ACTA calls to urgently rethink patents and copyright (open letter)

Submitted by april on 1 July, 2010 - 18:02

Paris, July 1, 2010 - Open letter

The 9th round of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) negotiations just ended in Luzern, Switzerland.

Whatever the final text will be after the next negotiation rounds, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) will remain an illegitimate agreement, by its elaboration process (beyond any democratic control) as well as its content (further strengthening of an outdated set of legislation). Access to medicine in the poorest countries and protection of citizens' fundamental rights in their usage of Internet and digital technologies are too crucial issues to be left out to the hazards of closed-doors negotiations.

In the age of globalized exchanges, the sharing of information improves our societies and saves lives. ACTA is emblematic of an outdated repression of the sharing of information and knowledge. Without awaiting the end of the negotiations, we urge governments negotiating ACTA to:

rethink copyright from scratch to guarantee the potentiality of democratic participation, access to culture and innovation allowed by the networked sharing of information, while guaranteeing fundamental freedoms;
rethink the patent system to adapt it to a world where three major pandemics kill 15,000 persons per day because of the lack of accessible treatment for all.

ACTA belongs to the past.

First signatories of this letter

Your organization can sign this letter by filling the form on La Quadrature du Net website.

Act Up-Paris - France
Action contre le sida - Togo
ALCS - Maroc
Alternatives - Cameroun
April - France
Asociación de Internautas - Spain
Associazione scambio etico - Italia
Bits of Freedom - The Netherlands
Coalition Plus - International
digitalrights.gr - Greece
Electronic Frontier Finland - Finland
Electronic Frontier Norway - Norway
Exgae - Spain
Föreningen fri kultur & programvara - Sweden
Free Knowledge Institute - Europe
French Data Network - France
Gnutiken - Sweden
Health GAP - United-States
Internet Sans Frontières - France
IP Left - South Korea
Jinbo.net - South Korea
KidAIDS - Cameroun
La Quadrature du Net - France
lautre.net - France
Nature Care - Thailand
Ouvaton - France
p2pnet.net - Canada
Piratgruppen - Denmark
Réseau pour l'accès aux médicaments essentiels - Burkina Faso
Swaa - Burundi
Thai Treatment action group - Thailand
The WeReBuild clusters - Europe
UFC-Que Choisir - France
URBLS Bobo - Burkina Faso
Utopia - France
Vrijschrift/Scriptum Libre - Netherlands
Electronic Frontier Bulgaria - Bulgaria

About April

Founded in 1996, April is the main French advocacy association devoted to promote and protect Free/Libre Software. With its 5476 members (5004 individuals, 472 businesses, associations and organizations), April is a pioneer of Free Software in France. Since 1996, it is a major player in the democratization and the spread of free software and open standards to the general public, professionals and institutions in the French-speaking world. It also acts as a watchdog on digital freedoms, warning the public about the dangers of private interests keeping an exclusive stranglehold on information and knowledge.

Press contacts:

Frédéric Couchet, Executive Director, fcouchet@april.org +33 6 60 68 89 31
Jérémie Zimmermann, board member, jzimmermann@april.org +33 6 15 94 06 75