Big tech accountability? Read how we got here in  The Closing of the Net 

IPR Enforcement

IPR enforcement on the Internet is highly contrversial as measures may entail some form of content blocking and  impose new liabilities on  ISPs and content platforms.  Blocking measures immediately engage the right to freedom of expression.

This section  monitors  aspects of EU policy which relate to IPR and copyright enforcement from 2009. It covers a variety of industry-led proposals, including early moves against Internet providers. Iptegrity provided almost exclusive coverage of the European Commission's proposed Notice and Action Directive. It was  subsequently shelved - but will it re-appear? The section also logs industry moves which may influence the policy agenda and seeks to understand ways in which European  IPR enforcement policy could change or evolve.

If you like the articles in this section and you are interested in copyright enforcement policy in the EU, you may like my books A Copyright Masquerade: How Corporate Lobbying Threatens Online Freedoms and The Copyright Enforcement Enigma - Internet Politics and the ‘Telecoms Package’

You might also like my latest  book 'The Closing of the Net' which examins corporate power and Internet policy, including 3 chapters on copyright.

The European Commission is consulting on blocking orders against websites, and on privacy rules which relate to graduated response / 3-strikes measures. Interested Internet users have just over 2 months left to respond.

 

 Just before Christmas, on 22 December,  the European Commission snuck out a  Report on    the IPR Enforcement directive (commonly known as IPRED).  This  is the Report from the Commission on the Application of Directive 2004/48/EC on the enforcement of Intellectual Property rights. The Report is   the first shot in a Consultation process which ends on 31st March.

The   main goal is to build   new measures for copyright enforcement on the Internet into EU law.  That is unmistakeably clear when you read the text of the Report. File-sharing is one target. Search engines are another. Anyone selling online  is a third target group.

 It is also very evident that the Commission proposes to use ISPs and

Read more: IPRED review: alarm bells for those who care about the 'Net

DG Markt has been secretly  working on a  file-sharing MoU for over a year.  According to available sources,  telecoms industry groups such as EuroISPA and ETNO have been sitting together with  the rights-holders such as IFPI and Vivendi, in meetings chaired by Commission staff.  But why did the Commission not reveal the MoU possibility  in answer to a  European Parliament question?

 

The European Commission is trying to get industry to agree to a "voluntary" MoU on file-sharing, and copyright enforcement. The  MoU has been discussed in non-public talks with industry lobbyist along with a parallel initiative to update and amend the IPR Enforcement directive. On the table  are blocking injunctions and privacy implications for 3-strikes, as well as so-called ‘legal offers'.

 

The existence of the talks was first revealed by

Read more: Secrets and lies and EU file-sharing talks

The European Parliament has reneged on its previous position to protect users rights against  3-strikes/graduated response for  copyright enforcement with a vote endorsing the Gallo report.

To make matters worse, the French media has exposed  how the European Parliament was informed by questionable  rights-holder lobbying which included the name of at least one dead person. 

 

The  European Parliament has taken a backwards step, an U-turned on its former position which protected Internet users' rights. Instead - unbelievably -  it has voted in favour of  the  hard-line Gallo  report which wants to see criminalisation of copyright infringements and ISP liability for copyright. These are the kind of policies which the European Parliament is opposing  in the ACTA (Anti-counterfeiting Trade Agreement) and which it has previously opposed on several occasions over the past two years.

 The Gallo report is an 'own-initiative' report written by the French, centre-right MEP Marielle Gallo. It is not

Read more: Gallo report: European Parliament U-turns on users rights

Iptegrity in brief

 

Iptegrity.com is the website of Dr Monica Horten. I’ve been analysing analysing digital policy since 2008. Way back then, I identified how issues around rights can influence Internet policy, and that has been a thread throughout all of my research. I hold a PhD in EU Communications Policy from the University of Westminster (2010), and a Post-graduate diploma in marketing.   I’ve served as an independent expert on the Council of Europe  Committee on Internet Freedoms, and was involved in a capacity building project in Moldova, Georgia, and Ukraine. I am currently (from June 2022)  Policy Manager - Freedom of Expression, with the Open Rights Group. For more, see About Iptegrity

Iptegrity.com is made available free of charge for  non-commercial use, Please link-back & attribute Monica Horten. Thank you for respecting this.

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States v the 'Net? 

Read The Closing of the Net, by me, Monica Horten.

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Copyright Enforcement Enigma launch, March 2012

In 2012, I presented my PhD research in the European Parliament.

 

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