"If the Senate version becomes law, it is not immediately clear how the Justice Department's expanded powers would work in practice. For example, would the department assume the role of the Recording Industry Association of America, which has sued more than 30,000 people in the United States for copyright infringement since 2003?..."
Twelve Public Interest Organizations Send US Senate Judiciary Joint Letter on Concerns Regarding S.3325, the "Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008": "The undersigned groups write to express our concerns with S. 3325, the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights Act of 2008, soon to be marked up in the Committee on the Judiciary. While enforcing IP rights is necessary to ensuring the progress of science and the useful arts, an unbalanced approach to enforcement would lead to unintended harms and impede that progress. Several of the provisions contained within S. 3325 threaten such an imbalance...."
Letter from AT&T, Amazon.com, Computer and Communications Industry Association (CCIA), Consumer Electronics Association, eBay, Information Technology Association of America, Internet Commerce Coalition, NetCoalition, US Internet Service Provider Association, US Telecom Ass., Verizon Communications, Yahoo! Inc.
Read Text of GB Declaration on a World Economy and G8's Pledge to Increase Intellectual Property Rights and International Enforcement and to Deputize Customs Agents to Search and Seize Laptops, iPods, and PDA's of Unsuspected Citizens in Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA)
July 8, 2008 All Volume 1 ACTA Comments as a single (PDF): First of all we would like to commend the US government for initiating a dialogue aimed at trying to enhance the global fight against piracy. This is a fight that is critical to maintaining US competitiveness, and one that we risk losing unless [...]
Comments of the Generic Pharmaceutical Association on the Anti- Counterfeiting Trade Agreement March 21, 2008 The Generic Pharmaceutical Association (GPhA) supports efforts to secure the U.S. drug supply from counterfeit medicines. Currently, due in great part to the vigilance of the U.S. Food and Drug Administration (FDA), the quality of America’s prescription medicines is the [...]
International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) - ACTA Public Comments Via email ACTA@ustr.eop.gov Ms. Rachel Bae Director for Intellectual Property & Innovation Office of the U.S. Trade Representative 600 17th Street NW Washington, DC 20508 Dear Ms. Bae: Re: Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA): Request for Public Comments 73 Fed. Reg. 8910 (Feb. 10, 2008) The International [...]
National Electronics Manufacturers Association (NEMA) - ACTA Public Comments Original Source Document as PDF.
"There has been wide coverage of ICANN’s decision this week to adopt a new process for creating new global Top Level Domains (gTLDs).... Civil libertarians supporting Susan Crawford’s line argue that if governments are able to pressure ICANN into prohibiting .jihad (which has perfectly non-violent meanings in Islam as well as the terrorist connotations it has recently acquired in the West), then can a prohibition on .falun-gong be far behind? ..."
Internet Technical Body an Authority on Morality? ICANN announced the "biggest extension of the DNS [domain name system] in 40 years" after its decision last week to finish implementation of a new policy for introducing new top-level domains (TLDs). According to the timeline presented at the ICANN meeting in Paris, new TLDs to compete against the existing .com, .biz or .museum TLDs will be open for application in the second quarter of 2009. ... But the most discussed and criticised reason for an objection clearly is “morality and public order.†This objection criterion would allow any government to veto strings (domains), ICANN director and US law professor Susan Crawford warned before the vote on the new TLD policy. This could undermine ICANN’s mission to act as a private self-regulatory body, she said, by giving such influence to governments. “It’s allowing governments to censor,†Crawford said, adding that the idea of having a private internet governance model was also “to avoid having the domain name system used as a choke-point for content.†Together with her colleague Wendy Seltzer, who acts as liaison of the ICANN At-Large User Community to the board, Crawford asked for clear-cut and narrow rules for the morality objection....