Proposed US ACTA multi-lateral intellectual property trade agreement (2007) - Wikileaks

I saw this on Slashdot | Leaked ACTA Treaty to Outlaw P2P?
: Proposed US ACTA multi-lateral intellectual property trade agreement (2007) - Wikileaks

In 2007 a select handful of the wealthiest countries began a treaty-making process to create a new global standard for intellectual property rights enforcement, which was called, in a piece of brilliant marketing, the “Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement” (the agreement does not cover currency fraud).
ACTA is spearheaded by the United States along with the European Commission, Japan, and Switzerland — which have large intellectual property industries. Other countries invited to participate in ACTA’s negotiation process are Canada, Australia, Korea, Mexico and New Zealand. Noticeably absent from ACTA’s negotiations are leaders from developing countries who hold national policy priorities that differ from the international intellectual property industry.
A “Discussion Paper on a Possible Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement” was reportedly provided to select lobbyists in the intellectual property industry, but not to public interest organizations concerned with the subject matter of the proposed treaty.[1]
Wikileaks has obtained the document.
The agreement covers the copying of information or ideas in a wide variety of contexts. For example page three, paragraph one is a “Pirate Bay killer” clause designed to criminalize the non-profit facilitation of unauthorized information exchange on the internet. This clause would also negatively affect transparency and primary source journalism sites such as Wikileaks.
The document reveals a proposal for a multi-lateral trade agreement of strict enforcement of intellectual property rights related to Internet activity and trade in information-based goods hiding behind the issue of false trademarks. If adopted, a treaty of this form would impose a strong, top-down enforcement regime, with new cooperation requirements upon internet service providers, including perfunctionary disclosure of customer information. The proposal also bans “anti-circumvention” measures which may affect online anonymity systems and would likely outlaw multi-region CD/DVD players.

It reminds me that the solution is at hand… to stop engaging in corporatist IP practices as people: open source, open license, open government and open industries, versus back room deals where we’re not allowed to participate. If we vote for governments that act like this we are ‘complicit’ in the evil. Since it is clear that corporations will respond to ‘customers’ when they won’t respond to activism, because of course they’re not customers there’s no question that governments and corporations will respond if properly prompted. The first step is to vote for change.