The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is a proposed plurilateral trade agreement which is claimed by its proponents to be in response "to the increase in global trade of counterfeit goods and pirated copyright protected works."[1] The scope of ACTA is broad, including counterfeit physical goods, as well as "internet distribution and information technology".2 http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Anti-Counterfeiting_Trade_Agreement

The governments of the United States, the European Commission, Japan, Switzerland, Australia, New Zealand, South Korea, Canada, and Mexico are negotiating a trade agreement named the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agrement (ACTA). Despite the name, the agreement is designed to address not only counterfeiting, but a wide range of intellectual property enforcement issues. http://www.keionline.org/acta

http://www.eff.org/issues/acta

As of November 03, 2009 it has been leaked how far reaching the ACTA Treay will go. It will in essence allow anyone with a copyright claim to claim infringement get a takedown notice and FORCE the ISP to not only take down the information but also to block your access to the internet.

• That ISPs have to proactively police copyright on user-contributed material. This means that it will be impossible to run a service like Flickr or YouTube or Blogger, since hiring enough lawyers to ensure that the mountain of material uploaded every second isn't infringing will exceed any hope of profitability.

• That ISPs have to cut off the Internet access of accused copyright infringers or face liability. This means that your entire family could be denied to the internet -- and hence to civic participation, health information, education, communications, and their means of earning a living -- if one member is accused of copyright infringement, without access to a trial or counsel.

• That the whole world must adopt US-style "notice-and-takedown" rules that require ISPs to remove any material that is accused -- again, without evidence or trial -- of infringing copyright. This has proved a disaster in the US and other countries, where it provides an easy means of censoring material, just by accusing it of infringing copyright.

• Mandatory prohibitions on breaking DRM, even if doing so for a lawful purpose (e.g., to make a work available to disabled people; for archival preservation; because you own the copyrighted work that is locked up with DRM)
  http://www.boingboing.net/2009/11/03/secret-copyright-tre.html

http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/11/leaked-acta-internet-provisions-three-strikes-and

Why not just post to the other ACTA thread?

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this is international grandstanding. even if this "law" is passed it will take at least 2-3 years to set up. it is unlikly to have any effect on us because 1) internation policeing agencies are extremely bureaucratic. (imagine team america but with paperwork instead of guns) and 2) interagency policing never works due to the one-up-manship and the petty Rivalry of it.