Although organizations such as the MPA(A), IFPI and the BSA announce press releases in public on a regular basis, much of the hardcore lobbying occurs behind closed doors. Today we present one of these backroom lobbying letters that the groups would rather keep to themselves.

The letter in question was sent to Jerzy Buzek, the President of the European Parliament, and deals with the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). In summary, ACTA paves the way for draconian anti-piracy measures to be introduced globally. The ACTA text was finalized last year, but the EU has yet to sign the agreement.

To fully understand the implications of ACTA, and to ask whether it is compatible with other European treaties, the European Parliament indicated that it would like to hear the opinion of the European Court of Justice.

However, this is not appreciated by the pro-copyright lobby, who want to see the agreement signed as soon as possible. In their letter they therefore urge the Parliament to skip the legal review and sign the agreement without asking further questions.

“We support ACTA and believe that this Treaty is important to protect Europe’s innovative and creative industries from unfair competition and consumers from fake and pirated goods in a globalised marketplace,” the letter starts.

But after the obligatory introduction it quickly moves on to the core message:

“While we welcome the prerogatives in IP and trade matters conferred to the European Parliament under the new Treaty, we are concerned that the procedure of seeking an Opinion from the ECJ will substantially delay the final adoption and implementation of ACTA and weaken the position of the EU vis-à-vis its international trading partners as a leader in proposing and supporting effective enforcement of intellectual property rights globally,” it continues.

In short, the pro-copyright groups argue that asking for a legal review at the European Court of Justice could hurt the EU because international partners (US, Japan, Australia etc.) would no longer see them as leaders in intellectual property enforcement. They advise the EU to leave the Court of Justice out of the process and simply sign immediately.

“Given the Parliament’s signal that it supports strong enforcement of IP provisions in the EU’s trade agreements, we hope that the European Parliament will give its consent to ACTA with no further delays,” the letter concludes.

The above is quite a bold request of course, and the 21 outfits that signed the letter are fully aware that it’s not something the public would like to hear about. This is probably the reason why none of the pro-lobby groups included or even referenced the letter in their frequent press releases. When trying to maintain a certain image, it seems that some things are better left behind closed doors.

TorrentFreak obtained a full copy of the letter (embedded below) of which excerpts appeared on IPtegrity earlier this week. According to the document’s metadata, the letter was not written by any of the pro-copyright groups but by Joanne Scobie of the lobby firm Policy Action, which is by itself telling.

Source: Leaked “ACTA” Lobby Letter Reveals Hollywood Pressure On EU

This April, nearly two years after the first ACTA draft leaked out, the negotiators caved in and decided to release a redacted draft to the public. The draft itself didn’t bring much news, as nearly all information had been revealed via the leaked documents. However, some had hoped that the negotiators would be more open about the results of future meetings.

Unfortunately, this hope was soon shattered as the ACTA negotiations continued outside of the public eye. Yesterday, it became clear that even elected representatives at the European Parliament are not allowed to share ACTA-related information with their voters.

Following the latest round of ACTA negotiations in Lucerne, Switzerland, the Commission’s negotiators came to the European Parliament to give an update on ACTA’s progress. True to the secrecy surrounding most ACTA meetings, the gathering was closed to the public.

Pirate Party MEP Christian Engstrom was also invited to join, and at the meeting he asked if this secret setup also meant that he wasn’t allowed to share any of the information with the public.

“At first the Commission seemed unwilling to answer this question with a straight yes or no, but after I had repeated the question a number of times, they finally came out and said that I would not be allowed to spread the information given,” Engstrom explains.

Since there is little value in being informed on something you can’t share with others, Engstrom saw himself forced to leave the room. “I then left the meeting, since I am not prepared to accept information given under such conditions in this particular case.”

Like many others, Engstrom fails to see the benefit of keeping information from the public. “There is no sensible reason why the ACTA negotiations should be carried out in secret, or why Members of the European Parliament should not be allowed to discuss information about ACTA with their constituents,” he said.

