
evolve from such a distorted policy making process.

Governments, right holders and civil society should have an open and
evidence-based discussion on the right strategy to confront willful
commercial scale trademark counterfeiting and commercial scale
copyright piracy. This discussion should take place in multilateral
and national open and on-the-record forums with access to current
negotiating text so that all interested stakeholders can participate.

ENDORSEMENTS

Please send signatures (individual or Organization, City, Country) to:
acta.declaration at gmail.com
Please send edits to: pijip at wcl.american.edu



Sean Flynn
Associate Director
Program on Information Justice and Intellectual Property
American University Washington College of Law
202 274 4157
www.pijip.org


IP JUSTICE
Robin Gross, Executive Director
1192 Haight Street, San Francisco, CA  94117  USA
p: +1-415-553-6261    f: +1-415-462-6451
w: http://www.ipjustice.org     e: robin at ipjustice.org


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