Take action: European Parliament votes on IPRED2 next week

Becky Hogge, 18 April 2007

It’s time to get in touch with your MEP again.

IPRED2 – the EU’s second intellectual property enforcement directive – is going to the vote at the EU Parliament next week. If it passes in its current form, "aiding, abetting, or inciting" copyright infringement on a "commercial scale" in the EU will become a crime. What’s more, it will be the first time the EU will force countries to impose minimal criminal sanctions – this is normally left up to the discretion of member states.

EFF Europe have set up a new website – copycrime.eu – to help stop the directive coming into law in its current form. According to them:

“IPRED2's new crime of "aiding, abetting and inciting" infringement takes aim at innovators, including open source coders, media-sharing sites like YouTube, and ISPs that refuse to block P2P services.

With the new directive, music labels and Hollywood studios will push for the criminal prosecution of these innovators in Europe, saying their products "incite" piracy - with EU taxpayers covering the costs.

Under IPRED2, these same entertainment companies can work with transnational "joint investigation teams" to advise the authorities on how to investigate and prosecute their rivals!”

The directive is poorly drafted, and doesn’t define “commercial scale” well enough to ensure that ordinary citizens exercising their rights under copyright and trademark law aren’t at risk of penalties and fines. EFF, FFII, BEUC and EBLIDA have jointly drafted a set of amendments, which have been tabled by the European Green Party. The amendments would:

Limit the scope of IPRED2 to true criminal enterprises, involving copyright piracy and trademark violations done on a commercial scale, with malice and the intention of earning a profit from the enterprise

Avoid creating an unprecedented scope of secondary liability for Internet intermediaries, ICTs, software vendors and a range of legitimate business activity, by removing the words "aiding or abetting and inciting" from Article 3

Provide legal certainty by adopting precise and appropriate definitions of "on a commercial scale" and "intentional infringement" in Article 2 as commercial activity done with the intent to earn a profit directly attributable to the infringing activity

The coalition need you to get in touch with your MEP and ask him or her to support these tabled amendments before the vote on 24 April. All MEPs have been sent a copy of the proposed amendments, so they will know what you’re talking about when you ask them to “support the librarians', consumers' and innovators' coalition amendments to IPRED2”.

For more details on the amendments, advice and suggestions on what to say to your MEP, and to sign EFF Europe’s petition against IPRED2, visit the Copycrime action page.

2nd EU Copyright Directive Pending Next Week « The Command Line

Reply #7 on : Wed April 18, 2007, 18:54:07

[...] Posted by cmdln on April 18th, 2007 The Open Rights Group, a British activist organization, has the story. Among other things, the IPRED2 legislation as it stands overrides member states discretion and mandates minimum criminal sanctions in cases of infringement. It also seems to target secondary liability, though it does make vague noises about “commercial scale”. [...]

Michael

Reply #6 on : Mon April 23, 2007, 19:01:01

I wrote to all 9 of London's MEPs using the tools linked above this evening, and to my great surprise heard back within 5 minutes from John Bowis. He and his Conservative colleagues will be voting against IPRED - impressive! Will update if and when i hear back from the others.

http://www.johnbowis.com/

Michael

Reply #5 on : Tue April 24, 2007, 14:16:37

Another Conservative, Dr Charles Kannock MEP, wrote to confirm his party "will be voting against this Directive as it lays down rules on criminal sanctions which go too far."

Also, Sarah Ludford MEP, emailed to summarise the Lib Dem position: "There is general agreement to remove patents from the scope of the directive, and [we] ... believe it should be further restricted. Consequently Sharon Bowles has tabled a number of amendments to the vote in the European Parliament scheduled for Wednesday (25th April) which are concurrent with the aims of the Librarians', Consumers' and Innovators' Coalition amendments." Her email was lengthy, so shout me if you want the full detail.

