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EU Passes Nasty IP Law
FireBreathingDog writes "This BBC report details a new European Union law that 'allows companies to raid homes, seize property and ask courts to freeze bank accounts to protect trademarks or intellectual property they believe are being abused or stolen.'" Like any bit of controversial legislation, it can change massively just before being voted upon. This legislation, which originally had DMCA-like provisions (protections for technical protection measures on copyrighted works), seems to have lost them prior to passage. (I'm sure they'll be back in some new piece of legislation.) However, it does make "regular" copyright enforcement much more aggressive in the EU, with companies able to raid, confiscate and freeze the bank accounts of those accused of copyright infringement. More information: IP Justice, FFII, FFII background.
from the article: But late amendments added to the law limited who intellectual property owners could take action against and what penalties they could apply.
This would be just great if companies like SCO get to have this power. The average politition may not realise what their new 'core business' consists of, and give them the keys to the IP city. In 16 months time will it be a common sight to see 'SCOrm Troopers' busting through windows of offices and razing them?
It's bad enough with the government departments doing this, but profit based companies? Shit, this is scary stuff
You can't expect to wield supreme executive power, just because some watery tart threw a sword at you
*knock knock knock*
Who's there?
Goons... Hired goons.
I am unamerican, and proud of it!
Here's some more information.
Underholdning.info
with companies able to raid, confiscate and freeze the bank accounts of those accused of copyright infringement.
Maybe one can use this against GPL violations. What does the legislation say about when, oh, Phillips or Vivendi might be violating GPL terms? Can we have their assets frozen?
Since your not going to rtfa, ill drop the highlights.
["Before the vote, critics said the law was flawed as it applied the same penalties to both professional counterfeiters and consumers." But a late amendment limited them to organised counterfeiters and not people downloading music at home."]
["The European law was shepherded through the European Parliament by MEP Janelly Fourtou, wife of Jean-Rene Fourtou who is boss of media giant Vivendi Universal. "]
["One amendment said action should not be taken against consumers who download music "in good faith" for their own use."]
"The European law was shepherded through the European Parliament by MEP Janelly Fourtou, wife of Jean-Rene Fourtou who is boss of media giant Vivendi Universal."
Tom.
Oh arse
which gives the member states a framework for new laws that have to be put into legislation within a certain time frame (2 years). So there is still hope that individual states will have less stringent laws than the directive calls for. Although there may also be states that will have far more stringent laws.
***Quis custodiet ipsos custodes***
So exactly *why* are private parties given these rights? Shouldn't they be reserved for the "authorities" after a claim has been acertained as legitimate? What would this mean for a company like SCO that seems to have no real evidence for a claim of IP violation? Could they just use this bill against anyone they *claim* violated IP?
From the article:
"During the debates, the directive was widened to cover any infringement of intellectual property.
The directive allows companies to raid homes, seize property and ask courts to freeze bank accounts to protect trademarks or intellectual property they believe are being abused or stolen."
Time to get some obscure patents or copyrighted material, let it find its way into commercial and government use, and then use the law to raid the business and government offices and seize their assets.
The article states:
The directive allows companies to raid homes, seize property and ask courts to freeze bank accounts to protect trademarks or intellectual property they believe are being abused or stolen.
Is this correct? Are companies going to be granted powers that had been restricted to law-enforcement (for good reasons) up until now?
Will Kodak be able to raid Sony to protect it's intellectual property?
There should be one penalty for both the little guy and the big guy - the law should not be a respecter of persons.
So if someone rips off my LGPL'd code, I can march into their property, breaking down the door, and walk off with all their kit :-) w00t! I feel a BIG beowulf cluster coming on :-)
Stick Men
It's called the European Union Copyright Directive and it was enacted into the national law of many member states last year. Imagine the fun if the worst provisions of this Directive get adopted into national law (they may not necessarily be so enacted) and the EU caves in over software patents - could a programmer's bank account be frozen and his house be raided at midnight for unkonwingly infringing a trivial and obvious patent? As has been remarked round these parts, George Orwell was right but out by 20 years...
