Protests against new anti-counterfeit laws

Demonstrations taking place across Europe are protesting against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (Acta). Thousands of people protested in Germany, Poland, the Netherlands and several cities in the UK.

It has been signed by 22 of the 27 EU member states, including the UK, but is yet to be ratified by the European Parliament.

The Open Rights Group, a group opposing Acta, claimed that the treaty was negotiated in secret and the fact that three states are now hesitating in signing Acta shows they are rethinking the hasty, secret negotiations. It also believes implementing Acta will result in censorship of the Internet. A statement released by the German government said it was to discuss the treaty in more detail. The demonstrations occurred over the belief that the treaty would limit freedom of speech over the web.

Other organisations are also against the treaty. The Economist, Amnesty International, Médicins Sans Frontières and Anonymous, a hacker group, are all openly against Acta. Anonymous has been responsible for bringing down several websites, including that of the CIA.

The UK government maintains that signing the treaty was the responsibility of the country to “set an international standard” in fighting copyright infringements. A statement released by the Parliamentary under secretary for Business, Innovation and Skills said the government pushed for transparency to help the general public understand Acta.

Parallels have been drawn between Acta and SOPA, the agreement that caused several websites to create a blackout for 24 hours in January. It was thought that SOPA would violate many freedoms currently enjoyed by web users and would affect websites such as Wikipedia. Sue Gardner, Executive Director of the Wikimedia Foundation released a statement on the popular encyclopedia site stating: “We believe in a free and open Internet where information can be shared without impediment. We believe that new proposed laws like SOPA and PIPA, and other similar laws under discussion inside and outside the United States, don’t advance the interests of the general public”.