Eli Draganova, Chairwoman of the National Council for Self-regulation: A debate on the Anti - Counterfeiting Trade Agreement is needed before its introduction in the EU

The ban on torrents, which was announced late last week, provoked violent reactions in our country. On Thursday, Bulgarian Ambassador to Japan Lyubomir Todorov signed the international trade agreement against counterfeiting – the Anti - Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). The decision for this move was made by the Council of Ministers. The Cabinet considered the text of ACTA at two of its meetings. According to ACTA, the countries that have ratified the document should limit the spread of  "programs or devices that circumvent the copy protection for CDs, movies, or music". This actually means a ban on torrents with shared files, torrent sites, and multimedia players.

The agreement was signed by 21 EU member states. Previously, it was endorsed by the United States, Australia, Canada, Japan, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and Switzerland. Five EU countries have not joined the initiative yet: Cyprus, Estonia, Germany, the Netherlands and Slovakia.

In Poland, a total of 10, 000 people staged a street protest last week. The US Congress desisted from adopting two laws against internet piracy - SOPA and PIPA.

The European Parliament’s rapporteur for the Anti -Counterfeiting Trade Agreement,  Kader Arif, resigned. In his statement, he denied the whole process that had led to the sealing of the agreement. "The ACTA agreement is problematic in terms of its impact on civil liberties, the way in which it imposes obligations on Internet providers and opportunities for the production of generic medicines," stated Raif. Although the agreement was signed by the EU countries, the procedure continues in the European Parliament.

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