Can Europe defend the Integrity of IP?
-Internet - Copyright - Politics - Breaking views-
About Iptegrity.com
Iptegrity.com is the website of Dr Monica Horten, independent scholar, policy analyst and writer. She has worked on European Internet and copyright policy since 2006. Through Iptegrity she offers expert insights into this topical issue. Iptegrity is read by lawyers, academics, policy-makers and citizens, and cited in the media. Please acknowledge Iptegrity when you cite or link. For more, see IP politics with integrity
ACTA, SOPA & the EU - get the context
ACTA and SOPA have put Internet copyright into the mainstream news agenda. The Copyright Enforcement Enigma introduces you to this topic. It explains the history of copyright sanctions. It puts 3-strikes and blocking policies into context. And it unravels the strange story of how it all got mixed up in the Telecoms Package and Amendment 138. When you finish it, you will understand why the ISPs and fundamental rights are under attack! Click here to get it!
Does the European Commission President, José Manuel Barroso, know the difference between a lobby group and a European Parliament committee? Or is the Eurozone crisis getting his head into a muddle? Why does he refer to the rights-holder lobby group International Trade Mark Association, when he really means the International Trade Committee? More importantly, how much has his office been in contact with rights-holders who want ACTA?
A political row is brewing in Germany over an Internet filtering system that is blocking the Pirate Party. Note, not the Pirate Bay, but the Pirate Party. The blocking was discovered by a schoolboy trying to read its election manifesto and has emerged in the run up to todays poll in the German State of North-Rhein Westfalia, which covers the big cities of Cologne and Dusseldorf, as well as the industrial Ruhr. With the Pirate Party getting serious votes in Germany, the blocks look rather like political censorship.
In the latest spat between the European Union institutions over ACTA, a report by the Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) is turning into a political football. Iptegrity can reveal that the European Commission will hit back at the EDPS, whose recent report was critical of ACTA from a fundamental rights viewpoint. The first round was fired in a meeting of the European Parliament’s Civil Liberties (LIBE) committee, which has had a sneak preview of the – as yet unpublished – Commission riposte.
The European Parliament’s Civil Liberties rapporteur says that the decision by the European Parliament on ACTA should be a political not a legal one. He recommends rejecting ACTA (Anti-counterfeiting Trade Agreement), on the basis that ACTA would prematurely put a freeze on public debate about Internet and copyright.
It’s a sideshow to the main drama, but Rupert Murdoch’s News Corporation, which owns the film company 20th Century Fox as well as televion stations and newspapers worldwide, tried to get privileged access to British policy-making on intellectual property.
It emerged last week that the European Comission is changing the timings for the IPR Enforcement directive (IPRED) review. At a conference organised by DG Markt, the Commission said that the consultation on the directive will be extended. The move is significant, because DG Markt was scheduled to unveil the revised directive in September, with the intention of getting it adopted next year. That timetable appears to have been torn up.
It took a jump to the left in recommending a ‘no’ vote, now it’s taking a step to the right in postponing the Legal Affairs committee vote - with suspected intent to delay. How should we read the latest twists and turns in the European Parliament as it tries to figure out a consensus on ACTA?
Just as we in Europe are involved in a policy battle over the Internet and copyright, there is a similar battle taking place on the other side of the world around the Pacific Rim. It is happening in the context of a trade agreement driven by the United States, and innocently entitled the Trans-Pacific Partnership – or TPP. Buried deep within the TPP are proposals that fulfil the wishlist of the American entertainment industries for ISPs to police copyrighted content.
The European Parliament’s ACTA rapporteur, David Martin, released his report yesterday. As he had foreshadowed at the Socialist group seminar last week, the report recommends a ‘no’ vote. But some of the text in his report suggest openings for future enforcement legislation. What are we to make of it?
Marielle Gallo, the Sarkozy-ite MEP and sweetheart of the rights-holders, is sharpening her claws in a desparate attempt to derail the ACTA ‘No’ vote. She has released her draft Opinion, in which she sets out a proposal designed to allay fears that ACTA will infringe fundamental rights. The proposal is little more than a sop.
IP in the EU - breaking views
- It’s official: European Parliament told ‘Say no to ACTA’
- America ups the ante on ACTA – via the G8
- ACTA referral: has DG Trade lost the plot?
- UK’s email spy plan – what do you say, Mrs Reding?
- Hadopi – has it massaged the numbers?
- Barnier dreams of copyright consensus by 2013
- ACTA chief’s Senate gaffe: truth is an option
- DE Act appeal ruling: is BT stuffed?
- ACTA protests set DeGucht on counter-attack
- Ned med acta! 15,000 march on Danish Parliament
- Reding handbags DeGucht over ECJ referral
Internet Policy - read more
Laura Denardis Protocol Politics (Information Revolution and Global Politics Series)
Lilian Edwards and Charlotte Waede Law and the Internet
Becky Hogge Barefoot into Cyberspace: Adventures in Search of Techno-Utopia
David Leigh and Luke Harding WikiLeaks: Inside Julian Assange's War on Secrecy
Christopher T Marsden Net Neutrality: Towards a Co-regulatory Solution
Evgeny Morozov The Net Delusion: How Not to Liberate The World
Milton L Mueller Networks and States (Information Revolution and Global Politics Series)
Milton L Mueller Ruling the Root: Internet Governance and the Taming of Cyberspace
John Naughton A Brief History of the Future: Origins of the Internet
Tim Wu The Master Switch
Copyright Policy - read more
A French collective of authors La bataille Hadopi
Lionel Bently Intellectual Property Law
Lionel Bently, Jennifer Davis, Jane Ginsburg (editors) Copyright and Piracy: An Interdisciplinary Critique (Cambridge Intellectual Property and Information Law)
Robert Burrell and Allison Coleman Copyright Exceptions: The Digital Impact (Cambridge Intellectual Property and Information Law)
Lawrence Lessig Code: Version 2.0
Lawrence Lessig Free Culture: The Nature and Future of Creativity
William Patry How to Fix Copyright
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Papers and Articles on EU Internet Policy
- IDP 2011 Proceedings: Copyright at a Policy Cross-Roads
- American University College of Law: Where Copyright Enforcement and Net Neutrality Collide
- Society for Computers and the Law (2009) Package in Transit
- Political Quarterly (2008) File-sharing, Filtering and the Spectre of the Automated Censor
- Computer Weekly(2009) The EU Telecoms Package explained
Citizens' groups
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