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Read all about ipred.

The criminal sanctions are the wrong instrument. Copyright infringement is a matter of civil enforcement, not criminal enforcement. You cannot spam the Staatsanwaltschaften with copyright infringement.

The RIAA works hard to get the IPRED2 directive adopted which would make criminal sanctions more widely available, effectively messing up the criminal penalty system for the sake of a dying Hollywood movie industry that already lost the war.

It is like the SS who hanged ordinary citizens on the fly who didn't want to defend their Fuhrer until the Endsieg and combat Russian tanks. We are close to that Endsieg of the movie industry. It is about to destroy the foundations of the internet and rule of law just to prevent creative destruction that is about to happen anyhow.

The FFII and the Vrijschrift.org Foundation tell us some more about how bad it could be.

The big one as far as I'm concerned is ``incitement to infringe'', which could open software writers to massive problems.

This directive is about forcing the member states to criminalise certain behaviours. They may go further themselves. It is important to keep the directive proportional, otherwise broad criminalisation will be all over the Community (Europe), and it is impossible / very hard to turn that back.

Inciting an infringement is not an infringement, but it will be a crime, as far as the EP Legal Affairs committee is concerned.

See also: http://www.ipred.org/
http://action.ffii.org/ipred2/

Besides this all we have strict civil law.

MS and EU are _cooperating_. MS, through their proxies of Ireland (Irish: why not and bomb something usefully - say the Microsoft Euro HQ in Dublin?) and Charlie McGreevy (as you might guess from the name, Irish) in the EU Commission are trying to introduce software patents enforceably in Europe, are trying to criminalise all sorts of copyright and patent infringement (see http://www.ipred.org/ ). This "MS opens up". "MS pays fine" things are just a dumb-show to keep the masses happy - follow the money, and you see microsoft simply buying the laws it wants in the EU through corrupt politicians and ueber civil-servants of the EU bureaucracy.

If the EU wanted to really do something about Microsoft's monopoly, they should strip them of the monopolies granted to them - EU protection for their patent and copyright monopolies. As if.

Consider the FFII: http://action.ffii.org/ipred2 http://www.ipred.org/

Article 7 Joint investigation teams
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.

Article 8
Initiation of criminal proceedings
Member States shall ensure that the possibility of initiating investigations into, or prosecution of, offences covered by Article 3 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.

MS propaganda efforts are always very entertaining. Not to forget comical Ballmer. We find it entertaining, so why not the kids.

The point is that the classical consumer software works the same as shareware.
Shareware: you are the good guy when you register
Classic Model: You are the bad guy when you got a copy from your friends.

One is driven by fear, the other by reward. But both need distribution by copying. Unautorised use is part of the business model in both cases! De facto the closed source software market has become a shareware market.

Organisations as the BSA just need to scare the public (but not to much) and combat commercial large scale counterfeiters. However, overambitious legislators could change that.