Anti-counterfeiting treaty edges closer

Countries that sign up to the controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement will not be required to impose "three strikes" laws to disconnect persistent copyright infringers from the internet, trade negotiators said in a joint statement.

The eighth round of negotiations on the international treaty concluded in Wellington late on Friday.

A New Zealand government official said good progress was made tidying up the draft treaty which he believed had got neither more nor less tough as a result of the Wellington round.

Acta treaty partners agreed they would release a draft of the treaty as it stands on Thursday, New Zealand time, following complaints from internet advocates that the negotiations were taking place in secret.

The draft would show differences that remained on the text, but would not attribute stances to individual countries.

"There will be lots of brackets around it," the official said.

Acta is being negotiated with countries including the United States, the European Union states, Australia, Canada and Japan which want new, consistent rules to protect intellectual property.

One of the goals of the treaty is to tighten the protection of digital property – a battleground between internet advocates and internet providers on the one hand, and film, music and media companies on the other.

Acta negotiators said that good progress was made towards narrowing differences on issues including civil enforcement, border measures, criminal enforcement and "special measures for the digital environment".

"There was a general sense from this session that negotiations have now advanced to a point where making a draft text available to the public will help the process of reaching a final agreement. For this reason ... participants have reached unanimous agreement that the time is right for making available to the public the consolidated text coming out of these discussions."

The New Zealand official noted that negotiators had agreed the treaty would not interfere with "citizens' fundamental rights and liberties", would be consistent with the World Trade Organisation's Trips (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights agreement) and would respect the WTO declaration on Trips and public health.

"There had been concerns around that," he said. The treaty will also not address the cross-border transit of legitimate generic medicines.

The official said there was still quite a lot to be done. The next round of Acta negotiations will be held in Switzerland in June. Negotiators hope to conclude a treaty "as soon as possible in 2010".

New Zealand had strong laws protecting intellectual property and Acta was not expected to change New Zealand consumer law, he said. But Customs may be obliged under the treaty to take steps to intercept counterfeit and pirated material exported from New Zealand.

An amendment to the Copyright Act is before Parliament that is intended to deter illegal file sharing and could see persistent copyright infringers cut off from the internet.

Under the bill, the Copyright Tribunal will be able to fine copyright infringers up to $15,000 and rights holders will be able to apply to district courts to have pirates' internet access cut off for up to six months.

The bill is seen as a compromise from an earlier controversial law change, section 92a, that was enacted under the former Labour government but never implemented. It could have enabled rights holders to pressure internet providers into cutting off subscribers' accounts without a judicial hearing.

The non-profit internet society InternetNZ remains opposed to the termination of internet accounts as a sanction.

- © Fairfax NZ News