EU IP Enforcement Directive Criticized

wiredog writes "A commentary at ZDNet UK concerning the proposed EU IP Enforcement Directive describes it as being as bad as, or possibly worse than, the American DMCA. Some snippets: 'You want to change the tyres on your 2006 model Ford Prefect? Anything other than genuine Ford tyres -- with the genuine Ford ID chip -- will disable your car. In the brave new world of the Directive, singing ... in public with your hat on the floor would be a crime,... You can imagine how much the police are going to enjoy having to cope with that.' It closes with the observation that "intellectual property is verging on thought crime."" Civil liberties groups have sent a letter to EU urging that the proposal be rejected.

Comments

a good example

[Potor]

of the dictum that if you make enough laws then everyone can be a criminal

Scary Stuff

[einhverfr]

I rember when the CPTEA was upheld recently, it was upheald because the US Supreme Court found that it had been Congress's intention to harmonize US Copyright Law with that of Europe, not the intent to create a perpetual term of copyright.

As much as I am unhappy with the DMCA, I think that the criticism that the US is more unballanced in this regard than Europe is not accurate. Europe has been the leader in copyright terms.

It seems that the EC (European Commission) is trying to create a market for patent and copyright driven businesses by suggesting that they can provide better protection than the US. The US may try to match. the fundamental problem is that:

1: Unballanced protections such as we have today do NOT help produce innovation and will only relate to higher R&D costs which have to be passed on to the consumer and
2: Every other nation in the world will be forced to play this game of "I can offer you at least as much protection as they can."

This is a scary situation. I think we need to fight this one NOW.

"Intellectual property" is an oxymoron

[heironymouscoward]

No person creates anything except on the back of an unbroken chain of human culture, all ideas and concepts are the refinement of untold precedents, and the mere concept of defining these as the "property" of individuals or groups is a vile and sleazy attempt to create monopolies of thought.

What we call "creativity" is in fact the process of digesting and reformulating a huge number of existing concepts, ideas, patterns, and principles. Nobody creates anything from a blank slate, indeed the concept of a human being without the cultural baggage of a million years is a joke.

The good news is that any organization that closes itself off from the cultural mainstream becomes as relevant as an artist forever trying to protect that 'one big hit' instead of looking to create another one.

So, while this seems an inevitable symptom of today's cozy partnership between big business and big government, it won't last. The revolution always comes from those, with nothing to lose, who have everything to gain.

Reject the proposal? Hah!

[SysKoll]

Civil liberties groups have sent a letter to EU urging that the proposal be rejected.

Fat chance. The EU is a huge bureaucracy. European don't even know the names of the EU commissars, and the Commission cultivates the virtue of secret and opacity with a success that would have made Beria jealous.

So public opinion has really no impact whatsoever on the bureaucrats. What matters is the lobbyists. According to the Wall Street Journal, there are about 10,000 lobbyists in Brussels. (I believe this doesn't include employees of the larger lobby cabinets).

Large companies are therefore overrepresented in Brussels. Contrary to what naive Americans can think, established companies love the thick layers of bureaucracy and the entanglements of redtape. Why? Because it allows them to:
1. Keep startup competitors out of their business by making it too difficult to enter the field,
2. Pass their pet legislations through coatroom deals.

Europeans wanted a super-state, they've got it. Oh wait... Cancel that. Nobody told the poor schmucks that they would eventually end up in a remake of the Ottoman Empire.

-- SysKoll