So what happened to drag me away from the keyboard?

• I got a dog (using the same rule as cats – see other blog)
• I helped run a BarCamp on Open Government
• I did a couple of other projects that I can’t link to or talk too much about
• I had bronchitis (been a pretty crappy winter all around, health-wise)
• I was accepted as an exhibitor in the Kapiti Arts Trail this weekend (#91)
• (I’m sure there was some other stuff)
• Oh yeah, I signed up on Twitter.

That last is the big one, really, as it chews up the most time. I have barely looked at RSS since April, and have only made one post to my family blog. It’s really quite fascinating to me (10K tweets later) and not a little frightening. I’m following most of the people I used to use RSS for, but now it’s in real time.

So, what’s hauled me back to the keyboard? ACTA – the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement – you may remember that I’ve blogged on this before. Well, it’s just entered its next round, in Korea, that well-known home of freedom and civil liberties (and the first country in the world to pass a 3 strikes law and implement it).

So, wassup with ACTA? For background, I’d like to point you to a recording of me discussing ACTA with Kim Hill on National Radio recently. Very pleased with the event and it’s now very timely, as ACTA has reared up again.

Those playing at home will remember that I’ve discussed the “intellectual property” aspect of ACTA before, and the fact that it’s being negotiated so secretly, more secretly than any other “trade treaty”. Long time players will also note that, in my submission to MED in June last year, I said (in para 17):

Further, the scarce official information available about ACTA would appear to indicate that it was intended to harmonize the enforcement of existing IPRs. However, the only current approach to a harmonized global concept of IP is occurring through WIPO, and ACTA appears to seek to operate independently of WIPO. There seems to be a fatal disconnect here – how can you harmonize enforcement if you don’t first harmonize the definition of infringements?

So now they’re seriously talking about this area and how they want to do it.

Michael Geist has broken the story and Cory Doctorow has broached it to the BoingBoing community. Neither of them appear to have actual text, but quote sources who say the draft text is modelled on the US-South Korea free trade agreement.

Geist outlines five issues:

1. Baseline obligations inspired by Article 41 of the TRIPs which focuses on the enforcement of intellectual property.
2. A requirement to establish third-party liability for copyright infringement.
3. Restrictions on limitations to 3rd party liability (ie. limited safe harbour rules for ISPs).  Notice-and-takedown, which is not currently the law in Canada nor a requirement under WIPO, would also be an ACTA requirement.
4. Anti-circumvention legislation that establishes a WIPO+ model by adopting both the WIPO Internet Treaties and the language currently found in U.S. free trade agreements that go beyond the WIPO treaty requirements.
5. Rights Management provisions, also modeled on U.S. free trade treaty language

Doctorow’s language is a little blunter – he notes that ISPs will have to proactively police copyright on user-contributed material, that ISPs will have to cut off Internet access of accused copyright infringers or face liability, that the whole world must adopt US style notice-and-takedown rules without evidence of infringing copyright, and that there will be mandatory prohibitions on breaking DRM.

We can’t confirm or deny what is in the actual draft because we don’t have a copy. The US administration wrote this chapter of the draft but is still regarding ACTA as a matter of national security. They recently let 42 individuals see a draft text, but only 4 were from what we regard as “civil society”. The rest were big corporates. This, the Obama Administration calls “transparency” and consultation. To be fair, Bush’s administration was worse, but this is not what we expect from a leader who campaigned on “change”, “hope” and “yes, we can”.

The New Zealand government is no better. Our officials say:

The countries participating in the development of ACTA have agreed that general information about ACTA’s objectives and the negotiating process should be made public. In that regard, MED has provided a range of relevant information about ACTA on its website. However, ACTA participants have also agreed that information relating to formal negotiating positions of governments should be protected, as is the standard practice in international treaty negotiations. It is in this context that we are unable to reiease many of the items you request.

First point – it is not the standard practice – the WTO Doha Round, the Free Trade Area of the Americas, World Health Organisation, WIPO – all publish the texts and proceedings as they go.

Secondly, the material published by all nations, including the Ministry of Economic Development is contextless spin, rather than substantive reporting of negotiations. “General information” is a kind way of putting it – “We’re doing something that will affect all of you but we’re not going to tell you until we’ve done it” is more accurate.

