Controversial antipiracy law heads for EU vote next week

February 20, 2004

CNET News.com reports us that next week the European Parliament is set to vote on a controversial antipiracy law. The proposed law, the Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive, is primarily aimed at strengthening law-enforcement capabilities against organized piracy and counterfeiting in the European Union.

However, the proposed law would also extend anti piracy companies' powers to crack down on pirates and song swappers. And because the directive has been designed to extend to less-serious acts of infringement, some fear it will be used to crack down on casual Internet file-traders. Besides that, civil rights groups say the law's measures would criminalize previously innocuous activities, such as sidewalk entertainment and book readers for the blind:

The directive had been scheduled for a Feb. 9 vote in a plenary session of the European Parliament, but was delayed in order to hammer out a compromise. The parliament hopes to approve the directive before June, when new member states will join the EU, according to industry observers.

The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure said the law, in its current form, would hand too much power to large rights holders and create a hostile environment for smaller companies. "The FFII is very concerned that, without better defined safeguards, the directive may lead to a far more aggressive, lawyer-driven legal environment for creative businesses," the civil liberties group said in a statement on Thursday.

Intense controversy has surrounded the directive, one of several major proposed changes to the way intellectual property is handled in the EU. A 2001 copyright directive, known as the EUCD, finally passed into U.K. law last October, after delays. The European Parliament approved a directive on software patents only after making significant changes, the result of widespread protests by computer scientists, economists, tech companies and software developers. A technology industry body in November condemned the changes, saying they would dilute patent protections.

When the IP enforcement proposal was introduced in January 2003, it drew a "dismayed" reaction from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) and other copyright-holder lobbyists, which called for the measures to be beefed up.

The IFPI argued at the time the directive was introduced that the proposed measures are not tough enough to hold back an "epidemic of counterfeiting," and complained that "the tools the proposal introduces to bring actions against infringers do not even reach the levels already available under some existing national laws" and may "fall short" of what it called international standards, in a reference to the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in the United States.