7 Aug
2005
7 Aug
'05
5:43 p.m.
Bonjour,
je mer permets un forward de la liste Creative Commons UK:
Patrick
Reports are slowly trickling through on this.
EDRi had already reportetd on the directive proposal July 14:
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number3.14/IPR
Also, Cnet had a report on August 2:
EU plan could put open sourcers in court
The European Commission has proposed a law that could allow criminal
charges to be pressed against a business using software believed to
infringe upon another company's intellectual property.
http://news.com.com/EU+plan+could+put+open+sourcers+in+court/2100-1014_3-58…
For those of you who prefer German and know how to re-arrange split URLs
;) there's a short roundup at iRights.info:
http://www.irights.info/index.php?id=81&tx_ttnews[pS]=1122114803&tx…
Best,
Matthias
David Hirst wrote:
The EU Parliament having just seen off the Patents
Directive, it seems the
EU Commission is trying again. Wired News has reported:
Story location: http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,68418,00.html
This concerns a Directive on criminal measures aimed at ensuring the
enforcement of intellectual property rights.
It can be downloaded from
http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/lex/LexUriServ/site/en/com/2005/com2005_0276en…
It begins with the classic recording industries background about piracy,
equating it to drug trafficking.
It does not even qualify its use of the word "piracy", which is a real
problem in the Malacca Strait and elsewhere. It involves use of machine
guns
to steal ships. A quite different crime from copyright
infringement.
It proposes "Member States shall ensure that all intentional infringements
of an intellectual property right on a commercial scale, and attempting,
aiding or abetting and inciting such infringements, are treated as
criminal
offences."
An associated proposed Council Framework decision (which need not be
scrutinised by the EU Parliament), but decided solely by EU Ministers,
also
says:
"The Member States must ensure that the holders of intellectual property
rights concerned, or their representatives, and experts, are allowed to
assist the investigations carried out by joint investigation teams into
the
offences referred to in Article 3 of Directive
...././EC."
And
"Member States shall ensure that the possibility of initiating
investigations into, or prosecution of, offences covered by Article 3 of
Directive ...././EC are not dependent on a report or accusation made by a
person subjected to the offence, at least if the acts were committed in
the
territory of the Member State."
With Blair today on a campaign to limit human rights against terrorism,
this
may seem a fairly small loss of liberty, but it seems
to me to mean that
any
author of software that is eventually used to infringe
copyright (at a
"commercial" scale) can end up in jail. Not only that, but the "holders of
intellectual property" are permitted to be alongside the official
investigations.
It is barely an exaggeration to say that this gives official sanction to a
mafia like militia. If my car is stolen, or if my house is burgled, even
if
my family is murdered, neither I nor my representative
is allowed to be
part
of the police investigation. What is so special here?
What do I have to do
to become part of the mafia? Own a copyright?
I think there are many improvements that can be made to clarify this law,
which is primarily targeted against counterfeiting. Indeed, I would
suggest
we ask its title to be changed to be against
counterfeiting, where
criminal
sanctions could well be appropriate.
Regards
D
David Hirst
!-!?!-Hirst Solutions Limited
Mobile +44 7831 405443
Home/Office +44 1273 570113
Innovation Technology Sustainability
www.davidhirst.com <http://www.davidhirst.com> <http://www.davidhirst.com/
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