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New EU IP Law Deemed Harmful
JPMH writes "The Register is reporting on this alert from FFII about a new EU Directive on IP enforcement due to go to the Parliament legal affairs sub-committee on Monday, and full Plenary in two weeks time. The detailed text of the measure was only published on Tuesday. FFII says that without better defined safeguards the Directive will lead to a far more agressive, lawyer-driven legal environment for creative businesses. Having seen how similar legislation is used in the United States, FFII fears that it will provide the perfect means for agressive litigators holding dubious intellectual property rights to "pull a SCO" and use the powers of the Directive to seriously harass and damage small open-source projects and innovative businesses. FFII has a list of MEPs to contact here." The law has been described as a DMCA on steroids. We've reported on this before, but it bears repeating...
No really!
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Erick
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Many companies cross-licence their patent portfolio, so they can "innoviate" without treading on others IP. Would it be possible for the public to "develop" patents, transfer them to an FSF-like organization, and use them whenever a SCO type org starts threating the OSS public?
./ readers could challenge ourselves to develop simularly obvious work.. The only problem I could see is enforcement costs time and money.
I relize that Patents are different from Copyright in that patents must be defended to remain valid.. But does it prevent any $0 licence?
People have claimed most patents are obvious.
I'm interested in what the ratio is between politicians who are fully corrupt and know what they're doing with this, and those who are simply along for the ride (and due for a swing or three from the old cluebat). Usually the two groups get lumped together. Harassing the former won't help; the latter may actually lend you an ear. How do we tell who's who? Look at voting records and campaign contributions? Who's the ugliest (which side would that make them on...)?
Intellectual Property template petition... I know someone can throw something together a hell of a lot better. Instead of critisizing it though, just do it. Sure it may sound lame, maybe banners should be posted, or something to signify that everyone can come together and have a voice against this type of bs. Yes I know sounds trollish to an extent, but hell an international group making noise is a lot more than a few people locally. Demographically this could affect everyone. Besides if thousands can come together under a free kevin like cause, certainly we all could come together for something more important.
MoFscker
a hypothetical scenario: What if enough developers & scientists threaten to leave the EU? it has been said before that there are several countries denying this IP nonsense. now, if enough developers/scientists threaten to go, CEOs and politicians should start to think about it. without these people, no innovation would happen in the union. not that there's any chance that this might happen, of course.
This sig does not contain any SCO code.
I've begun a political party here in Australia called Net Effect, which is based on the internet. Right now we only have 10 people who have decided to become members. We need 500 to become a registered federal political party, so we can get on the ballots and fight our recently agreed to Aus-DMCA thanks to the new FTA our government signed with the US.
If you're Australian (anywhere, not just living here), please visit and make your views known in our forums, and if interested become a member.
If you are another nationality, you can still be a forum participant and advise us on how we should go forward to fight this sort of thing. We want to harness good ideas from everywhere, not just our own country, and in return give those same ideas to everyone else who wants to use them. Open source politics, as it should be.
Visceral Psyche Films
The FFII is putting out a lot of FUD about this directive. It merely harmonises law across states: it does not increase it (except for those states that have poor IP law).
The alert is couched in the kind of rhetoric that does nothing to establish civilized debate (they used terms like "pull an SCO", "nuclear weapons" of IP law enforcement, etc) but you usually find with FUD.
The "anton piller" orders (i.e. search and seizure) they get so upset about are already available in many jurisdictions (e.g. the UK), all the directive is doing is making sure that the same procedures can be used across all EU member states, otherwise copyright infringers are able to locate their activities in a low-enforcement-quality state and make copyright law ineffective elsewhere in the EU.
It's total FUD by the FFII that "In Europe these kinds of investigatory procedures are more usually associated with criminal proceedings with a much higher standard of proof": anyone with legal training (i.e. someone like me) will tell you that these orders are routinely used in civil actions, they are not "more usually" associated with criminal proceedings. There is already a very high standard of proof required by judges for anyone trying to use these orders: in fact, the proof and consequences are such that most lawyers will tell you that wherever possible try to avoid them, only use them when they are really needed: the whole purpose of these orders is to prevent an infringer from dumping evidence (e.g. flushing it down the toilet).
So when FFII blocks this directive, and then we find a commercial company operating out of a new EU member state where enforcement is not harmonised that's abusing the GPL, and no one can take action to prevent that GPL abuse, then we'll find out how happy FFII about the state of IP enforcement. I would think that it's in the interest of the open source community to look for more effective IP enforcement measures, but to prevent any IP protection measures that stifle open source. These kind of enforcement harmonisation has no negative effect on open source: in fact, it goes some what to helping the situation.
