Still-murky copyright treaty could change web as we use it

Published by The Toronto Star
Sun. Nov. 8, 2009

The future of the Internet in Canada may have been decided in Seoul, Korea, this past week.

But it's hard to be sure, since the latest negotiations for the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement were held in secret, as they have been in the past, and the only details came to the public through leaks, says Michael Geist, a law professor and Star columnist, who himself posted a leaked chapter on the agreement's Internet Policy on his personal website.

"We're dealing with intellectual property agreements that are being treated as akin to nuclear secrets and that just doesn't make any sense at all," Geist says. "That's the transparency side of this. Then, of course, there's the content side of it... this week, they crossed the line into the realm of affecting individuals very, very directly."

If it's any measure of the public's interest, Geist's site got 100,000 unique hits in a 24-hour span after he posted the document.

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is an attempt to update international law to deal with online intellectual-property violations. The negotiations concluded on Friday and the next round are scheduled for Mexico in January.

The member states, which include the U.S., Canada, the European Union, and other states including Morocco and Mexico, hope to finish off the discussion and make it law later that year. For the average Internet user in Canada, then, 2010 could shape up to be a drastically different year than 2009, with much more scrutiny given to everything you do on your computer and mobile device – every download, upload, viewing, phone unlocking, burning, backing up, etc.

One of the proposals, according to leaks, involve a three-strikes system: three infringements and your Internet service provider (ISP) has to yank the cord from the IP address, not just the lone user. A few illegal downloads, iPhone hackings or movie uploads and an entire family could be without Internet for 12 months.

Click here for the rest of the story about how this treaty if ratified will impact the use of the Internet in the United States.

Check out these articles: Copyright Overreach Takes a World Tour
Knock it off: Global treaty against media piracy won't work in Asia