Coinciding with the round of negotiations, InternetNZ, a non-profit organization, organized a PublicACTA event on April 10, 2010 to discuss the known and likely content of the draft ACTA agreement and to develop a statement on ACTA. [104] At the event, the Wellington Declaration was developed by more than 100 participants and published the next day with a petition for its approval. As of 13 April, it had received 6,645 signatures. The Wellington Declaration and petition were delivered to the Government of New Zealand, which delivered the declaration to the other negotiating countries. [105] Acta is an international treaty to protect intellectual property rights across borders. Copyright owners argue that this is a recognition of the value of intellectual property rights for the global competitiveness of an economy. By cracking down on counterfeit products, generics and copyright infringements on the Internet, we hope that these valuable industries will be protected and allow companies to recover revenues lost, for example, through counterfeiting. The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) was a draft multilateral treaty establishing international standards for the enforcement of intellectual property rights. The agreement aims to create an international legal framework to combat counterfeiting, generics and copyright infringements on the Internet and to create a new governing body outside existing bodies such as the World Trade Organization, the World Intellectual Property Organization and the United Nations. ACTA was first made public in May 2008 after a working paper was uploaded to WikiLeaks.
[25] However, according to a comment from the European Union, there was no draft at that time, but the document represented the initial views as circulated by some of the parties to the negotiations. [26] Leaked details published in February 2009 showed that the 6-chapter section is also present in the final text. The Circular 175 process is how the State Department “seeks to confirm that the conclusion of treaties and other international agreements by the United States is within constitutional and other legal limits, with due regard to the foreign policy implications of the agreement and with the appropriate participation of the State Department.” The memoranda of Circular 175 are accompanied by a memorandum of law prepared by the Office of the Legal Adviser of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs, which usually contains a discussion of the appropriate legal analysis underlying the performance of the contract in question. II. It blurs the lines between piracy and falsification Just as Mary Whitehouse would constantly talk about “sex and violence” on the radio as if it were the same thing, Acta seems to refer to piracy and counterfeiting in the same breath as if it were the same thing. Piracy and counterfeiting are not the same thing. The articles provide that right holders have access to civil or (where appropriate) administrative proceedings (Article 7) and that judges have the possibility of “making an order to a party to refrain from an offence” (Article 8). They may also require that pirated copyrighted goods and counterfeit trademark goods be destroyed in civil proceedings (Article 10). In accordance with Article 11, they may ask (suspected) infringers to provide information about the goods they are “controlling”.Article 9 provides that the judicial authorities of a Party may, inter alia, take into account any legitimate measure of value presented by a right holder, including loss of profits, the value of injured assets at market price or the recommended retail price. This clause has been heavily criticized for its validity, as well as for its similarity to previously controversial attempts to set a precedent in this regard. .