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  • From: "David Hirst" <dhirst AT pavilion.co.uk>
  • To: <cc-uk AT lists.ibiblio.org>
  • Subject: [Cc-uk] EU and Piracy etc.
  • Date: Sat, 6 Aug 2005 10:07:36 +0100

The EU Parliament having just seen off the Patents Directive, it seems the EU Commission is trying again. Wired News has reported:

Story location: http://www.wired.com/news/politics/0,1283,68418,00.html

This concerns a Directive on criminal measures aimed at ensuring the enforcement of intellectual property rights.

It can be downloaded from http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/lex/LexUriServ/site/en/com/2005/com2005_0276en01.pdf

It begins with the classic recording industries background about piracy, equating it to drug trafficking.

It does not even qualify its use of the word “piracy”, which is a real problem in the Malacca Strait and elsewhere. It involves use of machine guns to steal ships. A quite different crime from copyright infringement.

It proposes “Member States shall ensure that all intentional infringements of an intellectual property right on a commercial scale, and attempting, aiding or abetting and inciting such infringements, are treated as criminal offences.”

An associated proposed Council Framework decision (which need not be scrutinised by the EU Parliament), but decided solely by EU Ministers, also says:

“The Member States must ensure that the holders of intellectual property rights concerned, or their representatives, and experts, are allowed to assist the investigations carried out by joint investigation teams into the offences referred to in Article 3 of Directive ..../…/EC.”

And

“Member States shall ensure that the possibility of initiating investigations into, or prosecution of, offences covered by Article 3 of Directive ..../…/EC are not dependent on a report or accusation made by a person subjected to the offence, at least if the acts were committed in the territory of the Member State.”

With Blair today on a campaign to limit human rights against terrorism, this may seem a fairly small loss of liberty, but it seems to me to mean that any author of software that is eventually used to infringe copyright (at a “commercial” scale) can end up in jail. Not only that, but the “holders of intellectual property” are permitted to be alongside the official investigations.

It is barely an exaggeration to say that this gives official sanction to a mafia like militia. If my car is stolen, or if my house is burgled, even if my family is murdered, neither I nor my representative is allowed to be part of the police investigation. What is so special here? What do I have to do to become part of the mafia? Own a copyright?

I think there are many improvements that can be made to clarify this law, which is primarily targeted against counterfeiting. Indeed, I would suggest we ask its title to be changed to be against counterfeiting, where criminal sanctions could well be appropriate.

Regards

D

David Hirst

!-!?!-Hirst Solutions Limited

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