ACTA (the Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) is making a lot of news these days, with lots of people comparing it unfavorably to PIPA and SOPA. A lot of that coverage has been focused on Europe and particularly Poland, where the Polish government's signing of the agreement has sparked considerable protest.

So is this a big deal, and if so, why is domestic coverage of it so muted in comparison to SOPA and PIPA?

We remember the surrender of General Robert E. Lee at the Battle of Appomattox Courthouse as the end of the Civil War, despite the fact that Confederate forces remained in the field for several weeks thereafter. The announcement by AT&T and Deutsche Telekom (DT) that they have told the Federal Communications Commission (FCC) to dismiss their application to transfer T-Mo to AT&T “without prejudice” is rather similar.

According to Techdirt and Torrentfreak, the Department of Justice and Immigrations and Customs Enforcement have seized more domains on the grounds of copyright infringement (coverage of earlier seizures here, here, and here). Notably among them is the Spanish site Rojadirecta.org now redirects to a DOJ/ICE splash page identical to those used in earlier seizures.

Among the thousands of documents revealed to the press through WikiLeaks are apparently a number that deal with copyright issues. The Spanish newspaper El País has published a number of cables from the U.S. embassy in Madrid regarding U.S. efforts on IP enforcement in Spain.

One of the most interesting is this one from February 2008, which recommended that the U.S. threatened to put Spain on the Special 301 "naughty list” unless the Spanish government announced it would adopt a three-strikes style copyright enforcement law that would cut users off from the Internet after allegations of copyright infringement.

Last week, the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR)—part of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO), a United Nations body, failed to make any progress toward increasing access to copyrighted works by the reading disabled. Though this is bad news, the issue is not over. There’s no reason why laws should prevent people who aren’t being served by the market from helping themselves by creating and sharing accessible works. But getting this message understood by a UN entity that operates by consensus is very hard. To understand why progress on helping the reading disabled has been so elusive, it helps to put WIPO into context—it’s an institution not renowned for speed.

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The Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement continues to roll along with negotiations taking place in Switzerland in the coming weeks. Rumor has it that these negotiations might be bringing us to a finalized ACTA soon, despite protests from public interest groups, technology companies, and legislators around the world that its ham-fisted approach to enforcement can do grave harm to consumers, innovation, communication, and can even make it harder for lifesaving medications to reach populations in need. It’s time to make sure that your voices are heard on this important issue. And we have two ways that you can do that. One is by signing a declaration of principles crafted by a coalition of experts assembled at American University. The other, more direct method is by writing to the President himself, using our action alert submission form.

Even as more and more voices are calling for the Anti Counterfeiting Trade agreement to be made public, the United States Trade Representative is insisting in maintaining a veneer of secrecy over the proceedings. While numerous advocates and other governments (including the European Parliament, and officials in the UK, Canada, and the Netherlands (pdf, in Dutch)) are actively calling for full openness and transparency, the U.S.

The leaked ACTA Internet chapter has a footnote that says an ISP can only hang on to its "safe harbor" by implementing certain policies designed to discourage the use of their networks for copyright infringement, and that "An example of such a policy is providing for the termination in appropriate circumstances of subscriptions and accounts in the service provider's system or network of repeat infringers." Three strikes and you're out.

USTR's claim that ACTA wouldn't "change" US law is plausible (if not comforting). Similar language is already part of US law (17 U.S.C. 512 §(i)(1)(A))--as is the Fifth Amendment to the US Constitution, of course, which assures that no person can be "deprived of life, liberty, or property, without due process of law." One would hope that, like the existing statute, the ACTA language will be read in the context of the Constitution, which assures that mere accusations of copyright infringement are not enough to kick someone off the Internet. One would also hope that other countries, if they end up agreeing to a version of ACTA with this language, also understand that a "repeat infringer" must have been afforded due process.

Michael Geist is reporting that a new document about the secretive Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) has just been leaked. The document, a report on the most recent round of ACTA negotiations in Mexico, reveals more about where the parties are and what topics they are actually discussing.

On Monday, the New York Times added to the increasing media scrutiny of ACTA, the Anti Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. This proposed international agreement, which has the potential to drastically change the landscape of copyright law and policy, still remains hidden from the public eye.

Given this lack of transparency, it's no surprise that the substance of the agreement can only be discussed by way of leaks, speculation, and warring sound bites. Among the suppositions on ACTA's contents was the following:

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blockquote> E.U. negotiators, for example, are said to have balked at a U.S.-backed proposal to require Internet service providers to take tough steps against digital piracy.