Oh wait...
Cooper
--
I don't need a pass to pass this pass!
- Groo The Wanderer -
Lucky for me I live in that bastion of individual freedom: the U.S. of A.!
Hang on, someone is knocking at the door...
Soylent Green is peoplicious!
Traditionally that country would have been America. Go figure.
However, as long ago as 1870, when Jules Verne wrote 20,000 Leagues Under the Sea, he had Captain Nemo note that the only place left free in the world was 30 feet under the surface of the sea, as even the sea's surface was no longer safe from police states.
Nowadays, of course, all the police states have hunter submarines.
KFG
I wonder if local authorities will allow non-official parties to enter your house without official government permission. The EU can decide this, but local authorities can still overrule it, AFAIK. But, IANAL.
"Honey, I feel a certain distance between us..." "Really? A 31ms ping ain't that bad..."
One important detail that seems to have been missed out of the summary... (from the linked BBC article)
"But a late amendment limited them to organised counterfeiters and not people downloading music at home."
"But a late amendment limited them to organised counterfeiters and not people downloading music at home."
... which brings up the ultimate goal of these disgusting cartels. If and when they get their way, there will be no place for us to move to. We'll all be equally beneath their heel.
One important detail got left out of your post.
This applies ONLY to freezing bank accounts and doing background checks.
They CAN still break down your door for suspected copyright infringement at the personal level. This includes trading cassette tapes, as college students have been doing for thirty years.
I predicted that, in the day of the Internet and digital media, either the copyright and patent regimes would have to weakened if not scrapped, or draconian laws that would make the former Soviet Union look liberal would have to be enacted.
Looks like we've chosen the stalinist route: Communism^H^H^H^H^H^H^H Capitalism over Freedom.
Nice going Europe. Scratch another place to move to
The Future of Human Evolution: Autonomy
This same article says that no action may be taken against consumers who act in "good faith" and download music. Of course, we must see how this works out...
Making legislation to protect copyright rights is okay for me, making legislation to limit the use of legally licensed (equals bought) copyrighted material is what's really wrong.
I know exactly what it feels like. I am a practicing illustrator, and copyright is my bread and butter. Until computers transformed anyone with a copy of Photoshop into an "artist" and anyone with an HTML editor a "publisher", your could not exist as a professional without a firm understanding of copyright law. There were few abuses as a result. Since the revolution, theft of images is commonplace. However, as a fledgling illustrator with little to lose but my pride, I braved the web early and learned a lot about intellectual property and business. I learned:
1) Most people are decent and generally ask permission before reproducing my graphics
2) Many people are ignorant of copyright law altogether, but they are not the ones you need worry about
3) Contracts don't mean dink unless you can afford a good attorney
4) The best protection from those who steal intellectual property is your intellect itself. That is, I feel secure that I will survive as an artist even if one of my pieces is reproduced illegally. I can, after all, always make create more work. So I am not militant about copyright enforcement. Trespasses are rare, and do as much to promote my work as they diminish it.
The crooks, on the other hand, need to keep stealing to survive. Those with the most interest in copyright are the non-creators, whose only substinence is their parasitical relationship with creative people. They deal in commodities, exploiting the works of others, and without copyright protection they have no product at all.
Copyright is useful to an artist in the sense that it can permit us to make enough money to do our work full-time. A copyright is actually a bundle of rights, which can be parcelled out to various publishers for far more money than any one publisher is likely to pay. But copyright laws that are two restrictive can also hamper creativity and induce laziness. Personally, I'd love to see the stupid Sonny Bono act (the name says it all) repealed. There is no value in copyrights that last for decades...not to their creators, anyway.
Has it happened to me? Yes, and the law offered me no protection at all. Justice in this country goes to the highest bidder.
