Mexican Senate Votes To Drop Out of ACTA

An anonymous reader writes "The Mexican Senate has voted unanimously to drop out of ACTA negotiations, saying that the process has been way too secretive, left out many stakeholders and appears to deny access to knowledge and information. Of course, it's not clear if this 'non-binding resolution' actually means much, as the negotiators are not under the Senate's control. At the very least, though, it appears the Mexican Senate is going to fight to keep the country from agreeing to ACTA."

Not at all

[cappp]

That's not what the resolution [google.com] says at all.

First .- The Senate agreed to form a Plural Working Group to follow up the negotiations for the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, known as ACT (for its initials in English Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) in order to assist in the transparency of the multilateral negotiations and ensure that the provisions of this Agreement are in accordance with the guarantees and fundamental rights that our Constitution provides for Federal

Second .- The Senate agreed to hold, through the Working Group Plural provided in resolving previous public forums and consultations with officials, academics, experts and interested parties in order to build a position on it, and its case, to form an agenda and an alternate route to the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), in order to prepare and submit bills related to the Internet, the industrial property rights and copyrights, as well as freedom of expression and the right to privacy. Third .- While setting up a position by the Senate on Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), requesting the owner of the Federal Executive, Mr. Felipe Calderón Hinojosa , stop the process of negotiations for our country to sign the international convention.

This says nothing about dropping out at all. It is asking for negotiations to be paused while they set up internal discussion and review groups. The tone of the entire thing supports the general need for something like ACTA but is against the secrecy of the negotiations. The healine there is misleading.

Re:might be bad to drop out :-(

[houstonbofh]

Like Mexico cares. Their biggest trade item is illegal anyway. (Weed and labor) And the backlash is building elsewhere.

ACTA and software patents

[ciaran_o_riordan]

Here's the problems caused for software patents:

• http://en.swpat.org/wiki/ACTA_and_software_patents [swpat.org]

I've seen people claiming that ACTA will require countries to allow software patenting, but that's not correct at all. On the contrary, the latest leaked draft (25 August) explicitly says that there will be no substantive requirements on scope:

ARTICLE 1.3: RELATION TO STANDARDS CONCERNING THE AVAILABILITY AND SCOPE OF INTELLECTUAL PROPERTY RIGHTS

1. This Agreement shall be without prejudice to provisions governing the availability, acquisition, scope, and maintenance of intellectual property rights contained in a Party's law.

2. This Agreement does not create any obligation on a Party to apply measures where a right in intellectual property is not protected under the laws and regulations of that Party.

• Let's avoid the term "Intellectual property" [swpat.org]
• Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement overview [swpat.org]

Re:might be bad to drop out :-(

[Anonymous Coward]

Your comment is inaccurate and the main reason the rest of the world thinks Americans are uninformed and arrogant. Mexico is the 12th largest economy in the world and headed for the top 5 - counting the EU as one entity of course. The 1950's stereotypes no longer apply, it is not "the west, the commies and the 3d world" any more.

from http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Economy_of_Mexico#Remittances

Remittances, or contributions sent by Mexicans living abroad, mostly in the United States, to their families at home in Mexico, are a substantial and growing part of the Mexican economy; they comprised $18 billion in 2005.[27] In 2004, they became the tenth largest source of foreign income after oil, industrial exports, manufactured goods, electronics, heavy industry, automobiles, construction, food, and banking & financial services

The full article on the economy of Mexico is quite interesting, and can be an eye opener.

Re:How does this happen?

[josech]

The negotiations are not under the Senate control, but the final approval is. ACTA must be approved by the mexican Senate in order to be legally adopted.

And yes. The lobbyist and factual powers in Mexico are very powerful an evil, just as anywhere else.

Re:IP economy vs. Freedom

[mcvos]

I completely disagree. Suppose your livelihood depended on creating intellectual property;

Suppose your livelihood depended on creating hot air. It's not the law's job to enable business models, its job is to enable a healthy society. And at the moment, a lot of IP laws don't seem to do much good to society.

There are already ridiculous amounts of money and lawyers involved in IP at the moment. We're creating more content than ever before. More than we can ever hope to consume. Why do we need a new treaty to make IP even more powerful? We need some balance.

Now let's say your hot new video game gets distributed in a way that results in heavy losses for your employer. Now let's take this one step further - your bonus/raise/benefits have all been drastically reduced due to heavy damages. Then what are you going to do?

Try something that works, rather than go whining to the government for more draconian laws.

Re:Made In America

[mcgrew]

Sony Pictures: Japan
Beatles, Led Zeppelin, Pink Floyd: Britain
Lord of teh Rings: New Zealand.
Rush: Canada
ACDC: Australia
Universal Pictures: France
Jackie Chan: Hong Kong