ReadWriteWeb

So, we've shot down SOPA and PIPA. Congratulations Internets for a job well done. Mission accomplished, right? Not so much. While that's two bad pieces of legislation pushed back, there's much more where that came from. Leaving aside existing nastiness like the DMCA, we also have the even nastier Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) (PDF). How bad is it? Bad enough that the European Parliament's rapporteur for ACTA (Kader Arif) resigned over it today (January 27, 2012). Unfortunately for those of us in the United States, President Obama has already ratified ACTA on behalf of the United States.

The most controversial measures of concern to Internet users in the final version of the international Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) for most Internet users are 1) that signing governments pledge to allow copyright holders a way to request, under court warrant, personal information about a suspected infringer from that person's ISP; 2) that means will be provided for a rights holder to legally pursue someone suspected of circumventing rights management technologies; 3) that goods crossing countries' borders may be made subject to search and seizure if they're suspected to contain infringing material, with exceptions provided for things like personal luggage.

President Obama signed this treaty on October 1, 2011, effectively ratifying it on behalf of the United States.

According to once-secret, now-leaked sections of the new, plurilateral Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, global Internet users and ISPs might be in for a world of hurt in the near future.

A U.S.-drafted chapter on Internet use would require ISPs to police user-generated content, to cut off Internet access for copyright violators, and to remove content that is accused of copyright violation without any proof of actual violation. The chapter also completely prohibits DRM workarounds, even for archiving or retrieving one's own work. Read on for details and implications.