Bulgaria has formally withdrawn its support for an international anti-piracy agreement, just days after a wave of demonstrations across Europe from protesters who claimed the agreement would violate human rights.
Bulgaria's dismissal of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) comes only a month after its parliament signed the agreement, which aims to establish an international legal framework for counterfeit goods, generic medicines and copyright infringement on the Internet.
The proposal sparked co-ordinated protests across Europe on February 11th, including in Greece, Bulgaria, UK, Italy and France.
Bulgaria officials said they would wait until there is a clear EU position on the pact before moving forward. "I'm a pessimist when it comes to regulating an industry, which hasn't adapted to the digital age, through sanctions rather than market means," Economy and Energy Minister Traicho Traikov told reporters in Sofia, according to Bloomberg. "Authors' copyrights should not be placed above human rights."
The ratification of the pact was signed by 22 EU countries in Tokyo on January 26th, including Greece and Bulgaria. Some countries, including the Czech Republic and Poland, have stopped moving toward ratification, while Germany, Slovakia and Estonia are among the EU members that have not signed.
Before it goes into effect, ACTA still has to be ratified by the European Parliament, which adopted a resolution on March 10th 2010 on the transparency of negotiations, claiming it had to "respect fundamental rights, such as the right to freedom of expression and the right to privacy". The debate is set for June.
Protesters in Bulgaria have complained that ACTA was signed in secrecy, without any public debate or sufficient consultation with civil society groups. Under ACTA, copyright holders would be able to force Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to disclose personal data without court proceedings.
Opponents also slammed the authorities for joining a "fluid" international accord, whose anti-piracy provisions could lead to violation of basic civil rights and freedoms.
"The key problems with ACTA stem from the fact that the texts are extremely vague and would allow the use of mechanisms violating citizens' fundamental rights and freedoms," Stanislav Dodov, one of the Sofia protest organisers told SETimes.
"It is absolutely crucial that ACTA be shelved," Anestis Samourkasidis, head of communications for the newly formed Pirate Party of Greece, told SETimes.
"What started off as a charter to deal with counterfeiting physical products has come to include digital material, and instead of being negotiated secretly it should have been drafted openly in collaboration with all countries under the umbrella of the World Trade Organization," Samourkasidis explained.
Alexander Georgiev, a Sofia engineer, said he opposes the treaty as it would "allow authorities to rummage through his files and all types of personal data under the pretext that they need to shut down a torrent tracker or some website".
Meanwhile, Romanian movie distributors are up in arms over Internet piracy. "If we launch a movie later than two weeks after its official launch in the US, then we expect a much lower income than initially expected," Oana Stoinescu-Omer, deputy director of the RoImage, a Romanian movie distributor and representative of Motion Picture Licensing Company, told SETimes.
Varujan Pambuccian, head of the IT and Communication Commission of the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of the Romanian Parliament, warned that some ACTA provisions question its practical application.
"Counterfeiting is a phenomenon while piracy is direct theft. But when you bring in an exaggerated enforcement to tackle these, you open the door to abuses," he told SETimes.
"I suggest the movie companies to follow the example of software producing companies. We saw a decline in illegal software, while the acquisition of authentic software has increased. That means their fight against counterfeiting is effective," he added, while criticising the absent public debate before ACTA was signed by the Romanian government.
SETimes correspondants Svetla Dimitrova in Sofia and Paul Ciocoiu from Bucharest contributed to this report.
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