ACTA: New Zealand faces 'domestic upheaval'

New Zealanders are more aware of the Anti-Copyrighting Trade Agreement (ACTA) than their overseas counterparts, but they also have a lot more to lose, says Canadian academic and ACTA critic Michael Geist.

The eighth round of week-long ACTA negotiations started in Wellington today,  attended by delegates from New Zealand, Australia, Canada, the European Union, Japan, Korea, Mexico, Singapore, Switzerland, Morocco, and the US. Commerce minister Simon Power has said the agreement will focus on new enforcement measures to combat copyrighting and online piracy and is necessary because of changes in technology.

Speaking to PC World last night, Geist said New Zealand would face “more domestic upheaval” as a result of ACTA than most of the other nations involved. New Zealand, like Canada, had not followed the exact same approach as the US on copyrighting and intellectual property enforcement and would come under pressure to conform if enforcement measures were to be standardised.

“Everybody involved in the talks has got the same goals but many of us take different roads to get there. There are significant concerns for New Zealand”.

As well as eroding national sovereignty, the talks could potentially include provisions allowing ISPs to monitor online traffic and customs officers to search digital devices, including camcorders, for pirated material at the border, Geist said.

Power has previously said ACTA will not include provisions for ISPs to monitor or filter internet connections.

Geist also questioned the need for involved parties to avoid commenting on their positions, saying revealing their bottom line would not be detrimental in the negotiating room.

“Virtually every country involved has said  that their position on ACTA is consistent with their domestic laws. If that’s the case then there are no secrets.”

Geist was impressed with the level of ACTA knowledge and the profile of the talks in New Zealand. He said the publicACTA conference, where he spoke to a crowd of more than 100 people on Saturday, was a milestone in the short history of the ACTA negotiations.

“It was notable for  being the first time as part of the ACTA talks that there has been a public side. We’ve come a long way since the first round of ACTA talks that were held in a secret location.”

He said the #ACTA topic was the number one trending Twitter topic in New Zealand on Saturday. “I think there would be a lot of places that would struggle to get the same profile.”