In an attempt to crackdown on global Internet piracy, a coalition of 37 countries banded together to approve of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. The agreement must now be legally verified with each nation expected to independently approve ACTA before it goes into effect.
The United States, European Union (all 27 nations), Australia, Canada, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, and Switzerland helped develop ACTA during negotiations that started in 2007. As such, it's up to each nation to figure out if their domestic laws adhere to ACTA, and how to make changes to better protect goods.
As part of the deal, nations such as the United States want to ensure products leaving the United States and sold in other markets can be secured as best as possible.
The EU and Mexico had concerns related to ACTA -- and Mexico threatened to withdraw -- but in the end they were able to iron out all issues. The added tensions helped push back the ACTA signing a few weeks, even as details continue to flow in regarding ACTA's wording.
Ideally, trade ministers and other negotiators believe the new trade agreement will help protect intellectual property rights for music, movies, software, and other copyrighted content that is shared around the world.
The MPAA supports ACTA, but tradegroups reportedly didn't have access to the final ACTA draft for quite some time.
ACTA has taken more than three years of discussion among government officials, with constant pressure from copyright trade groups to crack down on piracy. ISPs will be forced into turning over information of accused copyright infringers, with Internet bans and other strict punishments possible.
Once each nation begins to enforce ACTA, there will be a high level of uncertainty and nervousness among Internet users. We’re still unsure how much power each nation will be given, along with what role third parties will have. Nations involved aren’t keen on John Doe lawsuits, but copyright groups pushing for possible Internet bans and other new anti-piracy techniques are confusing both Governments and citizens.