What is hardest to understand is how the governments involved – United States, Switzerland, Japan, Australia, the Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Mexico, Jordan, Morocco, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, Canada and the European Union – can justify this secrecy in the face of domestic freedom of information laws, pledges of transparency and even the concept of democracy – government of the people, for the people and by the people.

It’s going to get worse before it gets better, and individual protests are going to be little waves crashing against the rocks of government indifference.  The proponents of this type of action have money, power and the ears of their legislators – we have our spirits, our wills and our need to be free. To make sure that’s enough, we need to join together and use our collective voice. In New Zealand, I recommend the Creative Freedom Foundation, InternetNZ and the NZ Open Source Society, all of whom have expressed their concerns to government previously. Elsewhere the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Knowledge Ecology International, even your local Pirate Party and the like are carrying the flag.

The proponents of ACTA say it’s about protecting the property of the content creators, letting them earn a living, that opponents  want to steal the food from the mouths of artists and their children. They’ve persuaded (or coerced) some artists and writers to speak up in this matter, to plead their cause. But the real blocks to artists, writers and musicians earning their fair share of income are the publishers themselves, with iniquitous contracts, onerous debts and dubious expenses. All the publishers are trying to protect is a dying business model which even now is still earning them billions each year.

Copyright isn’t about property – it’s about knowledge. It’s a social contract between the creator and the receiver (I won’t say “consumer” because knowledge isn’t consumed; it’s shared) and protects both. Publishers have always owned the gate to knowledge. The Internet and digital technology changes that completely. We’re all publishers now.

In a knowledge economy, you’re not buying and selling knowledge, just as you’re not buying and selling cash in a cash economy. In a knowledge economy, knowledge is the currency used to obtain something from the receiver – attention, loyalty, or something else  - something of value to both parties. It’s a different market model from the industrial one we grew up with of few producers, scarce product and many consumers. Product is no longer scarce, nor can it be made artificially so. The old model is broken, yet the old guard is trying to hamstring the new for as long as possible.

Google ACTA, learn what it’s about and what it’s claimed to be about. Wake up your media who are strangely silent on this matter and make them report it, if only to report your protest. Contact your elected representatives and make them aware that you don’t want this, that you won’t stand for it and that you expect them to represent your will, not the will of Hollywood and the recording industry, the pharmaceutical industry and the big broadcasters, who all stand to make more money by locking in our choices in what we can do with information.

Don’t just sit there – DO something!

It’s highly resistant to OCR but Wikileaks is hosting a page where transcriptions are being lodged

I think it’s awfully interesting to note that all requests for information around the world have been met with “There isn’t a draft text yet, so we can’t release anything. As soon as we have something, we’ll show you.”

Yeah, right

Canada’s report on ACTA consultation notes was more interesting, frankly, and that was only a rerun of the stuff we’ve seen before from MED.

Glyn Moody had a good take, highlighting the paradox for the governments involved:

On the one hand, the negotiators have to pretend that “a comprehensive set of proposals for the text of the agreement does not yet exist”, so that we can’t find out the details; on the other, they want to finish off negotiations as quickly as possible, so as to prevent too many leaks. Of course, they can’t really have it both ways, which is leading to this rather grotesque dance of the seven veils, whereby bits and pieces are revealed in an attempt to keep us quiet in the meantime.

Michael Geist dissected what came out of Canada in a five-part post that gave more respect to the material than I thought was due.

Unless we see the full draft text, there really is nothing to report. Apparently, the parties are still hoping to meet in the next 8 weeks in Morocco, but we don’t appear to have a firm date yet.

Ho hum.

His column is published in the Toronto Star and the Ottowa Citizen, but that seems to be as close as the MSM is getting to ACTA. With the Russia Today video I wrote about the other day, even knee-jerk Rethuglicans are asking “Why isn’t the Mainstream Media all over this?”

It’s a really fair question, and one I’ve referred to before, but I’ve yet to see a coherent answer.

So I thought I’d ask:

letters@dompost.co.nz

Dear sir

The Government is negotiating an important intellectual property treaty, the Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, and has been for 12 months, as reported on the Ministry of Economic Development’s page at http://www.med.govt.nz/templates/ContentTopicSummary____34357.aspx. Yet I see no reporting of this in your newspaper, or any of the NZ Fairfax stable. Newspapers in Australia and Canada have been reporting on this but our media have been silent.

May one ask why?