Like most parasites, though, I think those who would exploit the creativity of others will soon learn that a good parasite does not suck it's host dry and survive. Already, the RIAA is feeling the backlash of consumers fed up with manufactured music and strongarm tactics. Local animation houses have learned that if Americans can't get quality animation here, they will import it. (Animators are a very exploited breed of artist, who traditionally work long hours for low wages.) Disney is biting at it's own wounds after unwisely deciding that they had no use for traditional artists anymore (Pixar hired most of them...guess whose laughing now?). I think the MPAA and the endless guilds in Hollywood will soon learn that the Independents are numerous, talented and fully capable of distributing their own films, thankyou.
So, how does it feel? It feels lousy, but not nearly as bad signing those rights away to some exploitive corporation who may never get around to cutting you a check anyway.
Screw copyright. Only criminals need rules for morality spelled out on paper.
This amendment seems decent enough:
One amendment said action should not be taken against consumers who download music "in good faith" for their own use.
If it basically restricts the suing to professional pirates, ie people who download music or movies to sell it on the street, then I don't see anything wrong with it. That's what copyrights were meant to do - protect artists/publishers from other publishers (and not from consumers).
If that's what this law is, it seems pretty sensible after all!
Daniel
Carpe Diem
"will need to demonstrate ....that there is a clear and present danger of evidence being destroyed"
Not true, this was one of the things I didn't like. Its worded loosely here:
", in particular where any delay is likely to cause irreparable harm right holder, OR where there is a demonstrable risk of evidence being destroyed"
Note the 'OR', its enough to show that a delay is likely to cause irreparable harm. They don't have to show there is a risk of evidence being destroyed.
but its open to abuse. Large corporations don't seem to be above that kind of thing. And shouldn't it be left up to the police to sort this type of thing out?
Silly rabbit
Too bad though, most EU civilians now are forbidden to own weapons.
When cops enter your home by "dynamic entry", that's one thing, but when CIVILIANS (which is what those private raiding parties are over there) break into your home by force, then they should be SHOT DEAD ON THE SPOT.
Maybe they can get some sharp sticks and skewer a few of them. When some of them get killed pulling these bullshit raids they'll back off..
Note to those thinging of this here: This is the USA, we are ARMED. Don't try it. You've been warned.
I think a right to kill for protecting property is absolutely disgusting.
There is no absolute right to kill. People who shoot intruders under anything less then clear circumstances of a serious threat are often put on trial and have a tough time.
Price of a human life in USA is WAY too low.
The ignorance about what life is really like in the USA is WAY too high.
Look, in the middle of the night, you don't know the intruder's intent, and he's not going to have a little sit down to discuss it. Mere robbers will generally case a house (insert RFID comment here) and wait until it is unoccupied.
I will defend myself and my family to the fullest extent to which I am capable, and use whatever tools I am legally allowed to have (and a few I am not, but that's a different thread). I will take my chances with the legal system rather than the judgement of someone who has broken into my house.
--- Ban humanity.
However, you can for practically all intents and purposes, shoot a stranger in your house as long as they die so there are no witnesses, and especially if they have no reason to be there and have been convicted of burglery before. As long as you stuck to your story that you thought they were reaching for a weapon, no court would convict you of anything. ( I don't know if their family could still sue you for depriving the burgler of their civil right to life. They would only have to get a jury to believe that it was 51% likely that you killed the burgler knowing they were not intent on hurting you )
I can think of many interesting legal/ethical conundrums regarding the right to kill though:
Imagine if there are 100 people about to be killed and the only way to save the other 99 is to shoot one of the 100. Is that legal? Maybe it would be since the 1 was dead meat anyway, but then again we are all dead meat in the long run.
What about if there are 100 people about to die and the only way to save them is to kill an innocent bystander 300 meters away by shooting them? ( maybe they were deaf an facing away, but their body will fall in such a way as to unplug the heavy piece of machinery that is about to crush the 100 people. ) This is probably the most ethical thing to do, but I don't know if it is legal. I wouldn't do it for 100 strangers because I wouldn't want to face the legal issues involved. But were I altruistic enough to sacrifice my own life for 100 strangers ( and some people are ) then I would probably be altruistic enough to kill the innocent bystander and face murder charges myself. If there was someone I cared alot about among the 100 I might do it too.
