[Fsfe-ie] New "IP Rights" enforcement directive

Ciaran O'Riordan ciaran at fsfe.org
Sat Jul 30 19:10:14 CEST 2005


As discussed at the last meeting, there's a new directive on enforcement of
"IPRs".  The worst of it is that it aims to make willful infringement of
patents, unauthorised copying, and DRM circumvention criminal offences.
(This applies to anything that falls under the "IP" banner.)  Next worse is
a set of extremist investigative powers it gives to rights holders which
would, for example, allow the next SCO to reak much more havok (at tax
payers expense).

I suggest the best way to tackle this is to write an opinion on the license,
and then send out a press release.  This is a matter of democracy, and
monitoring democracy is the free presses job, so we should help them.

I've started a wiki page where I'll begin the opinion.  Help welcome.
http://www.ifso.ie/cgi-bin/wiki.cgi/IPRED2

A copy of the proposed directive is available here:
http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/lex/LexUriServ/site/en/com/2005/com2005_0276en01.pdf


-- 
Ciarán O'Riordan,                               |  Support FSFE's work against
http://www.compsoc.com/~coriordan/              | software patents by becoming
                                                |    a Fellow: http://fsfe.org



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