I Re-send My IPRED Letter to the European Commission

Last week I wrote a letter to the European Commission about theextraordinary failure of the IPRED consultation process. I certainly didn't expect a reply immediately, but I did hope that its arrival might have been acknowledged by now. It hasn't, so I've now emailed the following:

On Open Enterprise blog.

Letter to European Commission on IPRED

Following my post yesterday about the extraordinary failure of the IPRED consultation process, I enclose below my letter sent to the European Commission on the subject, calling for an extension to the consultation, and for alternative ways of making submissions:

On Open Enterprise blog.

The Great IPRED Consultation Fiasco

Last week I made a couple of urgent pleas to readers to complete the major EU IPRED consultation, which was being conducted on the Web. Since I needed to be able to refer to my own answers, I saved these as a draft online so that I could go back to them, polish them, and then submit them.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Please Respond Now to Biased IPRED Consultation

Yesterday I mentioned the important consultation on IPRED, how it was closing soon, and what a good idea it would be if you applied to take part immediately. I also noted there's a helpful guide to filling in the consultation, from EDRI, but I omitted to mention that there is an equally great one from the Pirate Party MEP Amelia Andersdotter, which I thoroughly recommend.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Please Register for the EU's IPRED Consultation *Now*

IPRED is not that well known, even among the Net-savvy. And yet it's one of the most important EU directives that affects the online world, and a consultation on its future closes at the end of this week, on 30 March. Here's the background from EDRI:

On Open Enterprise blog.

ACTA Closer To Death: Remaining EU Supporters Contemplate Rejecting It

Last week we saw the Socialists and Democrats, the second-largest bloc in the European Parliament, turn against ACTA. Combined with the stated position of the Green party there, that means ACTA is closer to being thrown out when the vote for ratification takes place in Brussels this summer. 

On Techdirt.

Piracy is not Counterfeiting: Updating IPRED

As promised, I append below a near-final draft of my response to the European Commission's consultation on IPRED. Once again, I urge you to submit something if you possible can - this is deeply wrong-headed stuff that needs fixing if openness and freedom are to thrive online.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Ready for the IPRED Consultation?

This is just some quick advance warning that the deadline for submitting comments to the IPRED consultation is drawing near: 31 March 2011. I'll be publishing my own thoughts next week, but meanwhile, here's some background info for you to mull over.

On Open Enterprise blog.

ACTA as the (Fool's) "Gold Standard"

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.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca.

"Piracy Law" Cuts *Traffic* not "Piracy"

This story is everywhere today:

Internet traffic in Sweden fell by 33% as the country's new anti-piracy law came into effect, reports suggest.

Sweden's new policy - the Local IPRED law - allows copyright holders to force internet service providers (ISP) to reveal details of users sharing files.

According to figures released by the government statistics agency - Statistics Sweden - 8% of the entire population use peer-to-peer sharing.

The implication in these stories is that this kind of law is "working", in the sense that it "obviously" cuts down copyright infringement, because it's cutting down traffic.

In your dreams.

All this means is that people aren't sharing so much stuff online. But now that you can pick up a 1 Terabyte external hard drive for less than a hundred quid - which can store about a quarter of a million songs - guess what people are going to turn to in order to swap files in the future?

Follow me on Twitter @glynmoody

Straight Talking About the Unspeakable ACTA

I and many others have written a fair amount about the Anti-Counterfeit Trade Agreement (ACTA). We'd doubtless write far more, were more details forthcoming. And yet despite the huge potential knock-on effects of this agreement, everything is being negotiated behind closed doors. Even more outrageously, those doors are nonetheless being opened for representatives of trade organisations who wish to see their own agendas pushed through, but not for ordinary citizens, who seem to have no rights in this arena...

On Open Enterprise blog.

Paying the Price of Intellectual Monopolies

Oh look, here's unnecessary, Draconian intellectual monopoly regulation that has major negative consequences:

An unexpected implication in the legislating procedure of the proposed EU Directive on criminal measures aimed at ensuring the enforcement of intellectual property rights (IPRED2) puts legitimate businesses under clear threat of criminal sanctions.

Now, why am I not surprised by this?

EU + IPRED2 = EUdiots

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.

Making All the Right Connections

This is a tiny footnote to the larger story of the imminent IPRED2 vote, but I think in its own way it's a fine parable about the power of connected people, and of the larger connection that is the Internet.

Although I follow matters concerning European legislation affecting the digital world, and particularly those involving intellectual monopolies, pretty closely, I'd missed exactly when this IPRED2 stuff was about to break.

Luckily, I have a feed from the Open Rights Group, who ran this story warning us about the upcoming vote. As a result, I wrote first this post, and then this one, making pleas for people to write to their MEPs asking them to support amendments to the IPRED2 proposal, or to vote against it completely.

Nothing special in that, you might say. Except that Simon Phipps kindly mentioned me as one of his sources for a post on the subject, also urging people to write to their MEPs. And this, in its turn, was picked up by James Governor.

But the story does not end there. As James relates, within half-an-hour of firing off some emails, he had received a reply - a positive one too - and was impressed. I, too, am deeply impressed by the three replies I have received so far, two positive, and one effectively abstaining.

What this shows is the real power of blogs to get a message out, and to make a difference. More importantly, perhaps, it also shows that emailing MEPs does actually get a response, sometimes rapidly. I find both facts heartening; it gives me hope for the political process and for the possibility that technology can help ordinary citizens engage with it more directly.

IPRED2: Last Chance to Act

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!

Intellectual Monopoly Enforcement Directive

Doesn't sound so good like that, does it? Perhaps that's why they dress it up as the Intellectual Property Enforcement Directive, which sounds so much cosier. But the fact is, bad things are about to happen in Europe on this front:

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.

If you're a citizen of the European Union - and remember, that includes all you Romanians, Bulgarians out there, too - please write to your MEP and point out how bad this legislation as currently drafted it (contact UK MEPs here). Aside from bolstering intellectual monopolies, it will also threaten free software development.