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...

Comments

Was just thinking about this.

[hyc]

No really!

http://yro.slashdot.org/~hyc/journal/

International Solution

[erick99]

Perhaps there needs to be a cohesive international set of laws for such matters. Clearly these issues cross many borders (The RIAA and it's overseas equivalents, etc.). Software companies, music industries, artists, etc. all sell their wares into a global economy. Just an idea....

Happy Trails!

Erick

Re:International Solution

[The Slashdotted]

It's been said before, but there are many third world countries that can ill afford the western conception of intellectual property. Seaworld embraces conterversy openly. Mexico/Columbia can barley fight our war on drugs, and they have no inherent interest enforcing the US IP.

There was a point in time where the far right opposed any multinational government. "Get us out of the U.N." was one of their chants. My how times have changed.

GPL Patents?

[The Slashdotted]

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?

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. ./ readers could challenge ourselves to develop simularly obvious work.. The only problem I could see is enforcement costs time and money.

sample petition

[segment]

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.

now, what about this?

[ardor]

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.

Help us to stop this in Australia as well

[Quizo69]

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.

Europe Section

[RAMMS EIN]

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.

Btw. another note you can vote those people out

[Anonymous Coward]

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!

Re:These are the Good Old Days

[Anonymous Coward]

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!

Re:Alternative?

[JPMH]

So does the FFII believe that these kind of disputes should be left to the legal systems of individual member nations then or would the FFII prefer to have the EU draft some other directives to handle them uniformly? Or would any directive on this kind of dispute be too draconian according to the FFII?

Europe isn't entirely a legal black hole, you know.

It's worth noting Article 2.1:

the measures and procedures provided for by the Directive are to be "without prejudice to the means which may be provided for in national legislation, in so far as these means may be more favourable for rights holders",

Recitals 4 and 5:

(4) At international level, all Member States, as well as the Community itself as regards matters within its competence, are bound by the Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property (the "TRIPS Agreement"), approved, as part of the multilateral negotiations of the Uruguay Round, by Council Decision 94/800/EC5 concluded in the framework of the World Trade Organisation.

(5) The TRIPS Agreement contains, in particular, provisions on the means of enforcing intellectual property rights which are common standards applicable at international level and implemented in all Member States. The provisions of this Directive should not affect Member States' international obligations, including those under the TRIPS Agreement.

and Article 20:

Without prejudice to the civil and administrative measures and procedures laid down by this Directive, Member States may apply other appropriate sanctions in cases where intellectual property rights have been infringed.

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.