p2pnet - rss feed: EU debate threatens file sharing
Online music sharing could become a criminal offense in Europe if some members of the European Parliament win next week’s debate on a draft law meant to stop mass pirating and counterfeiting of digital media such as music and movies.
Instead of focusing on law breakers, as the European Commission intended, "the Parliament’s legal affairs committee wants to stretch the proposal to include peer-to-peer (Potpie) exchanges of digitized music," says the IDG News Service here.
"The proposed changes to the intellectual property rights enforcement directive collide head-on with citizens’ rights to privacy, and have angered consumer groups and legal academics."
ISPs are also opposed to the changes to the bill, "because they say they would be required to snoop on their subscribers or face fast-track injunctions in the courts to reveal private information," says the report. "A provision of the enforcement bill would subject ISPs to criminal sanctions if they fail to provide information to copyright holders about subscribers who may be infringing copyrights."
Last year, through its IFPI (International Federation of Phonographic Industries), Big Music and the major movie studios complained the European Commission’s proposal to limit enforcement measures to breaches of copyright "for commercial purposes" was too soft.
"Even though the proposal granted rights holders criminal legal tools to pursue pirates across the European Union (EU), this wasn’t enough for them," says the story. "The proposal ‘failed to introduce urgently needed measures to hold back the epidemic of counterfeiting,’ music and film companies said after the Commission’s proposal was unveiled a year ago" and, ‘The Commission’s proposal fell short of international requirements agreed at the World Trade Organization, said Ted Shapiro, director of the European Motion Picture Association."
International intellectual property protection rules called TRIPs (Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights) of the World Trade Organization (WTO) urges WTO members to impose criminal sanctions, such as imprisonment, for people who counterfeit goods for commercial gain, writer Paul Meller goes on.
And, "Shapiro admits that by stretching the proposed EU law to catch file shares, the European Parliament is going beyond the TRIPs agreement" but not surprisingly, "You could say the amended version is TRIPs-plus," he said.
However, the European NetAlliance, with BT, Deutsche Telekom AG, Vodafone Group PLC, MCI (WorldCom Inc), Verizon Communications Inc and Yahoo Inc listed as members, has said, "It must be ensured that consumers are not placed on the same level as parties that violate copyright for commercial gain or as members of organized crime."
Consumer groups have also weighed in, as have "National governments," the IDG report continues, and the Council, Parliament and the Commission have held four meetings this year to try to reach a swift conclusion to the debate: "All three institutions want the directive agreed to at first reading in the Parliament before March when the parliamentarians leave Brussels to campaign for re-election," says the story, adding:
"The Parliament hopes to put the proposed directive to a vote toward the end of February. However, the topic has already been added and removed from the plenary agenda several times. Many critics of the bill say it would be sensible to delay it again."
