The majority of reporting on the topic acknowledges ACTA to be a minor note in the overall G8 agenda, and the official G8 summit web site seems to include intellectual property rights as a minor note in its discussions on the World Economy. Other higher-profile topics set for discussion include global warming, the progress of African development, and nuclear nonproliferation talks targeted for North Korea and Iran.

ACTA, first unveiled after being leaked to the public via Wikileaks, has sometimes been lauded by its supporters as “The Pirate Bay-killer,” due to its measures to criminalize the facilitation of copyright infringement on the internet – text arguably written specifically to beat pirate BitTorrent trackers. The accord will place add internet copyright enforcement to international law and force national ISPs to respond to international information requests, and subjects iPods and other electronic devices to ex parte searches at international borders.

The G8 summit runs from Monday, July 7 to Wednesday, July 9. Thus far little news has emerged on ACTA’s progress in the summit, although most expect the treaty’s details to be ironed out before the summit’s end.