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New EU IP Law Deemed Harmful

Posted by michael on from the or-forever-hold-your-peace dept.

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...

5 of 165 comments (clear)

  1. International Solution by erick99 · · Score: 5, Interesting
    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

    --
    http://www.busyweather.com/
    1. Re:International Solution by The+Slashdotted · · Score: 5, Interesting

      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.

  2. GPL Patents? by The+Slashdotted · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.

  3. now, what about this? by ardor · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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.
  4. Re:These are the Good Old Days by Anonymous Coward · · Score: 5, Interesting

    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!