ACTA To Be Signed This Weekend

We've been following the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement for over three years, from its secretive beginnings, to the controversy and debate that followed, and to the document it eventually evolved into. Now, Japan has announced that the agreement will finally be signed on Saturday during a ceremony that follows an anti-piracy symposium on Friday. "The negotiation has been carried out among Australia, Canada, the European Union and its Member States, Japan, the Republic of Korea, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, Switzerland, and the United States, and reached a general agreement at the negotiation meeting held in Japan in October 2010, followed by the completion of technical and translation work in April 2011. ... The signing ceremony will be attended by the representatives of all the participants in the ACTA negotiations, and those that have completed relevant domestic processes will sign the agreement. The agreement is open for signature until May 1, 2013."

meanwhile in Mexico

[Anonymous Coward]

Mexican Senate has already voted to not let president sign ACTA, yet, mexican IP officials and the content industry local representatives frequently make public statements about Mexico signing ACTA.

They will be at the Japan's signing ceremony as witnesses, but a few congress members haven't officially informed about recent developments concerning ACTA.

It's still as obscure as it was at the begining of the negotiations.

...like we needed a hole in the head.

[shoutingloudly]

Don't be shocked if this follows the pattern laid out in the case of the WIPO anticircumvention treaty. It did not require anything nearly as strong as the DMCA, but the content industry kept waiving it in congressional faces, demanding that we pass something far too draconian to be justified by the treaty we had actually signed. In principle, this is set up to be in line with extant US law, thus not requiring a full Senate confirmation, but I wouldn't be shocked if (a) the content industries rammed down much stronger interpretations down other countries' throats, and (b) they then came back to the US and demanded that we "harmonize" with these stronger interpretations.

Re:Yeah, so...

[roman_mir]

Ron Paul.

That's why you vote for Ron Paul who is very specific about States being more autonomous (because the federal government has no authority for pretty much anything it does at this point), and thus having more competition between government laws and Congressman/Senators should really live in their States now, with all the technology they must not be allowed to live in Washington DC and to do their business there. They should be required to live in their States, where people have more direct access to them AND this would force the lobbyists to come to every one of the States, to go visit 50 States (or at least half), and this would be more obvious and easy to track and to see how a Congressman/Senator changes his mind once the path of a lobbyist goes through his State.