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I'm a copyright owner: I have music, software, writings of various kinds for which I hold the copyright. Some of them even bring me in a little revenue.
Despite being a copyright owner, I'm concerned at the ACTA negotiations currently underway to establish a binding international treaty on digital rights. The exercise of such rights must be balanced against the rights to free speech and privacy, and any penalty must be proportional to the infringement. Neither balance nor proportionality appear true for ACTA based on the information so far available, and the fact that the initiators of the treaty have tried hard to keep the deliberations and the proposed terms secret makes me uneasy.
ACTA proposes third party liability. Under this provision, if someone else infringes copyright in a comment on your blog, for example, you would be liable. This is akin to making your city corporation responsible for all crimes committed on its streets. ACTA also wants to ban any tool that allows a digital lock to be circumvented. If you have software from a company that's gone out of business and don't have a license code to use it on your new computer, ACTA would make it an offence to try and work around that. If neither of these provisions causes you concern, consider the proposal for "imminent infringement". As its name suggests, this will allow the enforcing body to intervene if they think (or say they have reason to think) that you're about to infringe copyright - even George Orwell couldn't have thought of a better threat to keep the populace in line.
If you'd like to know more you'll find plenty about ACTA on the internet. The following links include voices for and against the treaty:
If you have no concern over provisions to have your cellphone, computer or music player searched at any time; and if the prospect of confiscation, draconian fines and internet disconnection for even an unknowing violation doesn't concern you, then you should definitely ignore ACTA. Most of us have too many reasons for sleepless nights already. If, however, you join me in believing that this treaty is an unnecessary and unacceptable violation of individual freedoms, you may consider signing the Wellington Declaration. You can do that on this web page.
Although the Wellington Declaration was written and signed in New Zealand, this isn't a Kiwi-only issue. ACTA itself and the Wellington Declaration opposing it are both international in scope. More than that, they're moral in scope. Yes, it's wrong to infringe copyright, and there must be recourse for rights holders. But it's also wrong to secretly institute wide-ranging powers and draconian penalties.
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Leigh Harrison is currently repaying karma from a past life by working as an IT Generalist in this one.