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No. 105
Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement - Since Spring
2008, the European Union, the United States, Japan,
Canada, South Korea, Australia as well as a few other
countries have been secretly negotiating a trade
agreement aimed at enforcing copyright and tackling
counterfeited goods (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade
Agreement). Specifically, leaked documents show that
one of the major goal of the treaty is to force
signatory countries into implementing anti file-
sharing policies under the form of three-strikes
schemes and net filtering practices.
At a time when important debates are taking place on
the need to adapt copyright to the digital age, this
treaty would bypass democratic processes in order to
enforce a fundamentally irrelevant regulatory regime.
It would profoundly alter the very nature of the
Internet as we know it by putting an end to Net
neutrality.
Net neutrality means that the Internet has no
gatekeeper. It encompasses all the issues related to
the circulation of information on the Internet, such
as free speech, access to knowledge, copyright or
innovation. Thanks to this principle, everyone retain
the freedom to access and produce the information
they want, regardless of their financial capacities
or social status.
Additionally, Net neutrality allows for more
efficient and innovative markets, where even the
smallest entrepreneurs are on equal footing with the
leading global enterprises as they can freely make
use of the network to launch new services and
applications. It guarantees a free an open Internet
that enables wider democratic participation and
effective economic competition.
But this funding principle of the Internet is now
under threat, as some telecom operators and content
industries want to develop business-models based on
the prioritization of certain information flows by
taking control of the network. Such discriminatory
practices could turn the Internet into yet another
predominantly commercial media -- one that restrains
choice, diversity and participation. New entrants and
innovators would also be unable to benefit from the
economic level playing field that the Internet
currently provides.
Also, governments threaten Net neutrality by seeking
to implement filtering techniques in order to re-
establish the kind of control they used to have on
traditional and unidirectional media.
Should the inherent openness of the Internet
architecture vanish, the freedom of expression and
communication as well as the freedom to innovate in
the networked information environment we occupy would
all be taken away.
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