Secret copyright treaty participants demand less security, more border-searches of iPods

Michael Geist reports in from the latest round of secret negotiations on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, a radical copyright treaty being negotiated without public oversight or participation:

The International Trademark Association (INTA) and International Chamber of Commerce have issued a release on ACTA urging countries to drop the de minimis provision that is designed to allay fears of iPod searching border guards. The two associations argue that the exception “sends the wrong message to consumers.”

Their demands come just as the consensus on transparency for ACTA has broken down. Following the New Zealand meeting in April, there was consensus achieved on the need to release a draft version of the text. It is now clear that the overwhelming majority of countries favoured continuing this approach by releasing updated versions at the conclusion of subsequent meetings. That did not happen after the Lucerne meeting, however, with both the Swiss and European Commission delegations indicating that they favoured releasing the text but that one delegation did not. It is a safe bet that the U.S. is once again the key holdout on the transparency issue.

INTA, ICC Oppose De Minimis Provision in ACTA