Reeling ACTA treaty rejected by three European Parliament committees

Momentum against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement continued to build on as three different committees of the European Parliament voted not to recommend adoption of the treaty.

A final vote by the full European Parliament is scheduled for July. The EU-wide votes followed on the heels of a vote in the Dutch parliament. The Dutch government had placed the controversial copyright treaty on the back burner while it waited for the results of Europe-wide debate over the treaty. But the vote in the Dutch parliament will place pressure on the government to actively oppose the treaty. The ACTA treaty is nominally an anti-counterfeiting treaty, but its provisions would have broader implications for copyright policy. While the treaty is not as bad as its strongest critics claim, it would be a vehicle for ratcheting up already excessive copyright protections by one more notch.