Regards

Mark Harris
Waikanae

I hold no huge hope of useful response, but you have to ask.

UPDATE: my name was included in the “points notes” sidebar.

The wing nuts are raging that Obama is interfering in their lives! Let me quote to you from one of the slightly less foaming:

Yikes! Is there any part of American citizens’ lives that the Obama administration does not want to intrude on? Where is the MSM on this? Can you imagine the outcry if this was coming down the pike under Bush? There would have been weeping and gnashing of teeth! And cries of totalitarianism, which it seems, is coming for us under the cover of night…

The irony that this originated under George Bush seems to escape them.

But they’re right to ask where are the mainstream media? Why haven’t they been all over this for the last 18 months? As I said in a previous post some have, but nowhere near enough.

The irony also is that the wing nuts are getting their information from a Russian blog (and funded by the State, no less). And yet they’re posting with labels like “liberal bias”, “media bias”, and “totalitarianism”. Way to have a rational discussion, guys.

ACTA is hairy and scary, not least because of the secrecy. But Europe is calling for more transparency, as is Canada, and Obama’s White House is reviewing the USTR’s stance of “national security” as I type (well, maybe not as I type as it’s just coming up Sunday morning in Washington DC). What will it take to shift the MED? Probably dynamite.

As bad as s92A was, ACTA is a whole other ball of wax. The media need to be on top of it, but they really are conspicuous by their absence. I don’t want to seem like a conspiracy theorist, but are the big media combines suppressing any reporting of the negotiations? Are there instructions going out to remote bureaus to not cover the issue?

Bloggers are able to get information. You’d think the MSM with their vast resources should be able to get at least that much, if not more. Because the alternative to the paranoia is that the media are just too stupid to recognize a story if it bit them on the arse.

Trade agreements are often negotiated under cover of secrecy, so that industry lobbyists can’t focus on details that affect their constituents and derail the process. But, with ACTA, the industry lobbyists appear to be in on the game, privy to the details and offering advice to the negotiating teams. It’s only we poor, tax-paying, voting citizens that aren’t allowed to know anything.

The media isn’t helping. I don’t recall much media comment at all in New Zealand on ACTA, over the last year. A Google search outside official government sites says there are 5180 responses for ACTA, but the first 20 shows blogs (Br3nda Wallace, Colin Jackson, Geekzone and me), InternetNZ and the Distilled Spirits Association (both of whom put in submissions during last year’s “consultation” spurred by the Wikileaks release). The rest of the results are for other uses of the word “acta” (which is Latin for “beach” apparently, but also “register of events”), often for scientific journals. Searching on “Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement” is a little better, but largely the same type of suspects. The mainstream media is conspicuous by it’s absence.

Computerworld has 13 articles, including the latest news that Obama’s administration appears no more transparent than Bush’s was. Stuff has 2, plus 1 more under “ACTA” from the Sydney Morning Herald. The NZ Herald has none. Zero. Not even a Reuters feed.

I want to take a moment to single out 2 reporters, Juha Saarinen and Stephen Bell, who have both educated themselves about this issue and both written about it. But they are generally regarded as tech reporters. Where are the mainstream reporters, the business analysts and economists? When will the NZ media wake up to the fact that this is not a tech issue? The level of omission looks deliberate.

It’s not much better overseas. Michael Geist’s legal column is serialized across a number of Canadian papers, so there’s some coverage there, but most of the message is carried on the blogs and lists, on the tech sites and the magazines like Computerworld (Glyn Moody in the UK has been active) and CNET. And it’s from CNET and Declan McCullagh that the current big story about ACTA comes (although, to be fair, it’s on blogs everywhere, and James Love has his post on the Huffington Post here) : Obama’s administration has invoked Executive Order 12958 to classify the ACTA documents as “classified in the interest of national security”.

What in [insert_deity]’s name is in there??? How can a document about “harmonizing intellectual property enforcement” be a state secret that could damage national security??

Although, it’s not a secret to everyone. Love has a list of all the people who are allowed to see it. The Fertilizer Institute? Pfizer? Rubber Manufacturers Association??

If the governments negotiating this thing are trying to make people scared and rebellious, they’re doing a heckuva job. At times, I’ve thought that that’s exactly what they’re doing, so that they can bleed out all the “hysteria” (interesting how that term popped up in the s92A contretemps as well) and then say, “see? It’s not nearly as bad as you thought it was”, but I decided that none of the people I know are involved are actually that bright. I could be wrong on that, though. I’m starting to think it really is as bad as we think.

