The European Commission is consulting on the enforcement of intellectual property rights and copyright. Hold tight for more debate on website blocking, domain seizure, filtering, account termination .... and a new attack on 'mere conduit'.

With the 16 April deadline looming for responses to the European Commission's consultation on enforcement of intellectual property rights, the question of content blocking is rearing its head once again. The online world is clearly the target, even though the scope of the existing law is much wider. Reading between the lines, the influence of the main stakeholder interests such as the music and film industries, and luxury goods manufacturers, can be seen. Given that this is a heavily polarised and toxic issue, is the European Commission going about this in the right way?

Read more: EU wants to know how ISPs can block music files - in 500 words

It was thought to have died, but  this week week it was given a new lease of life. This is the Notice and Action directive which will regulate take-down requests to Google, FaceBook and other online content platforms, and which   is now set  to come back onto the EU policy agenda.  This was revealed  on Tuesday in the European Parliament by Internal Market Commissioner Michel Barnier, who is responsible for the dossier.

Read more: Notice of Action! EU Commission to revive take-down directive

The draft notice and action directive could  itself be put under an internal block in the European Commission.  The information is sketchy but it seems that the move follows copyright industry lobbying, forcing the Commission to back-peddle.

Read more: Notice and action directive to be blocked as EU backs down