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Lithuanian Minister of Justice Condemns ACTA and Calls for Re-evaluation of IP

Remigijus ŠimašiusAs I noted in UK Minister says website blocking proposals “imminent”, in a comment on my google+ post about this, the  Minister of Justice for Lithuania, Remigijus Šimašius, who happens to be an Austro-libertarian (he authored a chapter in the book I edited, Property, Freedom, and Society: Essays in Honor of Hans-Hermann Hoppe), wrote:

Lithuanian minister of Justice (me) says that ACTA (even having in mind its vagueness) may hamper internet freedom and strengthens mechanisms of IP protections to the level which is hardly justifiable.

I asked him for more detail and he pointed me to his blog post about ACTA, which google translates as “ACTA – what a beast and how terrible it is?” His description to me about it is:

I have posted my comments on my blog which was used in Lithuanian media. Today I was asked by many Lithuanian media about ACTA.

The essence of my comment was that certain provisions of ACTA are new to our legal system (more severe punishment, more control of internet providing services) and I do not see why those provisions are necessary.

I have also stated that our life is more and more dependent on R&D, new inventions, creativity. Existing IP protection system, however, is more about protecting the IP protection industry than a protection of inventors and authors. Current debate worldwide is a clear sign that we have to re-evaluate the existing IP rights system.

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To the extent possible under law, Stephan Kinsella has waived all copyright and related or neighboring rights to C4SIF. This work is published from: United States. In the event the CC0 license is unenforceable a  Creative Commons License Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License is hereby granted.