Key amendment switched at the last minute before the 7 July vote. What kind of law-making is this?

Annexe 1, Point 19 amendment to the Authorisation Directive has been deleted and replaced with an alternative text, that paves the way for ISP filtering at the framework level of EU law. 

Annexe 1, Point 19 of the Authorisation Directive  was an amendment which meant that EU governments could place copyright enforcement as a term of doing business for ISPs. In principle, it's a good thing that it has been deleted. What I am concerned about, is  the possible interpretation of the  text that has replaced it.

The deletion was voted through by the Industry, Research and Energy committee (ITRE)  on July 7th.  In its place, there is a new text, which  refers to another amendment  - Article 8 - point 4 - g. This amendment refers (via another linked amendment)  to co-operation between ISPs and rights-holders.  I have now been able to analyse it, and as I  suspected,  it means

Read more: Another amendment sneaked in to Telecoms Package

Brian Eno, the British musician who came to fame with the 1970s rock band  Roxy Music, has accused the music industry of being 'lazy' in respect of the Internet, and still hanging on to old ways of doing things instead of moving forwards. Speaking on the Today Programme on the BBC's Radio 4, he also said that young musicians understand perfectly how to use Internet-based services to promote their music and are comfortable with doing so. 

I put these comments here simply because policy-makers are frequently proffered elderly musicians who plead that the Internet is ruining their careers and reducing their royalties on which they depend for a pension. Those who are getting on with it and adapting their ways, are unheard at a political level - but they are the ones whose voice should be heard.

Mr Eno is  a highly-respected music industry  insider  - and considered by many to be an 'elder' of the rock music industry - who is  speaking out. He is also putting his money where his mouth is and releasing his new music on the Internet first - before putting out a CD. 

 His comments also illustrate how the music industry is divided  between those who welcome the Internet and the opportunities it brings, and those who still seek to protect their 20th century business models. It is also important for policy-makers to recognise this division, and seek to create policies that help the industry as a whole to move forward. 

 EU policy-makers should take note as they contemplate the Telecoms Package  and 'degradation of service'

The Federal Communications Commission (FCC) which oversees telecoms regulation in America, has officially sanctioned the Internet provider Comcast for throttling traffic. Comcast was accused of 'throttling' - that is, slowing down - its users' connections every time they attempted to download video files from the BitTorrent website. Bit Torrent is the company behind the peer-to-peer (P2P) file sharing technology of the same name, only in America, it operates a  licenced service. 

 The FCC determined that Comcast "unlawfully" disruputed the transfer of video files, thereby violating an important principle of the Internet, namely the open and interconnected nature of the public Internet and that broadband networks should be widely available, open, afforedable and accessible to all. The decision sets a legal precedent for cases where ISPs are accused of throttling. For  European policy-makers and law-makers, it represents a landmark case against the current political will to go along with content industry requests for filtering equipment to be installed. 

 For the full story, see TelecomTV.