[AktiviX] Europe Considers Harsh Piracy Law

[Paul Mobbs]

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Europe Considers Harsh Piracy Law 

By Mat Schwartz
WIRED: 02:00 AM Mar. 16, 2004 PT


PARIS -- The European Parliament approved a controversial piracy law that 
would allow local police to raid the homes and offices of suspected 
intellectual-property pirates, search their financial records and even freeze 
suspects' bank accounts.

The European Union's directive covers selling everything from pirated CDs and 
counterfeit toys to fake Chanel and Viagra. 

Organizations that suspect their intellectual property has been violated can 
obtain search-and-seizure orders and injunctions. The measure passed last 
week by a vote of 330 to 151, but not without some last-minute brokering by 
European Parliament President Pat Cox. Various industry groups had pushed for 
a tougher directive that would have included the threat of criminal 
sanctions. Consumer-rights groups such as the European Consumers' 
Organization charged that the law was overly broad and would re-create the 
Digital Millennium Copyright Act in Europe.

As passed, the measure includes civil and administrative penalties for 
commercial piracy. Criminal penalties were dropped. Individual member 
countries are still free, however, to punish intellectual-property theft with 
criminal sanctions.

Parliament was under the gun to pass legislation before its May recess, June 
Parliament elections and the imminent expansion of the EU from 15 to 25 
countries, particularly in Eastern Europe.

Beyond expediency, "some of the new countries have some high degrees of 
piracy, especially for music, so it's important to have this European 
framework adopted by all the member states," said Gianluca Monte, European 
affairs adviser for the Independent Music Companies Association. "Of course, 
there are also problems now with existing member states and high levels of 
piracy."

Spain and Poland -- one an EU member, one about to be -- make the 
International Federation of the Phonographic Industry's list of the top 10 
countries with piracy problems, which also includes Russia, Mexico and China.

Some parliament members questioned whether fellow member Janelly Fourtou, who 
shepherded the bill, had a conflict of interest. Her husband is Jean-Rene 
Fourtou, head of Vivendi Universal, one of the biggest media companies in the 
world.

Her assistant, Sarah Cuvellier, dismissed those charges, saying Fourtou's work 
on intellectual property dates to 1999, before her husband assumed the 
Vivendi post.

Cuvellier also said the measure doesn't target private use. "It's not the 
DMCA." Rather, she said, "you have three pillars in intellectual-property 
rights: how to recognize the right, how to protect the right and how to 
manage the right. This is only to protect -- not to recognize."

The directive defers rights of the individual to the EU's previous copyright 
directive, but there's a wrinkle.

"In principle, the proposal adopted this week should not affect existing law, 
but we don't know so far what existing law is, because the copyright law is 
not yet implemented," said Victoria Villamar, legal adviser for the European 
Consumers' Organization. "Less than half the EU has implemented the copyright 
directive, passed two years ago."

The directive now goes to the Council of Ministers, which is expected to 
approve it by April.

The debate then shifts to the member states, which technically have 18 months 
to implement the directive, though observers say twice that long would be 
likely.

One sticking point is: What constitutes commercial piracy? In the current 
directive, "even though there were some limitations built into various 
enforcement provisions to make them apply to only commercial piracy," what's 
"commercial" isn't defined, said Gwen Hinze, a staff attorney with the 
Electronic Frontier Foundation. "It's important that members states build in 
strong procedural safeguards for their citizens."

The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry estimates worldwide 
music piracy totaled $4.6 billion in 2002, with one in three CDs sold being 
counterfeit.

Legal experts say the EU directive, as passed, differs little from existing EU 
legislation. Still, media companies are claiming symbolic victory.

"This directive shows that intellectual-property protection is still on the 
agenda," said Martin Selmayr, head of the Brussels office of Bertelsmann, one 
of the largest media companies in the world. In addition, it rearticulates 
existing intellectual-property law. "The issue is to get it in people's minds 
that stealing intellectual property is like stealing a shirt."

Industry groups say they will continue to push for criminal sanctions against 
intellectual-property thieves at the national level. 



==========

"We are not for names, nor men, nor titles of Government, nor are we for
this party nor against the other but we are for justice and mercy and
truth and peace and true freedom, that these may be exalted in our nation,
and that goodness, righteousness, meekness, temperance, peace and unity
with God, and with one another, that these things may abound."
(Edward Burroughs, 1659 - from 'Quaker Faith and Practice')


Paul Mobbs, Mobbs' Environmental Investigations,
3 Grosvenor Road, Banbury OX16 5HN, England
tel./fax (+44/0)1295 261864

email - mobbsey at gn.apc.org
website - http://www.fraw.org.uk/mobbsey/index.html



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