For months, civil libertarians and internet freedom advocates have been fretting, with good cause, about the nominally secret multilateral negotiations on a document called ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.

Essentially, the agreement aims to take the flawed US Digital Millennium Copyright Act and export it worldwide, only favoring the copyright holders more.

Numerous leaks showed drafts that would have encouraged signatory nations, including the US, Japan and EU members, to become a sort of super-copyright police, possibly cutting off repeatedly accused pirates from the internet and searching laptops at the border for unapproved movies and music. Read more