Case Study: Anti-Copyright Trade Agreement draws backlash from German students

I have been trying to watch “The Big Bang Theory” for months now. I mean, I’m a physics major ““ it’s a comedy about a couple of physicists. Its science adviser is a UCLA professor, and the Barenaked Ladies wrote the theme song.

Yet despite Netflix and Amazon.com accounts, I can’t watch it in Germany. Nor can I watch the new Rihanna video ““ or that of Van Halen or Sleigh Bells ““ take your pick of genre.

GEMA, the German copyright law that protects musicians, is stringent and blocks most official music videos. And few shows stream legally from their network sites outside of the United States.

I’m only here for another two weeks, so I can go without Leonard and Sheldon’s banter until I return home. But German citizens are generally out of luck if they want to watch up-to-date series. This opens up the market for websites that illegally link to or stream American television shows or new music.

In the last few months, Berlin has been at the forefront of the battle against the Anti-Copyright Trade Agreement, known as ACTA, that seeks to regulate copyright laws internationally.

The multinational agreement aims to raise global standards of enforcement of intellectual property rights without changing current laws, according to a statement released in February by Karel de Gucht, the European commissioner for trade. It has already been signed by the United States, Japan, Canada and other countries.

But after large protests in February, Poland, Germany and the Netherlands postponed signing the agreement. It is currently undergoing review in the European Court of Justice to ensure that it complies with existing laws in each country.

The United States experienced its fair share of protests in January against copyright regulation with the Stop Online Piracy Act and Protect IP Act, more commonly known as SOPA and PIPA. I followed the news of the protests as they spread across the country, and certain online actions, like Wikipedia’s and Reddit’s blackout protests, affected me in Berlin.

Some of my European friends were also concerned with the Wikipedia blackout, which came about just as we started to write end-of-term essays and study for final exams.

ACTA, compared to the SOPA and PIPA legislations, has received little fanfare in American media. But European students have had a strong reaction to the agreement. Citizens are angry about ACTA’s provisions ““ that it could restrict Internet freedom and affect the delivery of generic medications to developing countries.

People are also upset about its actual creation. Many groups, including the European Parliament, have complained that ACTA was drafted in secret without fair representation from elected officials.

In February, about 20,000 Germans marched against the act.

A few news agencies, including Britain’s Guardian and the Huffington Post, have stated that one of the reasons the response has been so negative in Germany is because of lasting Stasi-era fears. When East Berlin was under the control of the Soviet Union, the Stasi police were notorious for taking secret audio and video recordings of normal citizens.

So despite the enthusiasm for protest among German students here, I could not find anyone who was willing to go on the record about their actions or opinions. Almost everyone I talked to did not want their names to be associated with their political beliefs, for fear it would affect future opportunities.

I’ve seen reluctance like this before in the general German attitude toward everyday Internet use. For example, in Germany, citizens can blur out their apartments on Google Maps, and the few I have met who use Facebook have fewer than 200 friends and refuse to post photos or personal information.

Susann, an elementary school studies student at Freie Universitat in Berlin, participated in the February protests.

She allowed me to use her first name, but said she was afraid she would have trouble with her American visa if she made her comments public ““ she is applying to study at the University of California in the fall. She said the secrecy surrounding ACTA’s creation makes it seem as if the European Union no longer cares about day-to-day democracy.

Protests are nothing new to German students. Throughout my time here, I’ve seen them spearhead the Occupy movement, walked through multiple teach-ins at both Freie and Humboldt universities, and have been invited to save at least two nightclub staples whose leases were being terminated.

But this time, students seem to have really gotten the attention of the German government, which has so far refused to sign ACTA.

While ratification in the European Union is still up in the air, Russia, China, Brazil and India have all said they will not sign the agreement. And many supporters and protesters of ACTA have said the agreement is useless without the cooperation of countries where copyright theft is renowned.

ACTA might also be ineffective in the United States, if it is not first approved by Congress, said Michael Barclay, a UCLA School of Law graduate who is a fellow at a free speech foundation.

Both Barclay and Jon Van Lew, a doctorate student in mechanical engineering at UCLA who participated in grassroots efforts against SOPA and PIPA, said a reasonably priced, convenient system of paying for music and movies would go a long way toward ending piracy.

“Most people who pirate … do it because it’s convenient,” Van Lew said.

He said he thinks most people would be willing to pay for content, and cited Netflix as an example of a company who has successfully capitalized on Internet distribution.

But Susann said she thinks it is absurd that people and corporations make millions of dollars from, for example, the film industry.

She said a better system would be to charge a small flat rate and give people access to all content on the Internet, as it is for TV and radio in Germany. All households with a TV set pay a licensing fee each year that earns them the right to watch most TV shows and listen to the radio.

By the time the European Court of Justice rules on ACTA, however, I will be back in California, catching up with Leonard and Sheldon and making up for eight months without Trader Joe’s frozen food section.