Love also has a list of other sites reporting the story, but there’s no MSM there, either.

[sigh]

“Meet the new boss, same as the old boss…”

I had hoped for better from Obama’s administration, at least in terms of their vaunted transparency policy, but it looks like ACTA is one thing that won’t go on the RSS feeds. Looks like Townsend had it right, at least in the verse. It’s we who need to learn the chorus.

France is also going through the process of such legislation in spite of the fact that the European Parliament has declared it not suitable to Europe. In Ireland, the IP industry has coerced the largest ISP and has sent demands to the smaller ISPs to put in place a graduated response mechanism without legislation. That’s their preferred tactic, I think.

Germany has recently knocked back such a proposal, but there appears to be a surge in United States and other countries for such processes to be put in place.

This has led some people to ask “is this just about the RIAA or are they just a useful stalking horse for wider goals of censorship and control?”.

In my view, that’s bordering on tinfoil hat territory. I’m not disputing there is a wider game being played globally by interested parties, and to some extent it’s about control. But I really don’t think censorship’s the driving force. However, I agree that the RIAA et al are front and centre, while machinations occur behind closed doors.
There is definitely a Charge of the IP Brigade to shut down what they see as infringements. What people forget is that the IP Brigade is not limited to the RIAA, the MPAA, or even our own RIANZ. I think that “graduated response” is an idea whose proponents feel its time has come (when all you’ve got’s a hammer…) but it’s only one aspect of the global pressure to secure “intellectual property rights” as physical assets.

We’re seeing a lot of action, globally, on this front, and have been for some time. There’s the SECURE working group, in the World Customs Organization, for one. Another example, although less well defined, is the ACTA — the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. We don’t have a lot of details about ACTA. What we do know from leaked documents is that it’s as heavy on the IP side as it is on the counterfeiting — some might say more so.

The official line on ACTA is that it comes out of the United States and Japan because they feel that the WTO, and TRIPS especially, is not moving fast enough to protect their intellectual property industries. It actually goes a little deeper than that — with some major players who have kept well out of the spotlight.

In 2004, the first Global Congress on Combating Counterfeiting was held. Its major sponsor was the Global Business Leaders Alliance Against Counterfeiting (GBLAAC). Don’t go looking for them — they don’t exist any more. And their sponsorship was at one point removed from the official record of the Congress although it’s back now. The member organizations of the GBLAAC included Proctor & Gamble, Unilever, British American Tobacco, DaimlerChrysler, Philip Morris and Coca-Cola and speakers from those companies were on the agenda.

The other sponsors of the Congress appear to have been a global law firm called Baker McKenzie, and an IP and patents firm, Rouse and Co. International. Also participating were Interpol, the International Trademark Association (INTA), the International Security Management Association (ISMA), WIPO, and the World Customs Organisation.

The message was carried from the Global Congress to the 2005 G8 meeting and from there to WIPO but got no traction. They venue shifted to the WTO but likewise had no success. The banner was picked up again in 2007 by the USTR (United States trade Representative) who collaborated with Japan to present plurilateral negotiation process called ACTA, with invited participants including New Zealand.

The original sponsors are heavy hitters, and are used to playing a long game. These multinational companies with very deep pockets are the real drivers behind this wave of IP regulation. They stand to make or lose a lot of money. Tobacco and drugs (legal ones) are the focus of the counterfeiting side. Tobacco is regarded as counterfeit if it hasn’t got the appropriate government licence. The tobacco is as real, but it hasn’t been through the process.

The focus on the drug side is more about generics than fake drugs, although the safety aspect is what’s being pushed. And there’s enough truth in that to gain support.

An example of what’s at stake is that a counterfeit drug, in the US, is one that hasn’t been passed by the FDA, which can include foreign drugs and generics. You can buy it over-the-counter in Canada quite legally but if you are going on to the States, you should get rid of it as it will be regarded as counterfeit.

This part of the attack is aimed largely at India, a major source of generic drugs primarily because they can’t afford the “genuine article”. Another area that suffers is Africa, where HIV/AIDS and other killer diseases are rampant partly because they can’t afford the drugs to combat it. Generics could help them a lot but would reduce the profits of the companies, collectively known as Big Pharma.

