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Dutch Parliament Reverses Software Patent Vote
Sanity writes "On May 18th, by a thin majority, the European Council of Ministers voted in favor of throwing out the European Parliament's efforts to keep software patents out of Europe. According to an FFII press release, the Dutch Parliament yesterday voted to change its Minister's vote, which was in favor, to an abstension. This is an unprecidented move and a great coup for those fighting against software patents, never before has a country reversed a vote in this manner. While this is not sufficient to reverse the decision of the Council of Ministers, it does pave the way for other countries, many of which were pressured into an affirmative vote, to do the same. Now is the time for citizens of the EU to put pressure on their national governments to follow the Dutch lead."
It says that the vote of the Council of Ministers was on May 18th, but that the Dutch Parliament's vote to change their minister's vote was yesterday...so it is current news.
Actually, we are from The Netherlands. And don't forget our tulips. And we lured Andrew S. Tanenbaum to our Vrije Universiteit.
It's a small step on it's own, but that's really good news :) Hopefully some of the countries who were unsure about it but ultimately pressured into agreement will now start to think twice about their choices, and maybe refuse to accept the motion, or abstain, removing the majority that the motion otherwise has.
It'd be better if they had outright voted no, but an abstention is still better than a vote in favour.
If you can change your vote after you see a reaction to it from your financial backers, how is it a vote anymore?
Vote:
1. A formal expression of preference for a candidate for office or for a proposed resolution of an issue.
2. A means by which such a preference is made known, such as a raised hand or a marked ballot.
The dangers of knowledge trigger emotional distress in human beings.
Please use this link instead, it goes to a static version of the linked page. It would be nice if an editor could update the story itself as well, thanks.
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So they were for being against opposing patents. This is your brain on drugs.
Our intelligent designer has never created an animal that we couldn't improve by strapping a bomb to it.
If they had changed their vote to a negative instead of just abstaining then it might have some influence, but the Dutch chose to act as if their man wasn't at the vote.
This won't make any difference the UK vote on patents although the Eurosceptics might enjoy the idea of putting a spanner in the works of the commision on other issues.
Please learn from our mistakes. Don't let stealth legislation ramrod you into 1984. It starts with patents and ends with your freedom. Don't let this opportunity slip by.
If you're a democracy, then you're a constituent, and your opinion matters, as long as it's heard. E-mail works good, but snail mail works better. Better than all of that, however, is a phone call.
The Dutch parliament moved against (well, abstained) the vote against the motion against software patents in europe?
Oh that was clear.
I've finally had it: until slashdot gets article moderation, I am not coming back.
Microsoft has purchased the Netherlands and has patented throwing out software patents.
It was the Minister, who voted in favour of software patents. The Parliament told him: You voted wrongly. Two different things.
If we survive long enough to make the floating cities and flying cars a reality, it will be because inventors, software developers and corporations were open-minded and generous enough to give away their inventions/creations for the benefit of everybody, albeit in exchange of a reasonable amount of compensation, but above all the satisfaction of having done something good for the betterment of others.
The current trend seems to be headed in a completely opposite direction - profit (hate that word now) seems to be the only motivating factor (if not for individuals, atleast for the corporations binding creative humans by heavy handed employment contracts/etc) for any development we're seeing at all.
It's about time we got over this short-sightedness and moved towards a society which is not encumbered by flimsy lawsuits, overstepping patents, profit mindedness, or constant fear of the former two. Information should be free.
An Indian-American Hindu committed to non-violent thought/speech/action alarmed by the global explosion of radical Islam
The only reason that the vote was passed in the first place was because the then European presidency in Ireland was being sponsered by Microsoft.
And people are attempting to change these rules, for just the reasons that this debaukle has highlighted, regarding both the reversal of the parliments decisions by the council and the reversal of the dutch vote.
May the Maths Be with you!
Our dutch political groups were (alomst) all oposed to the law.
The person who was going to vote is the leading person of one of our political groups (that group was oposed to the new law even more than most others)
He decided to vote in favor if the proposal would be changed to be a much nicer law.
The proposal was changed to some extend, but not as far as what he descussed and promised to the rest of his group and the other groups.
He voted in favor of the law, and everyone was stunned!
Things started to rumble as his own party was starting to ask questions.
A dutch digital freedom organisation made a propsition to the different party's to change the vote.
The voter replied that he would not change his vote as that could be harmfull to his party and carreer.
