[DailyTech] EU’s Secret Plan to Imprison Filesharers, Ban Free Speech About Piracy Leaks

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A UK Intellectual Property Office representative made an important revelation to online publication ComputerActive, commenting, « ACTA should not introduce new intellectual property laws or offences. Instead, it should provide a framework to better enforce existing law. »

The new proposal would criminalize « infringements that have no direct or indirect motivation of financial gain » — which currently would be considered a petty civil offense in most countries. […]

Jérémie Zimmermann, spokesperson for La Quadrature du Net comments , « The ACTA agreement, by its opacity and undemocratic nature, allows criminal sanctions to be simply negotiated. The leaked document shows that the EU Member States are willing to impose prison sanctions for non-commercial usages of copyrighted works on the Internet as well as for ‘inciting and aiding’, a notion so broad that it could cover any Internet service or speech questioning copyright policies. »

http://www.dailytech.com/EUs+Secret+Plan+to+Imprison+Filesharers+Ban+Free+Speech+About+Piracy+Leaks/article18934.htm