Michael

Reply #4 on : Tue April 24, 2007, 15:46:57

And now Gerard Batten of UKIP has responded: "Every day I get letters from special interest groups amongst my constituents, who have woken up to the fact that the EU is now adversely affecting their lives, asking me to 'make it better' by voting against this or that Directive, or signing this or that amendment. But what we must realise is that it is no good tinkering around the edges of such things. What is needed is total UK withdrawal from the EU, which is what UKIP campaigns and fights for, in order that we can once again govern ourselves through our own democratically elected Westminster Parliament."

Michael

Reply #3 on : Fri April 27, 2007, 09:34:05

Jean Lambert (via a researcher), has now also responded, with a comprehensive and ORG-friendly response:

(edited for brevity)

Jean and the Greens-EFA Group in the European Parliament share many of
your concerns regarding this proposed Directive. We proposed a series of amendments to reflects these concerns at committee stage, which were not adopted by the JURI Committee.

We brought back these amendments for the full plenary debate and vote. The amendments focused on 1) questioning the legal base of the Directive; 2) limiting the scope of the Directive to clear cases of copyright piracy and trademark counterfeiting; 3) deleting reference to the nature and level of sanctions 4) deleting reference to the role of the joint investigation teams; 5) highlighting the importance of cross-border cooperation among authorities.

The most crucial amendments applied to Article 2 (on limiting the scope of the directive and on the definitions of 'commercial scale' and 'intentional infringement', and excluding private users) and to Article 3, to exclude attempting, aiding or abetting and inciting an infringement as being treated as criminal offences.

Jean supported these amendments. One positive outcome of the plenary vote was that private individuals were excluded from the proposed criminal penalties. However, other key amendments were not successful so the Green-group voted against the proposals. Regrettably the Parliament gave its assent by a slim majority.

Jean and the other Green MEPs have been extremely concerned about these
proposals, in particular the potential criminalisation of end-users. See
http://greens-efa-service.eu/flash/ecards/prisoner. A press statement
outlining the Green response to the vote is now available at
http:Turn on JavaScript!.

Michael

Reply #2 on : Fri May 11, 2007, 10:14:59

Both Robert Evans and Mary Honeyball - Labour MEPs - came back to me on May 9th with the following:

"These proposals would establish requirements for criminal penalties for
intentional infringement of intellectual property rights across the
European Union. Preventing counterfeiting and piracy is essential to
protect consumers' health and safety from substandard and dangerous
products, in particular counterfeit medicines. It is also essential to
protect the European economy from counterfeits. It is estimated that it
costs the UK alone up to ten billion pounds a year and put over four
thousand British jobs at risk. These goods also help to fund other
criminal activities such as drug dealing and money laundering,
international organised crime and terrorism.

With free circulation of goods across the European Union there is a
clear case for joint action at the European level. However, Labour MEPs
have serious reservations about the particular Commission proposal to
rush to extend criminal sanctions through European Community
legislation.

Furthermore, this legislation raised difficult issues concerning its
scope, particularly in relation to the definitions of intentional
infringement and commercial scale. The definitions threaten to remove
the discretion of trained and qualified national judges to take the
circumstances of each individual case into account. Such decisions are
best to be left to national courts and national judges who have a wealth
of experience in dealing with such cases.

The text as voted by Parliament could run the risk of potentially
putting innocent consumers in prison, while at the same time creating
loopholes for individual criminals engaged in organised and serious
crime. The Labour Members of the European Parliament voted against these
proposals. The proposals were adopted by 374 votes to 278, and
Parliament clearly remains divided on this issue. The text will now be
discussed by the governments of the 27 Member States in the European
Council who must agree a Common Position and then will return to
Parliament for a second reading."

The Open Rights Group : Blog Archive » Happy birthday Gowers - but where are our reforms?

Reply #1 on : Thu December 06, 2007, 11:00:03

[...] and small-scale non-commercial acts carried out by individuals, now a live issue with current IPRED 2 negotiations). But one year on, things don’t look quite so [...]

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