A recent article on Piracy

G8 set to create piracy laws

Never mind climate change

By Nick Farrell: Friday, 04 July 2008, 7:38 AM

NEXT WEEK'S G8 SUMMIT will be slipping through some scary developments that are aimed to stop piracy.

While most of the headline grabbing parts of the G8 conference will come from agreements on climate change and African development, a little agreement - which will see international piracy laws, border controls and cooperation from ISPs to identify pirates - is also likely to get the nod.

On the official G8 web site the agreement is mentioned as ‘protection of intellectual property rights’, but it could, potentially, completely change the way in which the law deals with pirates.

New Scientist claims that the talks will be based around the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) which is an international strategy for cracking down on piracy.

The agreement calls for border measures to control international piracy, including the authority for customs authorities to halt suspected intellectual property rights-infringing goods.

Liability for copyrighted material being posted on websites will be taken away from ISPs and placed on the user instead. The big idea is that it is hoped that this will encourage ISPs in the removal of infringing material.

In addition, ISPs will be expected to hand over any personal details about suspected copyright infringers at the request of the music or movie industry.

It seems that it will be a good way for the music and film industries to get their tame politicians to give them what they want by using International Agreements for draconian measures that it cannot impose to get at home.

http://www.theinquirer.net/gb/inquirer/news/2008/07/04/g8-set-create-piracy-laws