[Fsfe-ie] Enforcement Directive mark two

[teresahackett at eircom.net]

Anti-circumvention for sure, also P2P users and developers.

A scenario suggested on another list is that well financed software
companies will send their lawyers round Europe's police forces, until
they find one that takes their copyright claims seriously. The threat of
criminal prosecution will have corporate risk officers demanding a
linux-free computer room. I'll see Georg Greve next week and can ask him
what his take is on this.

Anton Pillar orders (and the associated bank account freezing Mareva
orders) are civil proceedings and are in the IPRED 1. Ireland already
had these as part of our common law. The directive made them
Europe-wide, but without the checks and balances established by the
Irish courts when granting such orders.

Add go to jail to your list ;-)

Teresa


conor daly wrote:


> On Wed, Jul 13, 2005 at 02:34:46PM +0100 or so it is rumoured hereabouts, 
> David O'Callaghan thought:
> 
>>To bring this more specifically back to Free Software, what bad effects 
>>could this have for us? I suppose the main threat is to free software 
>>that works around dodgy DRM schemes in order to make use of media on 
>>unsupported platforms, which could be used for copyright infringement. 
>>What are the other threats to Free Software from this directive?
> 
> 
> I'm not sure if this bit is up for discussion at present but, IIRC, the
> directive allowed for "Anton Pillar" orders where accusation of
> infringement would allow a plaintiff to seize the accused party's
> "production" equipment.  For a FS author, accusation of copyright
> infringement could lead to seizure of all of their and their family's
> computer equipment whether it's relevant or not.  Therefore, the next
> threat to FS is probably in the harrassment value...
> 
> Conor