ACTA Referred To Europe's Top Court For Analysis

superglaze writes "The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement is to get an extra level of scrutiny in the EU after the European Commission said it would refer ACTA to the European Court of Justice, to check that it really does comply with fundamental freedoms in the union. This obviously follows mass protests over ACTA, and it seems justice commissioner Viviane Reding was the one who pushed for ECJ scrutiny. It's not currently clear if this will delay the European Parliament ratification process, but it is hard to imagine the parliament voting on ACTA (scheduled for June at the moment) before the ECJ has had its say — and no-one can say right now how long that will take to happen."

Comments

Kill it

[L4t3r4lu5]

with fire. This thing needs to be buried and forgotten so we can be just as outraged at "ACTA 2.0; Now with a name to make you look like a pedo if you vote against it!"

Re:Kill it

[msobkow]

I find it interesting that even though the article (yes, I READ them!) says that ACTA is being sent to the courts for analysis and judgement, the writer of the article is already stating their position as if it were court-determined fact:

ACTA will not censor websites or shut them down; ACTA will not hinder freedom of the internet or freedom of speech.

Such concerns are precisely why ACTA is being submitted to the courts for review. With this comment posted in the article as if it were fact, it would seem to me that the author is hoping this is nothing more than a checklist review item for getting it passed. And I don't think it's fair to the public OR the courts to be making that recommendation or decision before the courts have done their due diligence.

It would be as bad as Harper claiming that the Senate review of our (illegal!) Canadian ACTA legislation is "fine, but we need to dot our I's and cross our T's. The Canadian version includes DMCA-like clauses that violate a 50+ year history of Canadians being allowed to make back-ups of the media they own, and to format-shift it as well. Preventing people from using the tools needed to make those backups would be illegal, and our government has been notoriously silent about that issue here in Canada.

They flat out don't want to talk about it. They wish a concerned public would just shut up and let the jackboots come down on their neck without question like good little sheeple.

Thank God Canadians seem more interested in flagging the issues with all levels of government and media than our government is in hearing what the public has to say!

Re:Dear *IAAs

[DigiShaman]

When Napster was all the rage, just about everyone in IT including the younger generation started sharing MP3s all over the world. On one hand, free music. Yeh! On the other, it was piracy and I really did feel bad for the industry. It wasn't hard to see how unsustainable wonton piracy would be. *IAAs have no choice but to adapt. The problem is that rather than take a rational approach with improved marketing and distribution, they decided to turn into one the largest litigation firms ever to sweep across America. That group was hellbent on screwing teenagers and their families financially while screwing the artists at the same time. A form of paper terrorism by making a nasty example out of a select few.

As for me? I'm pretty rational about the whole thing. I'll purchase music online, collect used late 90s or earlier CDs, or hit up Pandora. But I don't pirate music. It's a scummy thing IMHO.

misdirection

[Tom]

This move by the commission is not to get a critical review. The commission is the undemocratic EU-level force pushing ACTA forward. The (elected) parliament is the one that would rather not have ACTA and one of the few entities that put massive pressure on the secret negotiations and has repeatedly voiced its disgust with the secrecy of it all.

This move by the commission is an attempt to put pressure on the EU parliament. If the court says that ACTA does not conflict with EU laws, then the parliament will have a harder time to justify voting against ACTA.

By getting the court's opinion now, the commission is disarming the EU parliament, taking away one of their reasons to refuse.