[Infowarrior] - ACTA treaty can't be shown to public,

[Richard Forno]

Secret ACTA treaty can't be shown to public, just 42 lawyers
As the secret Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement rolls forward, it's  
clear that some kind of Internet "enforcement" will end up in the  
text; but what kind? Thirty-eight corporate lawyers and 4 public  
interest lawyers are the only ones with a say.

By Nate Anderson | Last updated October 15,

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/10/these-42-people-are-shaping-us-internet-enforcement-policy.ars

Turns out that the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) will  
include a section on Internet "enforcement procedures" after all. And  
how many people have had input on these procedures? Forty-two.

ACTA has worried outside observers for some time by threatening to  
delve into issues not normally covered by "trade agreements." Topping  
the list are concerns about ACTA's possible use as a Trojan horse to  
shove tough Internet controls onto countries like the US at the behest  
of Big Content. It's been hard to tell exactly what ACTA will include,  
though, because the process has taken place in such secrecy and even  
when information has been released, the section relating to the  
Internet has been empty.

But the secrecy wasn't total. Knowledge Ecology International (KEI)  
found out in September that the US Trade Representative's office had  
actually been secretly canvassing opinions on the Internet section of  
the agreement from 42 people, all of whom had signed a nondisclosure  
agreement before being shown the ACTA draft text.

After filing a Freedom of Information Act request (the names of the 42  
people were considered a matter of "national security" and were not  
released voluntarily), KEI yesterday revealed the list of people who  
have had access to the ACTA Internet provisions. Here are the first 32  
names, all of them people outside of USTR:

	• Emery Simon, Business Software Alliance (BSA)
	• Jesse Feder, Business Software Alliance (BSA)
	• Bill Patry, Google
	• Daphne Keller, Google
	• Johanna Shelton, Google
	• Lisa Pearlman, Wilmer Hale
	• Robert Novick, Wilmer Hale
	• Bob Kruger, Consultant to eBay
	• Brian Bieron, eBay
	• Hillary Brill, eBay
	• Sarah Deutch, Verizon
	• David Weller, Wilmer Hale
	• Steve Metalitz, International Intellectual Property Alliance  
(IIPA), Mitchell Silberberg & Knupp LLP
	• Veronica O'Connell, Consumer Electronics Association (CEA)
	• Jim Burger, Dow Lohnes, Counsel to Intel
	• Jonathan Band, Jonathan Band PLLC
	• Gigi Sohn, Public Knowledge
	• Rashmi Rangnath, Public Knowledge
	• Sherwin Siy, Public Knowledge
	• Maritza Castro, Dell
	• Jeff Lawrence, Intel
	• Mathew Schruers, CCIA
	• David Sohn, Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT)
	• Michael Petricone, Consumer Electronics Association (CEA)
	• Ryan Triplette, Intel
	• Janet O'Callaghan, News Corporation
	• Chris Israel, PCT Government Relations
	• Alicia Smith, Sony Pictures Entertainment
	• Cameron Gilreath, Time Warner
	• Seth Greensten, Constantine Cannon LLP, for Consumer Electronics  
Association (CEA)
	• Daniel Dougherty, eBay
	• David Fares, News Corporation
A further 10 people who have seen the draft are regular members of  
USTR advisory boards:

	• Anissa S. Whitten, Motion Picture Association of America, Inc.
	• Eric Smith, International Intellectual Property Alliance
	• Neil I. Turkewitz, Recording Industry Association of America
	• Sandra M. Aistars, Time Warner Inc.
	• Steven D. Mitchell, Entertainment Software Association
	• Thomas J. Thomson, Coalition for Intellectual Property Rights
	• Timothy P. Trainer, Zippo Manufacturing Company
	• Jacquelynn Ruff, Verizon Communications Inc.
	• John P. Goyer, US Coalition of Service Industries
	• Mark F. Bohannon, Software and Information Industry Association
It's a motley collection. While the continued secrecy of the process  
remains troubling, the list actually represents a wide swath of views.  
Big Content is well-represented; if stakeholders like the RIAA and  
MPAA don't appear often on the first list, that's only because they  
have a permanent connection with USTR and regularly get to advise the  
agency on crafting its trade policies.

But many of those on the top list don't support much in the way of  
Internet "enforcement" of IP law, not if that includes items like  
filtering or graduated response. Bill Patry, for instance, is Google's  
top copyright lawyer and has just written an entire book lambasting  
the content industries in no uncertain terms for their utter lack of  
innovation. Michael Petricone of CEA regularly appears at conferences  
opposing many content owner ideas, and Jonathan Band is a DC lawyer  
who regularly represents library associations in copyright  
proceedings. Public Knowledge and CDT both received invites, and  
lawyers for Dell, Intel, and eBay are generally not excited about  
content-owner-protection proposals.

On the other hand, copyright's eminence grise, Steven Metalitz, is  
also on the list; Metalitz was last seen in these pages telling the  
Copyright Office that consumers have no right to be upset after buying  
DRMed music from a store that goes out of business and takes its DRM  
servers offline.

According to Jamie Love of KEI, however, the whole thing smacks of  
corporatism. Sure, the corporations may be on different sides of the  
issue, but is the public actually being well-represented here?

"We were told that everyone who needed to see the documents has seen  
them," he writes. "Outside of Public Knowledge and CDT, everyone who  
received the documents was representing a large corporate entity."

ACTA negotiations resume in early November in Seoul, South Korea,  
where (in its own words) "USTR will be pressing for provisions that  
strengthen the ability of governments to deal with the serious issue  
of Internet piracy."