EU Officially Pronounces ACTA Dead As Commission Withdraws Court Of Justice Assessment

from the pining-for-the-fjords dept

In case you weren’t sure yet, ACTA is now pretty officially dead in the EU. While it was mostly dead back in July, when the EU Parliament vociferously rejected ACTA, the EU Commission, who had helped negotiate the treaty, still held out hope that it would be vindicated by the EU Court of Justice. As you may recall, to try to appease those arguing against ACTA, the EU commissioner with responsibility for the treaty, Karel De Gucht, had submitted the agreement to the EU Court of Justice for a determination on whether or not it really went against EU laws, and he had insisted that even with the Parliament’s rejection that he would push forward with that case.

Except… months later, the EU Commission has quietly dropped its request for the EU Court of Justice to weigh in, more or less putting that final nail in the coffin for ACTA in the EU. It’s about a year late, but it appears that the EU Commission has finally realized that ACTA was a mistake for Europe.

Filed Under: , , ,

Rate this comment as insightful
Rate this comment as funny
You have rated this comment as insightful
You have rated this comment as funny
Flag this comment as abusive/trolling/spam
You have flagged this comment
The first word has already been claimed
The last word has already been claimed
Insightful Lightbulb icon Funny Laughing icon Abusive/trolling/spam Flag icon Insightful badge Lightbulb icon Funny badge Laughing icon Comments icon

Comments on “EU Officially Pronounces ACTA Dead As Commission Withdraws Court Of Justice Assessment”

Subscribe: RSS Leave a comment
21 Comments
Anonymous Coward says:

‘the EU Commission, who had helped negotiate the treaty’

where the hell did you get the ‘negotiate’ bit from, then?

i hope people dont get complacent now. i wouldn’t trust those fuckers in the EU Commission, de Gucht in particular, as far as i could spit! if they have dropped this, it is because they have some other hair-brained, public screwing plan in mind!

flint (profile) says:

The EU Commission is not noted for giving up gracefully.

A more plausible interpretation is that they withdrew the case rather than get a definitive judgement against them.

An explicit judgement from the EU Court against ACTA would kill it, and anything that looked like it. Leaving the case undecided leaves a door open for typically EU dodge – put a fresh coat of polish on the turd, call it something different but leave it fundamentally unchanged and pretend you listened to “the people”.

Anonymous Coward says:

Re: Re:

If you listened to the dear de Gucht after all the committees had rejected it, it was clear that at least the upcoming IPRED would hold a lot of similar language as ACTA.

The worst thing in ACTA had nothing to do with internet regulation, though. There was a specific demand for increased minimum damages in court cases. Combine that with the settlement on the new common patent offices and we are talking fertile ground for patent trolling if ACTA had gone through!

Add Your Comment

Your email address will not be published. Required fields are marked *

Have a Techdirt Account? Sign in now. Want one? Register here

Comment Options:

Make this the or (get credits or sign in to see balance) what's this?

What's this?

Techdirt community members with Techdirt Credits can spotlight a comment as either the "First Word" or "Last Word" on a particular comment thread. Credits can be purchased at the Techdirt Insider Shop »

Follow Techdirt

Techdirt Daily Newsletter

Ctrl-Alt-Speech

A weekly news podcast from
Mike Masnick & Ben Whitelaw

Subscribe now to Ctrl-Alt-Speech »
Techdirt Deals
Techdirt Insider Discord
The latest chatter on the Techdirt Insider Discord channel...
Loading...