In my opinion, the real source of this problem is the corrupt process that’s called the US Congress. In order to get elected, candidates except support from vested interests. Some of those interests drug companies, some Hollywood studios, some other music industry — all have IP they wish to jealously protect — and the legislators (some honestly) agitate to create and support legislation that their benefactors say they need to be competitive.

While a side-effect of all this protection may be a form of censorship and control, I don’t think that that is the main objective — follow the money.

“Graduated response” is only a weapon du jour. That’s why repealing s92A is only part of the solution. We need as a nation to examine what copyright means how cultural context, and how we relate to the rest of the world. We need a copyright regime that respects creators, consumers, and the businesses in between on a fair basis. And we need to examine just what copyright means from first principles.

the next round of ACTA negotiations, which had been scheduled for next month in Morocco, has been delayed at the request of U.S. officials. While this does not signal a change in perspective on ACTA, the U.S. did want to provide incoming USTR officials time to review ACTA before continuing with the negotiations. No new meeting has been established.

As usual, nothing on the MED page about it, but who’s really surprised about that?

Anyway, I hunted through the various documents for anything on ACTA and was finally rewarded. And where do you think I found it? In the BIM for Communications and IT(pdf, 104 Kb)? Nope. The MFAT BIM (pdf, 864 Kb), then (it is a Trade Agreement, after all)? Uh-uh. Perhaps the Guide to MED for BIM (pdf, 114 Kb) or the MED Economic overview for BIM (pdf, 349 Kb)? No, and no.

What about any of the 6 MoCommerce BIMs? Ah, yes, there on page 53 (paras 35-37) of the innocuously named CTI_BIM.pdf (pdf, 361 Kb) we find a description of ACTA:

Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA)

35 The goal of ACTA is to set a new, higher benchmark for the enforcement of intellectual property rights that countries can join on a voluntary basis. The discussions represent a cooperative effort by the governments to respond to the increase in global trade of counterfeit goods and pirated copyright protected works.The discussions are not being conducted as part of any international organisation.

36 New Zealand along with a number of trading partners, including the United States, Australia, Canada, the European Union, Japan, Korea, Mexico and Switzerland, have been engaged in discussions over the development of a plurilateral Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (“ACTA”) – a joint initiative by the United States and Japan. There have been three negotiation rounds to date. Progress has been slow, and it is likely to be well into 2009 before the agreement is concluded.

37 There has been some opposition to ACTA, both in New Zealand and overseas by groups representing the interests of users of copyright material and from groups representing internet service providers. This opposition is based on assumptions that ACTA will result in increased rights for copyright and trademark owners and give enforcement agencies what are seen as excessive powers. These assumptions are difficult to refute as much of the Agreement has yet to be drafted, and New Zealand’s negotiating mandate has not been publicised.

Not much, you’ll agree, nothing we didn’t know and nothing particularly scary (although the wry comment about refuting the assumptions made me smile, in a former public servant way).

Anything else? Yes. Yes, there is. The dry as dust Vote_Commerce_BIM.pdf (pdf, 261 Kb) contains a couple of gems, more in what they don’t say, rather than in what they do.

On page 13 of 41, we have para 53:

53. Additional work underway focuses on a broader international agenda. This includes participation in FTA negotiations with Malaysia and the Gulf Cooperation Council, and in the WTO Doha Development Round negotiations. Significant areas looking ahead include preparatory work toward FTA negotiations with India, Korea Information withheld in accordance with section 6(a) of the Official Information Act – prejudice to the international relations of the Government of NZ. New Zealand is among a group of developed and developing countries participating in the ongoing negotiations for the development of an Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement(ACTA), which aims to curtail the growth in the global trade in counterfeit goods and pirated copyright works.