I suspect killing an innocent bystander to save 100 people is illegal, but what if there were 1000 people in certain to die without a blood sacrifice? 10000? 10,000,000 about to be blown up by a thermonuclear bomb? Would the murder of one innocent be immoral? Illegal?
If you buy that killing one innocent bystander is justified to save New York City from being obliterated by Tsar Bomba, then what about organ transplants? If you know someone's hematocrit etc, you can assemble a list of five or six people who will die soon unless you shoot that innocent person in the head and steal their organs... At how many people is the cut off? Exactly how many bricks does it take to make a Heap of Bricks?
Eat at Joe's.
The problem is simple: the interpretation of "good faith" is up to the raiding corporation.
Scientology is going to LOVE this. Anywhere, anytime, in they come through the windows! Frozen bank accounts! Jail! And all they have to do is ASK?
Yeah, you can take them to court. After all your stuff is gone, your bank accounts locked up, and your person seized.
Does no one remember alt.scientology.war in Wired magazine? Time magazine? Arnie Lerma? The first spam assault back in 97-98, with over 1 million spam messages and forgeries posted to alt.religion.scientology?
They were the first copyright abusing corporate entity, and the first to use spam as a weapon. And they are still #1 for suppressing coverage of their activities. Does no one remember what they did when they didn't have the law on their side? They were raiding THEN.
No one can stand up to the Hubbardites in Europe anymore if even a fraction of this insanity becomes law. Xenu.net will have its hosting ISP's doors kicked in the week after this passes. It'll be illegal in real terms to talk about their "secret" teachings on the internet. This is an eternal gag order.
Music? Movies? That's kiddy stuff. The nuclear strength copyright maniacs are what we have to worry about.
1) But late amendments added to the law limited who intellectual property owners could take action against and what penalties they could apply. The amendments the parliament refers to are actually a compromise reached between parliament and the council of ministers (representatives of EU national governments) earlier in the process. The amendment says, in the preamble (not the main body of the text) that some (not all) of the harshest sanctions, such as freezing bank accounts, should only apply to 'commercial' violations. However, this is very broadly defined as a violation that gives someone an 'economic advantage', which could be applied to, say, someone who downloads a song off the Internet for free. For more information see this story.
2) This legislation, which originally had DMCA-like provisions The provisions banning circumventions of copy-protection technology were passed in the EU Copyright Directive of 2001, and according to a recent study, EU member nations are implementing these sanctions in full, without including protections to researchers and business competition, which they are allowed to do. See this story.
3) with companies able to raid, confiscate and freeze the bank accounts of those accused of copyright infringement This is accurate: these surprise raids are known as Anton Pillar orders, and in civil cases, they allow companies themselves to carry out the raids, hopefully overseen by their solicitors to make sure they keep within the rules of the order. More information on these orders here. In criminal cases, which are the only kind in which most countries allow Anton Pillar orders, the raids are carried out by police. In the UK the raids are allowed in civil IP cases, but only for large-scale piracy or counterfeiting. The new IP directive could make these raids available for any civil IP case. The recent raids on Sharman Networks and others in Australia were authorised by Anton Pillar orders.
It is true that the directive must still be interpreted by member states and implemented in their national laws, and this could represent an opportunity for the directive's harsher aspects to be limited. But it will now be a matter of making this happen in 25 different member countries (post-enlargement of EU) rather than on a Europe-wide level. Additionally, the experience of implementation of the EUCD (see above) suggests that member states won't automatically limit bizarre and repressive directives, no matter how controversial they are.
This is partly because, when they're debating laws like this at a national level, they tend to talk to the parties directly affected -- in this case, people like the BSA and the IFPI (Euro-RIAA); ordinary citizens have to work harder to be included in the process.
Matt Broersma, ZDNet UK