And now all of sudden, probably after more talking and lobying he did change, (or someone else made him)
The decision to originally vote for the software patents directive was based on incorrect information. When this was clear they changed their mind.
ffii
"The European Parliament's version asserted that patents would only be allowed for industrial inventions (e.g. washing machines) and would not be made possible for pure software. All these adaptations were removed in the Council of Ministers' controversial version.
Earlier, Brinkhorst described the Council proposal to the Dutch Parliament as a compromise with the EP. In recent legislative debates, Van Gennip was forced to admit that this was incorrect information, and attributed it to "an error in the word processor." "
-doh!
Wow... the Dutch Parliament reversed a European Council of Ministers vote that had been in favor of throwing out the European Parliament's efforts to keep software patents out of Europe.
In other news, my best friend's sister's boyfriend's brother's girlfriend heard from this guy who knows this kid who's going with a girl who saw Ferris pass out at 31 Flavors last night.
The Netherlands never ceases to impress me with the decisions they make.
This vote shows that the Dutch rep to the EU Parliament defied the government, therefore the people, he "represents". While politicians are sent to lead the people, even when leadership is controversial or unpopular, Dutch minister Brinkhorst blamed his "maverick" vote on a typo. The Dutch, with their traditional prudence and deft style, have reversed the result, without even reversing their vote, by appropriately abstaining when their own vote was dysfunctional. Now the question is: who got to this weasel? Who paid him off? Could it be M$, adding his bribe to the big, yet acceptable, bill they're liable to pay the EU for running a foreign monopoly against their people? How much does it cost a corporation to rig property laws in their favor for decades in Europe? And for the politically ambitious European, does Brinkhorst get to keep his bribe, even though he botched the delivery?
--
make install -not war
It's not dirty at all. The Dutch minister misinformed the national parliament before the vote on the political agreement. This came to light, and now he has to bear the consequences. If anyone played dirty here, it's the minister.
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Note however that the vote was on "a political agreement on a common position of the Council", and that until this political agreement is formalised, no official vote has taken place yet. Of course, it's very much "not done" to change your stance after a political agreement has been reached, but there are no juridical hurdles which prevent you from doing that.
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Then there's Spain. I find the phrase "undermine political credibility in Europe" to be a laughable concept when an entire country changes its majority party in a radical direction because of a single terrorist bombing.
I live in Spain, and I lived through those days of the bombing and elections shortly afterwards. I can tell you something with certainty -- the election went the way it did not because of the bombing, but because of the governing party's response to it. They tried to very crudely manipulate public opinion in the aftermath of the bombing so that the elections would go in their favour. The public was responding to the governments blatent attempt to manipulate them, not the bombing per se.
It's a real shame that it was presented in a lot of the American press differently, because Bush could learn a lot from the Spanish public's response to the governing party's attempted manipulation -- lie to the electorate, and they'll punish you for it.
Typically the EU commission (the commission is the closest thing to a EU cabinet) will propose a new law. The proposal will be considered by the EU Parliament (elected by popular vote), which will issue an opinion. In this specific case the Parliaments opinion included a wide number of changes to prevent software patents.
After the parliament decides on their opinion, the Council of Ministers (ministers of the governments of the member states) vote. In this case the council decided to disregard parliaments opinion and their changes.
However, since it is usually impractical to make official translations to all the official languages, the council needs to vote again on the officially sanctioned translated texts. Only this vote is binding. This is what gave the Dutch a chance to force their minister to change the vote.
Once the Council has voted, the law goes to the EU Parliament for a second reading. If the Parliament approves the legislation or does nothing, the law goes to the Council which can then approve the law by qualified majority. Once so approved, it is the duty of the member states to change their national laws to be consistent with the EU law where needed.
If the parliament REJECTS the law with absolute majority, the council can still adopt the law, but only with unanimity. So if the parliament rejects this law with absolute majority on the second reading it's dead.
If the parliament amends the law with absolute majority, the changes go to the commission. If the commission accepts the changes, the council is authorised to approve the law with a qualified majority. If the commission rejects the changes, the council can only approve the law with unaminity.
In this case the commission is likely to reject any significant changes suggested by the parliament on the second reading, since it wanted the law in the first place.
So it's not as if this change would have automatically become law if the Dutch hadn't changed their mind - it was only about halfway through the process.
Then there's Spain. I find the phrase "undermine political credibility in Europe" to be a laughable concept when an entire country changes its majority party in a radical direction because of a single terrorist bombing.
Yeah. I always thought that the US reaction to 9/11 was such an impressive display of nuance, balance and wisdom.
It would be nice to be sure of anything the way some people are of everything.