“In a democracy, new laws should be made by the elected representatives after an open public debate. They should not be negotiated behind closed doors by unelected officials at the Commission, in an attempt to keep the citizens out of the process until it is too late.”

Even worse, according to Engstrom the secret ACTA meeting violates the Lisbon Treaty which states that the Commission should fully inform the European Parliament. With a secret oral meeting without any documents being handed out, this is certainly not the case, the Pirate Party MEP argues.

“That is disgraceful,” Engstrom concludes.

Article from: TorrentFreak.

The ACTA Chapter 2 Criminal Provisions document (.pdf) stated that “each party shall provide for effective proportionate and dissuasive penalties” to include “imprisonment and monetary fines”.

“The ACTA agreement, by its opacity and undemocratic nature, allows criminal sanctions to be simply negotiated,” commented Jérémie Zimmermann, spokesperson for La Quadrature du Net. “The leaked document shows that the EU Member States are willing to impose prison sanctions for non-commercial usages of copyrighted works on the Internet as well as for ‘inciting and aiding’, a notion so broad that it could cover any Internet service or speech questioning copyright policies.”

As noted by Zimmermann, the ACTA text includes proposals to apply criminal sanctions to “infringements that have no direct or indirect motivation of financial gain”. There are suggestions that “financial gain” could simply be obtaining anything without paying.

However, it seems that at least one country is showing a reluctance to go along with suggestions that file-sharers should feel the full weight of a criminal court. The UK Government has now said that it feels that criminal sanctions are an inappropriate way to deal with this type of copyright infringement.

“Acta should not introduce new intellectual property laws or offences. Instead, it should provide a framework to better enforce existing laws,” a UK Intellectual Property Office representative told ComputerActive.

Currently, personal-use file-sharing on a non-commercial scale is almost always considered a civil offense in the UK. However, there have been exceptions. In the case of the OiNK uploaders (who actually uploaded very little indeed), their cases were heard in a criminal court and they ultimately received fines and community service orders. This proves that when powerful enough people get involved, it’s trivial to escalate an offense way above its standing.

That said, it would be ridiculous to have small infringements dealt with by the criminal courts as a matter of course, so hopefully the UK Government stands strong. Jim Killock, Chief Executive at the Open Rights Group said the Government now needs to make its opposition to these proposals both public and clear to the US and EU.

Article from: TorrentFreak.

When it comes to copyright policy, there appears to be only one set of people the government is willing to listen to, and that’s the copyright lobbyists groups. Groups that don’t represent the creators as much as those that manage the creators; the middlemen. And so it is with the attendees of today’s meeting with US Vice President Joe Biden.

Biden, whose political career – like many US politicians – has been partly funded by pro-copyright groups, came out to say that he is offended by the “flat unadulterated theft” some call piracy. A bold statement, but not really that surprising when you take a look at the one-sided list of attendees.

There are no consumer groups, no technology companies, and few representatives of the artistic creators themselves. There are plenty of are representatives of middlemen companies though. Companies that make their money from managing, distributing and promoting, tasks that are increasingly being made obsolete with technological progress.

We’re talking about the likes of Sony’s Michael Lynton, who on behalf of an industry that’s having one of it’s best ever years, plead poverty less than two months ago. And Edgar Bronfman, head of WMG – you remember, the company that claimed copyrights that aren’t theirs.

What will have been on the agenda? Well, probably no items on how factually inaccurate the recent CBS piece was, or how anti-piracy studies would be improved with the release of supporting data. Instead, it will be the likes of future anti-piracy laws such as ACTA, and questioning the ability to introduce similar legislation to France and the UK.

Not that we will find out though, as apparently the press has been kicked out. Perhaps, like ACTA, this is a national security issue too. After all, who says terrorists don’t download Die Hard films for training purposes?

Article from: TorrentFreak, check out our new blog at FreakBits.