Government calls for calm in anti-piracy shake-up

Intellectual Property Office hits back at claims the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement would cause internet censorship

The government has denied claims that the worldwide rollout of a new anti-piracy agreement could lead to widespread censorship of the internet.

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), which has been under discussion since 2007, is an international initiative aimed at promoting the global enforcement of intellectual property rights.

The UK, along with 21 other EU member states, signed up to ACTA last month.

For the treaty to be approved, the European parliament must ratify and vote in favour of its contents.

According to a BBC News report, ACTA prompted protests over the weekend across Europe, including in central London, over fears the agreement could result in internet censorship.

Similar fears were raised recently over the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA), a piece of legislation that would allow the US government to block access to overseas sites for copyright offences.

UK government body the Intellectual Property Office (IPO) has been moved to deny claims that ACTA's contents would have a negative impact on internet free speech.

"ACTA is not about how people use the internet in their everyday lives [and] it is not the intention of ACTA to restrict freedom of the internet and it will not censor websites," it states.

"Internet users can continue to share non-pirated material and information on the web. As the agreement does not require any UK or EU law changes, anything you can do legally today is still legal after the ratification of ACTA."

In a further statement sent to ChannelWeb, Baroness Wilcox, parliamentary under-secretary of state for the Department for Business, Innovation and Skills, said more could be done to help the public understand ACTA.

"It was important for the UK to be a signatory of ACTA as it will set an international standard for tackling large-scale infringements of intellectual property, through the creation of common enforcement standards and more effective international co-operation," said Wilcox.

"During the negotiations, we continually pushed for greater transparency as we believed that this would have led to a better understanding of the agreement by the public. We were able to achieve some victories, but we were limited in what we could do as this was an international negotiation."