European parliament throws
out online piracy pact
By Arnaud Bouvier | AFP –
Wed, 4 Jul, 2012
The European parliament on
Wednesday threw out a controversial global pact to battle counterfeiting and
online piracy, quashing any EU ratification and possibly killing it for good.
Twenty-two of the 27 EU
states as well as other countries, including the United States and Japan,
signed the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) in January but the treaty
has yet to be ratified anywhere amid protests that it would curtail Internet freedom.
The parliament ignored
European Commission pleas that the treaty was needed to protect the economic
interests of companies hit by counterfeiting and online piracy.
Members voted by 478 to 39
against the pact, with 165 abstentions, ignoring a last-minute call by
conservatives for them to wait until the European Court rules on its conformity
with European Union law.
The run-up to the vote,
which followed the line of every parliamentary committee consulted on the pact,
saw hundreds of thousands of people demonstrate against ACTA and 2.8 million
sign a petition decrying it.
Other signatories to the
agreeement include Australia, Canada, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore,
South Korea and Switzerland. Six countries need to ratify it for it to come
into effect.
The European parliament's
rapporteur on ACTA, David Martin of Britain, acknowledged the importance of
fighting counterfeiting and piracy, but he said the text of the agreement was
too vague and hence threatened individual freedoms.
"The death of ACTA is
good news for democracy," said French ecologist MEP Yannick Jadot.
It proved that
"culture, knowledge, agriculture, health and public liberties can come out
on top against the private conglomerates and the criminalisation of individual
citizens".
ACTA's critics said it
would lead for example to the persecution of web users suspected of illegal
downloading and difficulties in obtaining generic medicines.
They also said it would
have limited impact as China and Russia, considered among the main sources of
fake goods and services, as well as cybercrime, were not signatories.
Conservative MEP Marielle
Gallo attacked the vote as "a lack of political courage in the face of the
scourge of counterfeiting", which she said cost Europe 250 billion euros a
year and 100,000 jobs.
European Trade
Commissioner Karel de Gucht said he "took note" of the parliament
decision, which did not alter the need for worldwide protection for the
backbone of the European economy, "our innovation, our creativity, our ideas
and our intellectual property".
German legal expert Axel
Metzger commented: "It remains to be seen if the other signatories see any
interest" in pursuing ratification of ACTA.
The European parliament
veto could well dishearten the pact's proponents in other countries, he said.
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