Dear all, most of you will have heard about the planned "Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement" which despite the name intends to not only address brand counterfeiting. Rather, the plan is that an entire section in the agreement will be devoted to placing burdens on ISPs with regard to policing illegal content (and content which is legal, but where illegality is claimed anyway).
The Federal Institute of Intellectual Property ( IGE, http://ige.ch/ ) which participates in the name of Switzerland in these negotiations has recently released a document which gives the following information regarding this: """ Section 4: Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement in the Digital Environment This section of the agreement is intended to address some of the special challenges that new technologies pose for enforcement of intellectual property rights, such as the possible role and responsibilities of internet service providers in deterring copyright and related rights piracy over the Internet. No draft proposal has been tabled yet, as discussions are still focused on gathering information on the different national legal regimes to develop a common understanding on how to deal best with these issues. """ The document is available in English and French, as follows: English: http://www.ige.ch/e/jurinfo/documents/j1070401e.pdf French: http://www.ipi.ch/f/jurinfo/documents/j1070401f.pdf IGE is planning to organize a consultation after the next round of negotiations, which IGE expects to take place in May or June. Currently things are still on hold due to the USA having a new president etc. Another opportunity for communicating our perspective is IGE's "Urheberrechtsgespräch" which will take place in May, where the "Internet Community" is one of the stakeholder groups which has been invited to send representatives. As I announced last week, I'm organizing a preparatory meeting for that this coming Friday in Zurich. In view of the developments regarding ACTA I think that it would be particularly important for people who understand the ISP's perspective to be strongly represented at this meeting. (The people who will be representing the "internet community" are well-intentioned, but I think they are not very familiar with the perspectives of ISPs and technical geeks in general. I need your help in making them more aware of perspectives outside their personal areas of interest.) For copies of the announcement of this preparatory meeting, see English: http://siug.ch/internet-community-09-en.html German: http://siug.ch/internet-community-09-de.html Greeting, Norbert -- http://siug.ch/ Swiss Internet User Group (SIUG), eine Initiative der /ch/open _______________________________________________ swinog mailing list swinog@lists.swinog.ch http://lists.swinog.ch/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/swinog
