EU Approves New Stricter Anti-Piracy Directive

A Pirate writes "The European Parliament has voted for the new report submitted by Italian parliament member Nicola Zingaretti that criminalize even attempts to infringe on copyrights. Even if the new directive excludes end-users from the law it will still criminalize sites like YouTube and practically all P2P services, and even the developers of these services. The exceptions beside the end-users' personal use, includes studies and research. While the European Parliament apparently describes the new directive as a an attempt to harmonize the copyright laws of the European Countries others have been describing it as a lobby directive."

Comments

Don't forget the children!

[fanpoe]

From the fine article

The EP.....decided that criminal sanctions should apply only to infringements deliberately carried out to obtain a commercial advantage. Piracy committed by private users for personal, non-profit purposes is therefore

I see a lot of commentary around the web that YouTube's only valid business model is due to turning a blind eye to uploaded copyrighted clips. Having seen how my stepsons use YouTube and similar sites I am not at all convinced that this is the case. They are quite happy with the user generated content.

Re:Don't forget the children!

[alphamugwump]

In my experience, the primary attraction of youtube is not the content at all, but the "community". It is difficult to understand until you try it, but posting videos can be incredibly entertaining, due to the amount of attention it is possible to get. With no mods, one can post anything at all that isn't actually obscene, which, practically speaking, makes youtube the perfect environment for a troll. Owing to the way the system counts views and comments (whether positive or not) and gives you honors, anything moderately inflammatory will easily get you on the most-discussed list. Simply put, youtube enables normal people have their own cadre of fanbois.

That's not to say that I haven't used youtube to watch whole TV series, but if all the copyrighted content were to disappear, I agree that they wouldn't be much affected.

I don't understand: isn't this good?

[cyclop]

I'm all for legalizing free, noncommercial share of copyrighted information (that is, what it's called "end user piracy" today). As far as TFA says, it seems Europe now explicitely protects the end user right to share copyrighted information: something that previous Italian legislation, for example, explicitely *criminalized*, instead.

It seems to me that the law bans commercial, money-making piracy (that's OK for me). As for the "banning p2p software", I've not found clear references. Can someone explain me better?

Re:Copyright as an election issue

[TapeCutter]

I have for a long time supported the idea that media featuring a politicians official pontifications should automatically be in the public domain so that large media players (with access to..say...the WH press room), can't hoard this stuff in an effort to pick and choose what the public should be constantly reminded of. Media businesses should be compelled to deposit a copy of the raw footage or transcript to an extended public library service (libraians are tougher than they look). I belive in some countries a similar idea was/is a requirement of running a newspaper?

OTOH: The general public needs to be more forgiving when a politcian "flip-flops", consistency is an admirable trait but impossible for a leader that is willing to listen, learn and adapt to "changes on the ground". "Sorry I fucked up" should not automatically bring calls for resignation, impeachment, ect. (BTW: Don't take this as support for anyone in particular, IMHO some of the neo-cons deserve a CIA trip to ***stan for questioning).

Liberal Democrat MEP's views

[splodus]

This is the reply I received from my Lib Dem MEP, Graham Watson, who is leader of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe, to an email I sent him urging him to support amendments to the directive. I think he has quite a good grasp of the issue, and when they failed to get all the amendments included, they voted against.

Interestingly, my UKIP MEP, Roger Knapman, also voted against...

Thank you for your email of 23rd April 2007 regarding the directive on
criminal measures aimed at ensuring the enforcement of intellectual property
rights. The infringement of intellectual property rights, such as
counterfeiting and piracy is a growing phenomenon which has a serious
economic effect on the global scale. The Commission proposed this directive
to offer additional provisions to strengthen and improve the fight against
systematic infringement of intellectual property rights.

Although I am not a member of the Legal Affairs committee which has
discussed this directive, I am indeed aware of the matter and share a number
of your concerns about its current drafting. There is general agreement to
remove patents from the scope of the directive, and I believe it should be
further restricted. To this end, my Liberal Democrat colleague Sharon Bowles
MEP tabled a number of amendments for the vote in the European Parliament
which are concurrent with the aims of the Librarians', Consumers' and
Innovators' Coalition amendments.

I understand that Sharon has sought to address the current wording of
Article 3 which stipulates that "Member States shall ensure that all
intentional infringements of an intellectual property right on a commercial
scale, and attempting, aiding of abetting and inciting such infringements,
are treated as criminal offences". In its place, Sharon proposed that
"Member States shall ensure that all intentional infringements of an
intellectual property right on a commercial scale, or wilfully and
specifically aiding of abetting or inciting such infringements, are treated
as criminal offences when there are aggravating circumstances of organised
crime, counterfeiting, piracy or serious risk to health or safety". This
clarifies that innocent or unknowing assistance to infringe is not covered
and also restricts the scope of offences to which criminality could apply.

A second concern is one of definitions. Although I gather the Librarians',
Consumers' and Innovators' Coalition amendments have done a fair job at
establishing definitions, I do believe it far better to remove the
definitions from the text completely. This to my mind is safer and allows
judges to dismiss cases that might otherwise be caught by specific
definitions. For this reason I supported Sharon's amendment which eliminates
definitions.

Unfortunately, in the vote in the European Parliament on Wednesday 25th
April, a number of these amendments did not pass and subsequently the Group
I lead voted against the directive. But, realistically I believe there is
some way to go before we will know the final shape of this legislation as
this is just the first reading but I hope this answer is reassuring that
Liberal Democrats in the European Parliament take your concerns seriously.

Please do not hesitate to get in touch should you require further
information.

Yours sincerely,

Graham Watson MEP

Member of the European Parliament for South West England and Gibraltar

and Leader of the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe