A few years back, there was a fierce battle between those wishing to lock down software with patents, and those who wanted to keep copyright as the main protection for computer code. Thankfully, the latter won. Here's what the BBC wrote at the time....
On Open Enterprise blog.
I've noted before that at the heart of the ACTA negotiations there is a con-trick being played upon the world: insofar as the mighty ones deign to pass down any crumbs of information to us little people, it is framed in terms of the dangers of counterfeit medicines and the like, and how we are being "protected". But, then, strangely, those counterfeit medicines morph into digital copies of songs - where there is obviously no danger whatsoever - but the same extreme measures are called for.
Unfortunately, the European Union has now joined in the parroting this lie, and is now pushing even harder for ACTA to be implemented:
The European Union appears to be preparing for adoption of the “gold standard” of enforcement, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), as intellectual property law expert Annette Kur from the Max Planck Institute of Intellectual Property, Competition and Tax Law said it is now called.
At a conference of the Swedish EU Presidency on “Enforcement of Intellectual Property with a Special Focus on Trademarks and Patents” on 15-16 December in Stockholm, representatives from EU bodies, member states and industry supported a quick enforcement of ACTA, according to participants. A representative of the Justice, Freedom and Security Directorate General of the European Commission, presented a plan for a quick restart of a legislative process in the EU to harmonise criminal law sanctions in the Community.
Worryingly:Only two members of Parliament attended the conference in Stockholm, which despite its high-level panels was not much publicised by the Swedish presidency. Not even an agenda had been published beforehand
That is, the inner circle of the EU, represented by the EU Presidency, was clearly trying to minimise scrutiny by the European Parliament, which has historically taken a more balanced view of intellectual monopolies and their enforcement. That matters, because:Under the Lisbon Treaty, the European Parliament would be kept informed of the negotiation process in a manner similar to the Council, a Commission expert said. Furthermore, the ACTA text would be approved both by the Parliament and the Council.
In other words, the European Parliament now has powers that allow it to block things like ACTA, should it so desire. That's obviously a problem for those European politicians used to getting their way without such tiresome democratic obstacles.
Despite this shameful attempt to keep everything behind closed doors, the presentations show that even among those with access to the inner circle there are doubts about ACTA's "gold standard". Here's what the academic Annette Kur said in her presentation [.pdf]:Using the public concern about serious crimes like fabrication of fake and noxious medicaments as an argument pushing for stronger legislation on IP infringement in general is inappropriate and dangerous
It is dangerous because it obscures the fact that to combat risks for public health is not primarily an IP issue
It is inappropriate because it will typically tend to encourage imbalanced legislation
Similarly Kostas Rossoglou from BEUC, the European Consumers’ Organisation, was deeply worried by the following aspects [.pdf]:Counterfeiting used as a general term to describe all IPR Infringements and beyond!!!
Broad scope of IPRED Directive – all IPR infringements are presumed to be equally serious!!!
No distinction between commercial piracy and unauthorised use of copyright-protected content by individuals
No clear definition of the notion of “commercial scale”
Things are moving fast on the ACTA front in Europe, with a clear attempt to steamroller this through without scrutiny. This makes it even more vital that we call out those European politicians who try to justify their actions by equating counterfeiting and copyright infringement, and that we continue to demand a more reasoned and balanced approach that takes into account end-users as well as the holders of intellectual monopolies.
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Even though the internet is 40 years old, and the Web 20, it's only in the last couple of years that European politicians have started to take a deep interest in its workings – and implications for society. However, the flurry of activity we have seen in recent months more than makes up for that long neglect....
On Open Enterprise blog.
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Sorry, it's time to get those virtual quills out, and to write to your MEPs. There's a crucial vote coming up in the next couple of days that may see net neutrality killed in Europe thanks to the British and French governments. La Quadrature du Net has the details; here's my letter:I am writing to ask you to urge your colleagues, particularly those on the ITRE committee, to vote in favour of amendment 138/46 to the Telecoms Package, and not to allow it to be deleted or watered down in any way – for example, by making it an indicative recital instead of an article.
As a journalist who has been writing about the Internet since 1994, I know how important it is that the connection is provided without any technical restrictions. This is the only way that innovations can emerge – indeed, the British inventor of the Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, has said that if restrictions of the kind that the striking of amendment 138/46 will allow were in place back in 1989, the Web would never have taken off. This means that if the amendment is dropped or weakened, Europe may well miss out on the next Internet revolution – hardly what the European Union is seeking to do with its wider support for innovation.
To its great credit, the European Parliament has consistently fought to retain this protection for users, and I urge you and your colleagues to continue to stand up for European citizens who are being sidelined by the proposal from some governments to drop amendment 138/46.
Please send your own variation before tomorrow evening. Remember: it's *your* Internet they want to ruin.
As I wrote earlier today, things are looking bad for the Internet in Europe. But the European Parliament continues to do its bit protecting you and me. Here's the latest from the excellent Quadrature du Net site:The European Parliament, endorsing the Lambrinidis report and turning its back on all the amendments supported by the French government and defended by Jacques Toubon and Jean-Marie Cavada, has just rejected "graduated response" for the third time. France is definitely alone in the world with its kafkaesque administrative machinery, an expensive mechanism for arbitrary punishment.
The report of Eurodeputy Stavros Lambrinidis concerning the protection of individual liberties on the Internet has just been confirmed by the European parliament by an overwhelming vote of 481 to 252.
It stands in clear opposition to the French HADOPI law in "holding that illiteracy with computers will be the illiteracy of the 21st century; holding that guaranteeing Internet access to all citizens is the same as guaranteeing all citizens access to education and holding that such access must not be refused in punishment by governments or private organizations; holding that this access should not be used abusively for illegal activities; holding that attention must be paid to emerging questions such as network neutrality, interoperability, the global accessibility of all Internet nodes, and the use of open formats and standards."
The approval of the Lambrinidis report and the rejection of the French amendments is the third consecutive time that the European Parliament has rejected the French "graduated response", since the approval of the Bono amendment to the report on cultural industries and the well-known
Bono/Cohn-Bendit/Roithova Amendment 138.
Furthermore, all the amendments supported by the French government, notably those proposed by Eurodeputies Jacques Toubon and Jean-Marie Cavada, have been rejected. They were trying specifically to prevent measures related to graduated response, showing that the French government realizes that Europe is about to render the HADOPI law obsolete before it even comes to a vote.
Alas, this is by no means the end. The same wretched clause will come bounding back, along with all kinds of other stupidities. The fight goes on....
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Oh no: the European Parliament's JURI committee has collectively lost its marbles and produced an incredibly one-side report on copyright. Here are its highlights: * graduated response: The report recommends "three strikes" schemes against unauthorised file sharing for all Europe, including cooperation with ISP based on denunciations by the entertainment industries (points 31, 37)
* Internet content filtering: The recommendations ask for the deployment of technologies for filtering content "for identification and recognition, [...] with a view to distinguishing more easily between legal and pirated products" that totally contradicts the very nature of Internet. (point 35)
* Internet access providers liability: the report "Invites reflection on the responsibility of internet access providers in the fight against piracy;" including the objective of making service providers liable for content published by their users. (points 32, 36, 37)
* Denial of copyright exceptions: its conclusions on copyright exceptions are anticipating the result of the public consultation launched by the European Commission on "Copyright in the knowledge economy" by stating that any reform of the 2001 copyright Directive is undesirable, that the existing regime for copyright exceptions is undesirable, and that there is no need for new exceptions. This archaic position undermines creativity, interoperability, and innovation. (points 3, 20, 23, 25)
This is massively retrogressive, and takes no account of everything that has happened online for the last ten years.
Please write to your MEPs now, asking them to reject the Medina report when it comes up for a vote. I know from personal experience how effective this is.
Free software loses a good friend in the European Parliament: Michel Rocard, fierce opponent of software patents, is resigning. Sad day, but thanks, mon vieux.
Kudos to Kaspersky Labs and Sophos: they understand that once you compromise a computer's security, there *is* no security:The Home Office on Friday said it was working with the European Parliament on plans to extend police powers to conduct remote searches of computers. UK police already have the power to hack into suspect systems without a warrant, due to an amendment to the Computer Misuse Act, which came into force in 1995.
However, security vendors Kaspersky Labs and Sophos told ZDNet UK that they would not make any concession in their protective software for the police hack.
...
Em said that while police could provide details of the software it used so Kaspersky could avoid blocking it, the police software could also be used by cybercriminals. "While we wouldn't want to scupper police attempts to catch bad guys, police [hacking] software could end up in the wrong hands," Em said.
Kaspersky would not put a backdoor in its software to enable the police to bypass its protections, Em added. "If we provided a backdoor, it could be used by malware authors," Em said. "People would be able to drive a coach and horses through our security."
Once again, the experts have spoken: will the politicians listen? (Will they, heck....)
...that Sarkozy chap:
Nicolas Sarkozy announced yesterday that he faxed on Friday evening to the President of the Commission (news piece in French), Jose-Manuel Barroso, and asked him to reject the Bono/Cohn-Bendit/Roithova amendment recently adopted by 88% of the voting Members of the European Parliament. Such an initiative from Mr. Sarkozy is testimony to his deep concern: the College (the Commission as a whole) does not seem to be ready to reject the amendment. As I already analyzed, this amendment did not modify the orientation of the Commission proposal, it only provided a needed reminder of some fundamental rights and needs of due process in face of tentatives from a few interest groups and the French presidency to weaken them.
Can't have any of that revolutionary democracy stuff in Europe, can we Sarko old boy....?
Update: Take that, Sarko.
Apparently:Ce matin, le Parlement européen a enterré la riposte graduée. En France, et dans les tous les pays membres de l’Union. Une « énorme gifle », selon la Quadrature du net, pour les lobbys de l’industrie culturelle et l’administration française. « On ne joue pas comme ça avec les libertés individuelles. Le gouvernement français doit revoir sa copie ! », a indiqué de son côté l’eurodéputé socialiste Guy Bono.
[Google Translate: This morning, the European Parliament buried the graduated response. In France, and in all member countries of the Union. A "huge slap," according to the squaring of the net for the lobby of the cultural industry and the French administration. "You do not play like that with individual freedoms. The French government should review its copy," said his side Socialist MEP Guy Bono.]
I also like another quip of that nice Mr Bono:«Aujourd’hui l’Europe apparaît comme le dernier rempart contre les velléités liberticides de certains Etats membres»
Of course: *that's* what Tony Blair and Gordon Brown are with their ID cards and endless authoritarianism: liberticides.
It's obviously petition season. Here's another one, Europe-wide in scope, calling for an "open European Parliament":Citizens and stakeholder groups should not have to use the software of a single company in order to communicate with their elected officials or participate in the legislative process.
All companies should be given the chance to compete freely for contracts to supply ICT services to the European Parliament.
I am a citizen of the EU, and I want the European Parliament to adopt the use of open standards and to promote interoperability in the ICT sector.
We believe that the current situation, where the European Parliament’s ICT runs on proprietary software that is not interoperable with that of other vendors, where therefore citizens and stakeholder groups wishing to participate in the legislative process are forced to use the products of a single company, is in conflict with the first article of Chapter 1 in the Treaty of the European Union. An example of this is the live Web streaming from the European Parliament's plenary sessions – aimed at improving communication with citizens and insight into democratic processes – which will only work with Windows Media Player.
Sounds good to me. Just one thing: there's only 163 names at the moment, which isn't very impressive: why don't you join in?
Some misguided people seem to think that intellectual monopolies are "sacred" - probably because they insist on calling them "intellectual property", and property, as we all know, is totally sancrosant. But it seems that some are realising there may be higher imperatives - like saving the planet:
Intellectual property rules should be reshaped to ensure that they do not hinder developing countries from gaining access to technology considered vital for addressing climate change, the European Parliament has declared.
Members of the Parliament (MEPs) on 29 November approved a report that urges examination of the possibility of revising the World Trade Organization Agreement on Trade-Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS). TRIPS may need to be amended, the report suggests, in order to allow for the compulsory licensing of environmentally-friendly technology that is patented.
Amending TRIPS? Now there's an interesting idea.
Hm, were this not on the European Patent Office's own site, I might have doubted its authenticity:Where do we stand in the discussion about patents on computer-implemented inventions (CII patents) two years after rejection in the European Parliament? This was the perspective under which the EPO had invited members of the European Parliament, representatives from industry and enterprise, NGOs and IP specialists to review developments since the rejection of the CII directive.
The bottom line (literally)?All speakers welcomed unequivocally the opportunity to discuss the issue at a high level and made clear that a new CII debate followed by legal modifications was neither necessary nor desirable.
Wearing my cynical journalist's hat, I suppose this might mean that companies in favour of software patents (like SAP, which emerges once again as the Big Baddie of Europe in all this), think they'll be able to squeeze through their wretched computer implemented inventions under the present scheme.
Still, the EPO story's headline "No revival of software patents debate" is a good marker to have. (Via Slashdot.)
What were they thinking?
The European Parliament today accepted the IP Criminal Measures directive after its first reading in a vote of 374 to 278, and 17 abstentions. It left several unexamined rights in the scope, and threatens to criminalise consumers and incriminate ISPs. Recommendations from an alliance of libraries, consumers and innovators were not followed, although Parliament was clearly divided on several issues.
The battle is lost, but the war is not yet over:
The fight now moves to the Council of the European Union, where it will be considered by representatives of the national governments of all EU Member States. Several states have started to mount resistance to IPRED2 in recent weeks, with the UK and Holland leading the charge. Europeans worried about their right to innovate, and their ability to live under clear, fair criminal laws must now turn to their own national governments to ensure that IPRED2 doesn't set a terrible precedent for copyright law, and the EU legal process. If the Council disagrees with EuroParl's action -- which we believe is in reach -- IPRED2 would be returned for a second reading. We will be tracking these developments and providing opportunities to act at CopyCrime.eu.
If you are a citizen of the European Union:A coalition of groups representing librarians, consumers' and innovators have come together to support of a series of amendments that would fix the worst parts of the proposed Directive on Criminal Measures aimed at ensuring the enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRED2).
If you live in the EU, contact your MEPs and ask them to support these amendments at the plenary vote in European Parliament on April 24-26, 2007.
Quick!
The open access world has been waiting with bated breath for an important EU document on the subject, in which a Europe-wide policy would be delineated - obviously with potentially huge impact. It's here, and it's 100% mealy-mouthed:
Access to, dissemination of, and preservation of scientific information are major challenges of the digital age. Success in each of these areas is of key importance for European information society and research policies. Different stakeholders in these fields have differing views on how to move towards improvements for access, dissemination and preservation.
Within this transition process from a print world to a digital world, the Commission will contribute to the debate among stakeholders and policy makers by encouraging experiments with new models that may improve access to and dissemination of scientific information, and by supporting the linkage of existing preservation initiatives at European level.
The Commission invites the European Parliament and Council to debate the relevant issues on the basis of the present Communication.
Oh yeah, right, thanks for nothing.
At a time when this is happening:The jail system is in "serious crisis" with overcrowding affecting rehabilitation of offenders, the chief inspector of prisons has warned.
Anne Owers said some jails have become "riskier places to manage" because of the overcrowding problem.
Do we really need this?The European Parliament's committee for legal affairs meets today to vote on proposals for criminal penalties to be imposed on those who infringe intellectual property (IP) rights.
The vote today will determine whether or not a person who downloads a single unlicensed track of music could be sent to jail.
Think about it - because you can bet that most of the politicians won't....
Florian Mueller, who did more than most to rally people against the software patents directive in the European Parliament, has flagged up the next - and potentially even more serious - threat from software patents.
This time, though, it's couched in rather obscure terms. The battle is not about allowing software patents "as such" - since they are explicitly forbidden in Europe - but about how litigation over patents should proceed. The point is, if the current proposal for something called the European Patent Litigation Agreement (EPLA) goes through, the European patent offices, many of which are happily handing out software patents, would have enormous influence over the litigation of such questionable patents, which is hardly right, methinks. As Mueller explains:The legal status of software patents in Europe is contradictory. While the existing written rules, which go back to the year 1973, disallow patents on computer programs “as such”, the European Patent Office (EPO) and various national patent offices have granted tens of thousands of software patents. However, European patents, even if granted by the EPO, can only be enforced country by country as of now, and national courts declare many EPO software patents invalid when their holders try to use them against alleged infringers. Critics argue that the EPLA would create a new court system that would be under the control of the same group of government officials who already govern the EPO, and that the judges appointed by those people would support the EPO’s granting practice and its broad scope of patentable subject-matter with respect to software and business methods.
It's still very early days for the EPLA, but fore-warned is fore-armed.
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