President George W. Bush and President Barack Obama over the last several years have masterminded an international piracy pact called ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement).  The U.S. leaders long pushed the international community to keep the treaty secret till its enactment, but now at last it's out in the open for public review.

In the draft version, gone are some startling provisions (such as warrantless border searches of petty items like iPods for suspected infringed materials).  But in their place are equally alarming measures such as the creation of a new class of intellectual property crime called "imminent infringement" -- this by definition is basically thought crime (the idea here is to prosecute people who might be getting ready to infringe with a crime).

A major world power may finally be ready to stand up to the U.S.'s controversial treaty.  A major Indian politician speaking with the India Times under condition of anonymity said their country was mounting a resistance effort.  States the source, "We will hold talks with like-minded countries (read Brazil, China, Egypt, etc.) and may oppose the ACTA proposal jointly as well as individually by holding talks with countries involved."

India is particularly worried about certain patent provisions of the treaty.  For example, if India sent Mexico a shipment of pharmaceuticals not covered by patents in those countries, but covered by patents in the U.S., U.S. customs officials could seize that shipment at sea.

ACTA describes:

[Infringement could occur] if a medicine or product is made for which a company holds a patent in any country, no matter how unclear in scope and validity of the patent is.

That's just one of the terms that the leaders of the U.S. and other wealthy nations can appreciate.  They circumvent typical copyright forums -- the World Trade Organization and the World Intellectual Property Organization -- instead favoring secrets summits of only wealthy nations such as the U.S., EU, Canada, Japan, and Australia.

While it may be too late for India to kill ACTA entirely, a unified resistance from developing nations -- like India, China, and Brazil -- could force the U.S. to significantly weaken it.  ACTA is just one of the signs of a reinvigorated anti-piracy movement in the U.S., starting at the level of media corporations and their government lobbyists. 

Earlier this week the producers of the filmThe Hurt Locker made good on threats, filing suit against 5,000 pirates who downloaded the movie via BitTorrent.