[Ecommerce] FYI: Coalition Urges Rejection of IP Enforcement Directive
Manon Anne Ress
manon.ress@cptech.org
Mon Aug 11 16:43:01 2003
IP Justice Media Release
August 11, 2003
International Civil Liberties Coalition Urges Rejection of IP
Enforcement Directive
Campaign for an Open Digital Environment (CODE) Sends Letter to EU to
Protect Consumer Rights and Competition
An international coalition of 38 civil liberties groups and consumer
rights campaigns sent a letter to the European Union today urging
rejection of the proposed Intellectual property Enforcement Directive.
The coalition warns that the proposed Directive is overbroad and
threatens civil liberties, innovation, and competition policy. The
proposal requires EU Member States to criminalize all violations of any
intellectual property right that can be tied to any commercial purpose,
with penalties to include imprisonment.
"If this proposal becomes a reality, major companies from abroad can use
'intellectual property' regulations to gain control over the lives of
ordinary European citizens and threaten digital freedoms", said Andy
Müller-Maguhn, a board member of European Digital Rights and speaker for
the Chaos Computer Club. "Under this proposal, a person's individual
liberty to use his own property is replaced with a limited license that
can be revoked or its terms changed at any time and for any reason,"
added the German civil rights activist.
"Currently EU-Member states are implementing the EU Copyright Directive
and the EU Software Patent Directive is next in the line. We should
really wait and see what effect these new laws have before adding any
new legislation, " said Ville Oksanen, a lawyer and Vice Chairman of
Electronic Frontier Finland (EFFi), a signatory on the organizational
letter. "Contrary to what the Enforcement Directive claims, Member
States are already obliged by international treaties like TRIPS to
protect intellectual property rights,” Oksanen continued.
In conjunction with the publication of the letter, the international
group of activists launched the Campaign for an Open Digital Environment
(CODE) to raise awareness about the IP Enforcement proposal’s threat to
consumer rights and market competition. CODE encourages European
citizens to contact the EUROPARL Committee on Legal Affairs and Internal
Market and urge the proposal’s rejection before the September 11, 2003
hearing on its merits in Brussels.
“Major IP holders are highly organized to impose maximalist provisions
in transnational agreements,” said Robin D. Gross, Executive Director of
IP Justice, an international civil liberties organization. “The CODE
campaign unites people from many different countries to defend civil
rights against the encroachment of overzealous intellectual property
protection.”
In its letter to EU members, the coalition expressed particular concern
over Article 9 of the proposal, which gives intellectual property
holders broad new subpoena powers to obtain personal information about
any European citizen that is alleged to be connected to an infringement.
Similar subpoena powers created by the US Digital Millennium Copyright
Act are abused by the Recording Industry Association of America to
obtain personal information about thousands of users of file-sharing
software. The proposed IP Enforcement Directive would extend the
ability to abuse this power to Europe.
The international coalition also urged rejection of Article 21 of the
proposal, which requires Member States to forbid technology including
software that is capable of bypassing technical restrictions imposed by
intellectual property holders. This provision threatens market
competition by permitting foreign IP owners to restrict parallel imports
and impose price discrimination within the EU. Article 21 would also
forbid Europeans from deactivating or removing technical devices such as
Radio Frequency ID (RFID) tags that are embedded into clothing and other
consumer goods to prevent counterfeiting but can also be used to track
people.
"Forbiding tools that are required for the exercise of legally protected
rights, like private use, preservation of works by libraries, and
reverse engineering, means giving a complete monopoly to right-holders
on the basic infrastructure needed to communicate in the digital world,"
said João Miguel Neves, Vice-President of Portuguese National
Association for Free Software (ANSOL).
“One can think of the EU IP Enforcement Directive as the ‘DMCA on
steroids’ since any industrial property right that can be licensed will
be enforced through technical devices that it will be absolutely illegal
to circumvent throughout Europe,” added Gross, an intellectual property
attorney.
Media Contacts:
Robin Gross, Executive Director, IP Justice
robin@ipjustice.org
+1 415.553.6261
Andy Müller-Maguhn, Board Member, European Digital Rights (EDRi)
andy@edri.org
+ 49 (0) 30-3087 1710
João Miguel Neves, President, Portuguese National Association for Free
Software (ANSOL)
joao.neves@ansol.org
+351 933 252 302
Ville Oksanen, Vice-Chairman, Electronic Frontier Finland
ville.oksanen@effi.org
+358 40 5368583
Frederic Couchet, Association Pour la Recherche en Informatique Libre
(APRIL)
fcouchet@april.org
Alexandre Dulaunoy, President, NGO/ASBL Association Electronique Libre (AEL)
alexandre.dulaunoy@ael.be
+352091303303
Martin Keegan, Deputy Leader, UK Campaign for Digital Rights
mk@ukcdr.org
+44 7779 296469
Links for More Information:
CODE Organizational Letter Urging Rejection of EU IP Enforcement Directive:
http://www.ipjustice.org/codeletter.shtml
Campaign for an Open Digital Environment (CODE) Website:
http://www.ipjustice.org/code.shtml
IP Justice White Paper on EU IP Enforcement Directive:
http://www.ipjustice.org/ipenforcewhitepaper.shtml
Foundation for Information Policy Research Analysis on Directive:
http://www.fipr.org/copyright/draft-ipr-enforce.html
Association Electronique Libre Webpage on IP Enforcement Directive:
http://wiki.ael.be/index.php/IPRProposalDirectiveInfoPage
Electronic Frontier Finland Statement on Enforcement Proposal:
http://www.effi.org/julkaisut/lausunnot/ipr_enforcement_lausunto.en.html
Text of Proposed European Union IP Enforcement Directive:
http://www.europa.eu.int/cgi-bin/eur-lex/udl.pl?REQUEST=Service-Search&LANGUAGE=en&GUILANGUAGE=en&SERVICE=all&COLLECTION=com&DOCID=503PC0046
Portuguese Translation of CODE Letter from ANSOL::
http://www.ipjustice.org/code/portcodeletter.html
French Translation of CODE Letter from AEL:
http://wiki.ael.be/index.php/IPRProposalDirectiveLetterIPJusticeFr
IP Justice is an international civil liberties organization that
promotes balanced intellectual property law. IP Justice defends
individual rights to use digital media worldwide and is a registered
California non-profit organization. IP Justice was founded in 2002 by
Robin D. Gross, who serves as its Executive Director. To learn more
about IP Justice, visit the website at http://www.ipjustice.org
IP JUSTICE
Robin D. Gross, Esq.
Executive Director www.ipjustice.org
robin@ipjustice.org +1 415.553.6261
--
Manon Anne Ress
Consumer Project on Technology
www.cptech.org
PO Box 19367, Washington, DC 20036
manon.ress@cptech.org, voice: 1.202.387.8030, fax: 1.202.234.5176