Petteri Pyyny
9 Mar 2004 11:48
European Parliament today voted to approve the proposed Directive on Intellectual Property Enforcement that gives copyright holders wide powers to attack against people who violate intellectual property rights of copyright holders. Some of the directive's wording was amended after huge pressure from consumer groups, but the main point that consumer groups demanded -- the clear distinction between large scale commercial piracy and copying/sharing for personal use -- wasn't made very clear in the approved directive.
"Under this Directive [that now has been approved], a person who unwittingly infringes copyright - even if it has no effect on the market - could potentially have her assets seized, bank accounts frozen, and home invaded," said EFF staff attorney Gwen Hinze.
Some late amendments were done and now the directive states that action shouldn't be taken against individuals who download music "in good faith" for their own use. But it is left solely on multi-million dollar lawyers of record labels and movie studios to decide what can be considered as "good faith" in music downloading.
Now the EU ministers will most likely approve the directive by the end of this week and eventually it will become a law within European Union. The directive was originally introduced by a MEP (member of European Parliament) Janelly Fourtou, who is the wife of Jean-Rene Fourtou, boss of media giant Vivendi Universal (that owns world's largest record label Universal Music and also various movie studios).
More information:
EFF
BBC
CODE