ACTA win worth NZ trip: Coroneos
Internet Industry Association (IIA) chief executive Peter Coroneos today said that the decision to release an official draft of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) this Wednesday was a "positive development" and worth his venturing to New Zealand to draw up a declaration calling for such action.
The ACTA agreement aims to establish international standards on how to enforce intellectual property rights, and has involved countries around the world including Australia.
There has been an enormous amount of controversy around the talks due to the little information provided on exactly what is being discussed, despite leaks releasing what appear to be documents on the agreement.
IIA CEO Peter Coroneos
(Credit: ZDNet Australia)
On 13 April ZDNet Australia reported that Coroneos was preparing to get his members to sign a declaration calling for more transparency in the ACTA talks that were to be held last week in Wellington, New Zealand. Coroneos had flown to New Zealand to help draft the agreement called the "Wellington Declaration", which obtained thousands of signatures.
On Friday, after the official ACTA talks concluded in Wellington, a joint statement was put out stating that a draft agreement would be released this Wednesday.
The IIA's Coroneos said that his trip to Wellington to call for more transparency was worth it.
"I think it's a positive development, if not long overdue," he said. "It is something that the Wellington Declaration called for."
Coroneos said that up until this point in time, it had been very difficult for the IIA to form a view on the ACTA agreement. The IIA would now "be able to contribute to the policy process with informed input", he said.
The IIA would now be in a "better position to garner a range of views from the internet industry in Australia and, where necessary, bring to the attention of negotiators areas that were previously identified via leak as being problematic", according to Coroneos.
"It's good to see that the ACTA negotiators are finally prepared to take on board what has become a very widely expressed public concern about the lack of transparency," he said.