The European Parliament defied the EU executive today (10 March), casting a vote against an agreement between the EU, the US and other major powers on combating online piracy and threatening to take legal action at the European Court of Justice. [...]

Officials call for more MEPs to sign declaration against ACTA secrecy

Four members of the European Parliament have launched a public protest against the Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), registering their discontent with secret negotiations undertaken by the European Union, the US and other leading countries since 2007. [...]

"¿Cómo combatir las violaciones de la propiedad intelectual y los contenidos xenófobos y racistas y de pornografía infantil en Internet?" Esta es la pregunta que la Presidencia española de la UE hace a sus socios comunitarios en un documento (PDF) que los ministros de Justicia de la UE van a discutir de manera informal hoy.

BARCELONA, Spain--Josh Silverman, the chief executive of Skype, the voice over Internet phone service, could tick off the names of mobile phone operators that block his company's service.
But for Silverman, a 41-year-old Michigan native, it is quicker to name those that allow it, no strings attached.

Critics of government-mandated filtering schemes contend that such programs first focus on "child pornography" because it's such an unobjectionable target for censorship—but once the program is in place, it's much easier to extend it to more controversial areas, such as copyright protection. At least the French have the decency to admit that this is what's happening.

The French lower house, the National Assembly, has just passed a security bill known as LOPPSI2, [...]

THE FRENCH PARLIAMENT has buckled under pressure and approved the Sarkozy government's authoritarian plans to censor the Internet.

A French proposal to tax online advertising revenues to subsidise struggling newspapers and music companies has drawn fire from the internet community.

The proposal was contained in a government-sponsored research paper following claims that news aggregators such as Google, Microsoft, AOL, Yahoo and Facebook are profiting from their work without paying for it.

Internet activist Quadrature du Net said the tax would make all taxpayers pay for "out of date businesses".

An upcoming global trade agreement on copyright and counterfeiting, known as ACTA, will not rewrite EU rules on the liability of internet service providers, a leading European Commission official told EurActiv, denying media reports that suggest otherwise. [...]

La Quadrature du Net, a web pressure group, maintains that ACTA will create legal uncertainty for ISPs, which will start to self-censor what happens on their networks and "bend under the pressure of the entertainment industries". [...]

The Liberal Democrats have demanded that Lord Mandelson let MPs know what is being decided under the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (Acta).

[...] Mr Zimmermann said: "Unelected negotiators - carrying out the orders of the entertainment industries - are attacking the very essence of the internet."

http://www.computeractive.co.uk/computeractive/news/2256854/lib-dems-cal...

La Asociación de Internautas (AI) ha denunciado hoy la "opacidad" con la que un grupo de países --EEUU, la Unión Europea y Japón, entre otros-- reunidos en México desde hoy y hasta el 29 de enero están llevando las negociaciones sobre un futuro Tratado Comercial Anti-Falsificación (ACTA, por sus siglas en inglés), que, a su juicio, "está dirigido a controlar Internet".

Reporters Without Borders is very concerned about the threat to online free expression from measures to combat digital piracy and copyright violations in an Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) that is currently being negotiated. [...]

The European Parliament has not even had access to the negotiating documents. [...]

El Acuerdo Comercial Anti-Falsificación (ACTA por sus siglas en inglés) es la propuesta de un acuerdo comercial multilateral para el establecimiento de normas internacionales sobre la aplicación de los derechos de propiedad intelectual, especialmente en las economías emergentes.