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As noted earlier, ACTA is an international agreement that aims to create international standards on intellectual property rights enforcement.

mostly in secret, between various countries and the EU over the last four years.

Many states have already signed up for Acta, well before the widespread web furore over Sopa.

It has been negotiated,

European Union, Mexico and Switzerland have supported the treaty and shown a commitment to signing it in the future.

trade agreement, which has allowed it certain freedoms from democratic scrutiny.

However, the European Commission was not allowed to negotiate over Article 23 -- the controversial part of the treaty which not only insists on criminal penalties for piracy but also for those accused of "aiding and abetting" copyright infringement -- the member states had to be represented at the table. They negotiated these new criminal sanctions behind closed doors

prison and large fines for companies that that are accused of copyright piracy on a "commercial scale"

Critics argue that this is copyright legislation being pushed through under the guise of a trade agreement so that it doesn't get debated as much. Unusually for a trade agreement, there are criminal sanctions.

supported by major copyright holders including pharmaceutical companies, movies studios and record labels.

GlaxoSmithKline, Pfizer, Sanofi-Aventis, Monsanto Company, Time Warner, Sony, Verizon, The Walt Disney Company, the Motion Picture Association of America, News Corporation, and Viacom.

Acta is opposed by internet companies, digital rights groups such as La Quadrature du Net, the Electronic Frontier Foundation, Anonymous, The Pirate Party, Reporters without Borders, Oxfam, and 13 Sakharov Laureates. It is also opposed by the Members of the European Parliament.

It is undemocratic

Acta has been largely negotiated behind closed doors, with many participating parties being forced to sign NDAs before being allowed to see Acta documents.

The European Parliament voted almost unanimously against Acta on this basis by adopting Written Resolution 12. This included the statement that "economic and innovation risks must be evaluated prior to introducing criminal sanctions where civil measures are already in place" and that all documents related to the negotiations be made publicly available. That doesn't really matter because Members of the European Parliament haven't been consulted. It is even being negotiated outside of existing trade bodies such as the World Trade Organisation and the World Intellectual Property Organisation.

It blurs the lines between piracy and counterfeiting

Piracy and counterfeiting are not the same thing.

Counterfeiting generally requires the person receiving the copied goods to be deceived into thinking it is real.

If you treat Chinese manufacturers who create counterfeit DVDs or medicines in the same way you treat individuals sharing not-for-profit in their homes you know that you will have problems."

They are trying to sneak through a lot of the copyright stuff by pretending it's about counterfeiting

It criminalises copyright infringement when there are civil sanctions already

According to the controversial Article 23, criminal penalties should be applied "in cases of wilful trademark counterfeiting or copyright or related rights piracy on a commercial scale", although the phrase "commercial scale" is not clearly defined and specifically removes the intentionality, i.e. it doesn't matter whether a company intends to make a profit from the pirated content, it only matters whether it has the scale of a commercial operation. Criminal sanctions should also be made available for those "aiding and abetting" infringement on a commercial scale. Critics argue that this means that ISPs and data centres would potentially be liable for aiding and abetting any commercial website that features a copyright infringing piece of content. "This is the nuclear weapon against any actor on the internet," says Jérémie Zimmermann. He believes that the criminal section of Acta will be used as a weapon to ensure that ISPs cooperate with rights holders. As the Sakharov laureates warn: "In the name of copyright enforcement, the European Union and other signatories would be bound to put pressure on internet actors, compelling them to monitor and police the network."

However, while Sopa and Pipa were designed to extend US law to foreign infringing sites, Acta writes the law internationally, and takes away power from democratic governments to tweak their own copyright law.

How does it compare with Sopa and Pipa?

Acta takes away from democratic governments the right to set their own copyright policy or patent policy.

Acta bypasses the sovereign laws of participating nations, forcing ISP's across the globe to adopt these measures.

cs argue that Acta could hinder developing countries' ability to choose policy options that best suit their domestic priorities.

India has argued that Acta's levels of enforcement far exceed anything agreed under the WTO and says it could "short-change legal process, impede legitimate competition and shift the escalated costs of enforcing private commercial rights to governments, consumers and tax payers.

Acta hangs on a vote from the European Parliament, which awaits the outcome of a report by the International Trade Association (INTA). The treaty will be discussed over the next few months before voted on in June. Meanwhile, Poland plans to ratify Acta on 26 January. The treaty will still need to be ratified by the European Parliament and member states individually. If Acta is not ratified there it will get rejected in its entirety.

You can write to your MP or your MEP.