No mention of any sort of opposition or even assumptions. Which is a little odd, no? This is the main BIM on Vote Commerce – if you only read one BIM from this sector, this is the one you’ll read. (By the way, it shows that the relevant Minister is Simon Power, not Steven Joyce)

The other mention is more significant. The last 4-5 pages of the actual report (16-20) are given over to a table of “Pending decisions or actions”, and on page 20 we find:

Issue-Intellectual Property
Consider progress of the negotiations for the development of an Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), which may require further decisions by Cabinet concerning changes to officials’ negotiating mandate
Reason why a decision/action is needed
Depending on the progress of negotiations, changes to the negotiating mandate may be
required to facilitate conclusion of the negotiations.
Timing
31 March 2009

Say what? The election was on 8 November, the BIMs would have been well underway at that point, as they’re prepared any time there’s a change of Minister. I attended a briefing at MED on 12 November (reminder to self – blog about briefing) called the IP Criminal Enforcement Workshop:

The main aim of the November workshop is to promote better cooperation between copyright and trade mark owners, intermediaries and various law enforcement agencies concerning the enforcement of existing criminal offences that already exist under a variety of different statutes (i.e. enforcement of crimes other than just copyright piracy). Furthermore,the workshop provides us with an opportunity to update parties interested in the development of ACTA on the progress of negotiations.

The officials at that meeting opined that they didn’t foresee the agreement being concluded before the middle of next year, and wouldn’t be too surprised to still be arguing the details in November 2009. Yet, at the same time, they were advising the Minister that they might have to change their mandate to be able to conclude negotiations. In March. The meeting is in Rabat, Morocco [that hub of international trade] in March. Coinkidink? I think not, stinky puppy.

What is it they can be concluding, seeing as how MED told us in November that there wasn’t a draft text that could be released? And why would they need to change their negotiating mandate, if the agreement needs to come back to Parliament to be ratified? Something smells about this, and it’s not good.

We need answers, not evasions. As Michael Geist has said:

This may sound repetitive, but citizens of the many countries involved in the ACTA negotiations should not have to rely on leaks and speculation to learn what their governments are proposing. All governments should support a more transparent process that begins with full public disclosures of drafts as well as more robust public consultation and participation.

James Love, of Knowledge Ecology International, has just blogged some details from apparently leaked documents re ACTA

http://www.keionline.org/blogs/2009/02/03/details-emerge-of-secret-acta/

It seems he has the outline and some text snippets, but doesn’t disclose the source. Love is pretty credible and I’d think unlikely to publish stuff he didn’t whole heartedly believe was correct, but he may be being spoofed – who knows?

There is apparently a permanent structure to be erected, the ACTA Oversight Council, to:
“supervise ACTA implementation, consider amendments, interpretations, and modifications to the agreement, and establish and delegate responsibilities to ad hoc working groups, as well as:

* assisting with resolving any disputes that may arise regarding the interpretation of application of ACTA;
* ensuring that ACTA avoids duplication of other international efforts regarding IP enforcement;
* seeking input from non-governmental persons or groups, particularly with respect to best practices in the field of intellectual property enforcement;
* endorsing best practice guidelines for implementing ACTA;
* supporting the efforts of international organizations active in the field of intellectual property enforcement;
* assisting non-Party governments with developing assessments of the benefits of accession to ACTA; and
* adopting its own rules of procedure.”

Also, some of the measures proposed (specifically, the use of injunctions) apparently breach Article 44.2 of the TRIPS agreement, sections of US law and also Canadian (I don’t know about other jurisdictions). NZ already allows injunctions, but I’ll let someone more legally oriented work out what the impact is on us.

I’m inclined to accept Love’s report on face value. It jibes with a lot of other snippets that have fallen from the official tables. MED have promised us that NZ will not need to change domestic law if ACTA is accepted, but I’m not a big believer of what MED says anymore. It’s not that I think they’re corrupt – it’s more that I think they’re working to an undisclosed agenda and the rights of citizens are unimportant compared to the rights of corporates.

Write to your MP, write to Stephen Joyce [see UPDATE below] and Murray McCully, write to your newspaper – get the word out. (Remember, physical mail to Parliament needs no stamp)

The mainstream media have been conspicuous by their absence in reporting on ACTA. You may think it’s because they or their owners have a lot of content held under copyright in many jurisdictions – I wouldn’t argue with you – or you may think that reporters are just too thick to get their heads around it (I might not argue with that, either) or that copyright is just not sexy enough for a headline. Yet “piracy” reports always get the column inches, it seems. We need to get in the media’s face with this issue, so they can’t ignore it any longer. Both s92a and ACTA are a curtailment of the rights of the many for the benefit of a few. Make some noise.

UPDATE: Steven Joyce is not (necessarily) the correct Minister. ACTA negotiations appear to fall under the Minister of Commerce, Simon Power