[Fsfe-ie] who's the pro-IPRED2 camp? Looks like "BASCAP"

[James Heald]

In the UK, the principal pro-enforcement umbrella group appears to be 
the "Alliance against IP theft":
	http://www.aacp.co.uk/
plus all its constituent members.

There's also a major UK government push on "IP crime", exemplified by 
publication of this "National IP crime strategy" (Summer 2004).
	http://www.patent.gov.uk/about/enforcement/ipbook.pdf
-- well worth a read to get yourself into the language of those 
supporting the directive.


Before discussing the Directive, it's also useful to know where current 
national laws stand, so as to be able to identify clearly and accurately 
what any proposed Directive would change (and/or conversely, what one 
might /want/ to change, for example by introduction through the 
Directive of any harmonised new statutory defences)

For example, in a Government website gives the following advice on what 
might be currently prosecuted in the UK:

> If some IP rights are intentionally infringed on a commercial scale, there may also be the possibility of prosecuting that person for a criminal offence. Criminal offences exist in copyright, trade marks, performers rights and conditional access law. The circumstances need to be studied carefully to determine if the behaviour amounts to a criminal offence or a matter that can be resolved using the civil law.  The words counterfeiting, piracy and bootlegging are often used to describe the criminal behaviour. Where criminal offences may have been committed, an IP owner may pursue the matter themselves as a private prosecution, or report the matter to a public sector enforcer such as the police or trading standards office

(http://www.intellectual-property.gov.uk/std/faq/question4.htm)	


The exact terms, eg for copyright, can be found in section 107 of the UK 
Copyright Designs & Patents Act (1988):
    http://www.jenkins-ip.com/patlaw/cdpa1.htm#s107

It would be useful to come up with the analogous Irish links for all of 
these.


The wording of the UK CDPA provision struck me as a little curious.

It's forbidden to "possess in the course of a business ... an infringing 
copy of a copyright work ... with a view to committing any act 
infringing the copyright".

I'm still trying to think out whether one of Google's directors could be 
guilty of a criminal act, if they went ahead scanning copyright material 
in the UK without authorisation for their indexing.     Does this mean 
that their direct copy from the scan wouldn't be criminal i itself, but 
would become so if they then used it to make any further unauthorised 
copy (eg to feed to their indexing machines) ?!   Maybe they'd better be 
careful where they visit!

For individuals (or organisations "other than in the course of 
business"), it's currently criminal to distribute an infringing copy or 
communicate a copy to the public "to such an extent as to affect 
prejudicially the owner of the copyright".