Bulgaria Stops Endorsing ACTA
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Bulgaria no longer adheres to the terms of the international anti-piracy agreement it signed four weeks ago following a wave of protests under the view that the Internet surveillance and jail terms it draws up violate human rights.
Bulgaria refuses to endorse the Anti- Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, known as ACTA, in any way, and will not participate in it until there is a clear European Union position on the pact, which aims to subdue online theft of copyrighted content, Economy and Energy Minister Traicho Traikov told reporters in Sofia on Tuesday, adding that he expects full support by the Cabinet on this decision.
“I’m a pessimist when it comes to regulating an industry, which hasn’t adapted to the digital age, through sanctions rather than market means,” Traikov explained. “Authors’ copyrights should not be placed above human rights.”
The campaign against Internet surveillance, jail terms, and a number of other radical measures foreseen in the accord to discourage free online music, movies and books, is in full swing all around Europe. Thousands of ACTA contestants took to the streets in Sofia and other European cities including Berlin, Warsaw and Paris on Feb. 11 to make their voice heard.
Intellectual Property
The U.S., Australia, Japan, Canada, Korea, Japan, New Zealand, Morocco, and Singapore all signed the accord, which delineates civil and criminal measures that signatory countries commit to carry out against threats to intellectual property rights. It brings forth strategies aimed at strengthening cooperation among customs authorities and conjures up an international body to monitor implementation of the agreement.
Bulgaria’s signed the agreement with 21 other EU countries on Jan. 26 in Tokyo. According to Traikov, Germany, Slovakia and Estonia are among the EU members that refused to sign the pact, whereas Poland and the Czech Republic have removed their endorsement.
Traikov places Bulgaria’s change of attitude upon the lack of unanimity on the matter in the EU. He assures everyone that Bulgaria will take no action about implementing ACTA, including endorsement, until all EU states have reached a consensus.
German Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger has postponed the signing of the planned international agreement until the European Commission clarifies the legal implications of ACTA, the Passauer Neue Presse newspaper reported yesterday.
Massive street protests have been reported last week in several countries across Europe including Germany, Romania, Spain and Poland. People demand transparency and their righteous say in the matter, things which are no more than natural attributes of the so-called democracies held as supreme in these countries and do not want to tolerate the fact that the agreement which will violate their privacy and fundamental right to freedom of speech was signed by officials in some countries without public debate.