European Parliament Committees Reject ACTA As IP Backlash Grows

An anonymous reader writes "Earlier today [Thursday, May 31st], three European Parliament committees studying the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement — the Legal Affairs Committee (JURI), the Committee for Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) and the Committee for Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) — all voted against implementing ACTA. Michael Geist reports on how the strength of the anti-ACTA movement within the European Parliament is part of a broader backlash against secretive intellectual property agreements that are either incorporated into broad trade agreements or raise critical questions about prioritizing IP enforcement over fundamental rights including votes and reports opposing these deals in the Netherlands, Australia, New Zealand, Canada, and Mexico."

Re:The end is nigh

[mycroft16]

Our legislative body did as well this year with SOPA. Elected leaders will do what the public wants if the public makes its voice heard. In the end, elected officials want to keep their jobs and that means not pissing off the people. There have been huge demonstrations across Europe against ACTA. It's actually not hard to get legislative bodies to do things... it is hard, however, to get people interested enough to care to make some noise.

Re:Reason to hope

[Anonymous Coward]

According to the BBC article [bbc.co.uk] on the matter:

Their views will now be considered by the larger International Trade Committee (Inta) which will in turn make a formal recommendation to the European Parliament.

Inta's appointed rapporteur on Acta, David Martin, has strongly condemned the treaty.

In April, he said: "The intended benefits of this international agreement are far outweighed by the potential threats to civil liberties."

Inta will vote on the matter on 21 June.

So it seems reasonably likely that the official recommendation to the European Parliament will be a "no".

The big question is if the MEPs will listen to Inta...

Re:Proud

[Anonymous Coward]

You don't need a big government to enforce a common fiscal policy across Europe. You do need unanimous agreement and we're lacking there.

While fiscal policy is a big thing, it's not the only thing that a federal government does. We already have European legislation (most of which is actually recommendations), European currency (a sub-set of the EU countrues actually), and we're still struggling to get the fiscal bit sorted out. UK, being very protective and nationalistic, doesn't really help. The PIGS, being really bad at finance and good at grabbing money from other states, don't really help either - they like the status quo, they're big spenders and cannot realistically be kicked out of the eurozone, so they'll keep spending as much as possible, what are the others gonna do? Send them more threatening letters?

We've heard talks of the United States of Europe, but if you read what it's actually being proposed, it's nothing more than a fiscal union. Strict oversight from the body that regulates the currency. Just what happens in any country, extended to the eurozone.

Re:Proud

[Anonymous Coward]

The EU has its origins in a four country agreement for the free trade of steel and coal, through the EEC into what it is today.

As far as I remember my history classes, it was a six-country agreement [wikipedia.org]. Although arguably preceded by the Benelux (three countries) itself shortly preceded by some sort of economic agreement between Luxembourg and Belgium.