Can intellectual property exist in a hive mind?
Would it be a good idea to add a Europe section to slashdot?
Recent developments in politics have had significant impact on the rights and liberties of citizens. Where hackers have traditionally chosen to stay away from politics, these developments force hackers to be aware and stand up for their rights.
Slashdot has done a good job of reporting and fostering discussion on political issues in the USA. However, much of the badness that happens in the States, because of flawed laws and a flawed legal system is threatening to happen in Europe as well, as a result of introducing similar laws, without people being adequately aware that this is happening. Many slashdot readers know about the DMCA and its pitfalls, but awareness of the EUCD is much lower, even among European readers. Any discussions concerning the Rest of the World tend to be overshadowed by discussions about the USA.
The source of the problem appears to be the US-centric nature of slashdot. To salvage this, europeans could turn to their own sources for news and discussions concerning them, but I do not believe this is the Right Thing. It separates the communities, which favors alienation over mutual understanding, and makes both sides miss out on insightful and interesting comments made on the other side. Instead, I advocate that slashdot add sections for different parts of the world, so that readers from each part can get news concerning them, while still participating in global discussions and having the option to join discussions concerning those in other parts of the world.
Note that, although I have written this post from a very Europe-oriented perspective, the arguments apply equally well to other parts of the world, e.g. China.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
This year are parliamentary elections.
I urge all the readers from france and GB
to vote people like McCarthy (responsible for last years assault against the patent status quo regarding Software)
And Fortou (the wife of the Vivendi boss, she is responsible for this bill) out of the office!
Please first of all go to the EP elections this year.
And please vote for people and parties who are against Software Patents and against this Copyright bill!
There are some in the EP those need to be strenghened. People like McCarthy, Fortou, and Wuermeling (the german pusher for US like patent laws) heve to be kicket out of this institution by their real bosses.
Givcen the fact that there usually is a very low voting quote at the EP elections, a few hundred thousand people really can kick those corrupt bastards out!
Well, could this be the beginning of the end of capitalism as we know it. Lets look at history, of every system which first worked and got into severe imbalance where the masses had to suffer, there was a backswing.
Religious wars (30 years war) had a philosophical backslash in the following years, which caused modern science the diversion of government and church and democracy, the absolutism ended in the french revolution and founding of the United States and the French Republic.
The dictatorial communism ended in the collapse of the system because it was no longer carried by the people.
And what we are running into here seems to be the end of the corporate capitalism.
It would be more of a wonder than anything else if major corporations like they exist now will still be existing in about 100 years, if they dont change their way.
Probably it could be the end of the monetary system at all, depending on the problems we run into by the current situation.
From everything which had a major failure in the past people have turned away from at least for a few hundred years after the experiment failed.
I see corporate capitalism going the way of the Dodo, all it needs is going down further down the current road, and a bunch of people (who will arise), with new ideas on a countersystem which could work!
For instance going back to micro companies with open borders so that every country has the chance to produce and the wealth can be shared instead of being grabbed by a few corporations and the people behind it!
Europe isn't entirely a legal black hole, you know.
It's worth noting Article 2.1:
Recitals 4 and 5: and Article 20: The point is, that this directive goes far beyond what was agreed at TRIPS in promoting the interests of supposed rightholders. (It is "TRIPS-plus" in the jargon, or "the DMCA on steroids", according to Ross Anderson in Cambridge).The other point is that it is absolutely against any idea of good lawmaking for rightsholders to try to crash this through all its remaining Parliamentary stages in three weeks flat.
It's fine to oppose something on principle but the FFII's alert doesn't seem to be proposing any alternative solution, other than "not what you've got", which weakens their stance IMHO. If they want to make a stand on IP, then they should do so instead of just being naysayers.
You might like to look at the amendments being canvassed by Andreas Dietl of European Digital Rights (EDRi), which you can find on the FFII website.
Mr Lenz, read the 6 feb text of the directive, you are a professor of law, you will get soon that it is a totally premature draft, just look at the language used. There is so much confusion in the text. Why do we need for instance rules who to calculate the damage as civil right may be enough. And read how the damage is "defined".
Intellectual property rights is used as a term but nowhere defined. see Art 3.
It is a law written by radicals and lobbyists, but horrible from a law system perspective. I found the FFII position about this crap very moderate. You can read it here.
Ok, see my earlier reply to this message:
Let's start the initiative then: sign this petition and add it to your sig.
I'll try to keep you posted on the progress.
Support a Europe-related section on Slashdot!