I get these in digest form, so I've read a lot of discussions about this all at once. Some thoughts... At the risk of being flamed, I'm throwing these out "as is" because without properly briefing myself, I probably think now what the "great unwashed" are going to think on hearing about this initially.
* First off, we all want to see the back of counterfeit or dangerous products.
* Secondly, if subversive or criminal groups are profiting from this, they need to be deterred. * Thirdly, theft of property of any kind is wrong. *** See below *** * FOSS coding is not theft, or criminal, or a health and safety issue!
Welcome to *** below ***
I recently read an article by Richard Stallman called "Did you just say intellectual property", and it focused very heavily on the way the phrase is used to blur the defining lines between copyrights, trademarks and patents. It can be found at: https://www.fsf.org/licensing/essays/not-ipr.xhtml and is well worth reading.
I think our greatest challenge here will be to avoid the simplistic "For or against this" stance that would allow us to be spun to the public as 'lumped in with criminals'. We need some way of educating (primarily our MEPs) to recognise the misuse of the phrase.
If I remember right, it was ambiguous terminology "...as such..." that lead to the loopholes we highlighted the last time in the patents debate.
If someone has a URL for what's proposed, please post it. I wanted to say this much before educating myself properly, because our target audience are equally unversed.
Mel
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On 14 Jul 2005, at 14:39, - M e l - wrote:
I get these in digest form, so I've read a lot of discussions about this all at once. Some thoughts... At the risk of being flamed, I'm throwing these out "as is" because without properly briefing myself, I probably think now what the "great unwashed" are going to think on hearing about this initially.
- First off, we all want to see the back of counterfeit or
dangerous products.
Indeed, particularly that counterfeit version of Unix by that Finnish counterfeiter.
- Secondly, if subversive or criminal groups are profiting from
this, they need to be deterred.
I think it is very likely that both subversive and criminal groups use the aforementioned counterfeit Unix.
But seriously, rather than try to pander to the prejudices of the "intellectual property" maximilists, I think we should be pointing out the ridiculousness of affording stronger protections to so-called "intellectual property" than we do to human life in many cases (where you have more to worry about if you "steal" someone's IP than if you mug them in the street).
We shouldn't allow them to pretend that the targets of this Directive will only be shady organised criminal gangs and terrorists, when the reality is that these laws will likely be targeted towards ordinary children and innovators, as is already the case with today's IP laws.
Ian.
Hi Mel,
If this was what the directive was about, I would agree with you! The original Commission proposal for IPRED 1 was targeted at commercial piracy and counterfeiting, fake handbags, that sort of thing. The Parliament widened the scope of the directive to include *all* infringements, including minor and unintentional infringements.
As a "compromise", criminal sanctions were removed. The commercial counterfeiters must have been laughing. But everyone knew that introducing criminal sanctions under the co-decision legislative procedure was dodgy and would probably be thrown out by the ECJ (there's case law on this). So the dossier was handed to Justice and Home Affairs to introduce criminal sanctions in the "correct" way. That's the new proposal aka IPRED 2.
So now we have the worst of both worlds. Criminal sanctions for all infringements (it's a bit more nuanced, but that's the general picture).
Here's the text: Proposal for a directive and framework decision COM(2005)276(12.07.2005) http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/lex/LexUriServ/site/en/com/2005/com2005_0276en0...
Here's what IFSO said about IPRED 1: http://www.ifso.ie/projects/ipre.html
What does the proposed Directive mean?
* Individual users of peer-to-peer software would face sanctions. * The reverse engineering of software products in order to produce competing, compatible products would be subject to sanctions. This would greatly affect the free software movement and the growing use of open source software. * Competition and legitimate trade would be stifled by making it impossible for small companies to produce goods compatible with products such as Sony PlayStation or Microsoft Windows without paying a licence fee. It would have severe implications for choice, competition and the monopoly position of the dominant players. * ISPs could face limitless injunctions, equipment seizures and requests for damages. They could also be ordered to disclose customer names, block content or undertake surveillance. * Intermediaries, such as universities, would be required to police their networks as they could be held liable for content distributed over their networks. * Book readers for the blind could become illegal because they circumvent copy protection by changing the format.
Teresa
- First off, we all want to see the back of counterfeit or dangerous products.
- Secondly, if subversive or criminal groups are profiting from this, they need
to be deterred.
- Thirdly, theft of property of any kind is wrong. *** See below ***
- FOSS coding is not theft, or criminal, or a health and safety issue!
If someone has a URL for what's proposed, please post it. I wanted to say this much before educating myself properly, because our target audience are equally unversed.
Mel