Shocker: Ars, Hollywood agree on need for ACTA openness

November 20, 2009

MPAA head Dan Glickman sent a letter yesterday to both Senator Patrick Leahy (D-VT) and to US Trade Representative Ron Kirk in which he called for a serious US push to pass the secretive Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement. That's certainly expected—ACTA contains a host of goodies for Hollywood and the recording industry—but what came as a surprise was Glickman's irritation at various ACTA "protests" which create "apprehension over the Agreement's substance."

He's referring to online outlets that have hoisted the anti-ACTA flag over the last year, accusing the treaty of being a pretext for ramming "three strikes" laws through without Congressional oversight or empowering Customs agents to check the contents of your iPod. Based on our reporting, neither of these items appears to be in the draft text, but the secretive nature of the negotiations and the bland, impenetrable public statements about ACTA have fueled plenty of suspicion.