Parliament places points for EU Copyright Directive in the Information Society
The Parliament of the European Union today adopted a report by the Italian Deputy Enrico Boselli on copyright in the information society. The Bosellis report reflects the opinion of the EU Parliament appointed "Common position of the Council with a view to the adoption of a directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on the harmonization of certain aspects of copyright and related property rights in the information society". It is about harmonizing the EU law, on the one hand, in order to create a germinous European legal basis for the ratification of the Agreement of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) of 1996, on the other hand, a legal situation comparable to the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) Create, allegedly worried about legal certainty in the near-right room internet.
Until most recently, there had been serious bidding in the EU Parliament. If you read the press release on yesterday’s discussion, so you could get the impression that the law is seen as a compilation of copyright protection, but also as a softening of the same. One of the parliamentarians had the whole process for this directive as "Ride over Lake Constance" denoted, a somewhat antiquated comparison, but nonetheless accurate. Because the 300 lobby organizations had tried in the last few days and weeks to influence the euro parliamentarians, which corresponds to half a lobbyist per parliamentarian. The pendulum was exploited in different directions in the course of the opinion-forming process, up to extreme such as that, which every private copying was prohibited and even technical intermediate copies in cache and proxy storage are copyrighted taxable.
But the final decision-catching will not be reality, at least such horror visions. The only decision which will be mandatory for all member states concerns this type of "technically necessary" Copies. Temporally limited reproductions, the part of a "Integral and essential technical process" are still tax-free.
But principle is to be said – to have talked to this early time shortly after the decision and without having to talk to an EU law and a copyright expert at the same time, which would actually require a reasonable to write a sense of this respective topic – that the In fact, a compilation of legal protection in favor of the right holders. First and foremost, it is clearly determined that right owners have the freedom to decide on all forms of reproduction or training of their works in the digital and networked world. Everything else "Exceptions", over their number and texture it was until the last a scramble.
So the private copying will still be allowed, but as with all other exceptions, it must be one "Reasonable securities" For the right holders. This refers to the immigrant Europe-wide introduction flat-rate donations for media that can be used to copying. In German land already well known, z.B. In the form of the cassette delivery and the delivery of scanners and copy gates, which are pitched by the handers to the selling price, this type of consumption in countries such as cooqueave is a complete novelty. The sometimes very careful tone of the "Common position on the directive" is a result of the fact that the legislation is very different in Member States of the EU and that the individual states see their own legislation as necessary to maintain their cultural heritage.
Other important exceptions are those for libraries, as well as copies of research and teaching, but also to citizenship in journalism and political education and other copyrighted exemption forms whose dissemination is in public interest. But as mentioned, these exceptions are not completely exempt from copyright. It must always be provided for a reasonable securture – Say lump sum – and the right holders have a kind of automatic veto law.
In the worst, the users can pay twice, namely by paying a lump sum for all copy devices, whether CD burners, CD blank or floppy disk, but also because the new directive explicitly enhanced digital copy protection facilities. While it is said that flat-rate moldings should not be used if the right holders offer their works in a form that copy protection measures are implemented, but who will prevent this type of double taxation to prevent? So it could come so far that one pays a kind of empty cartridge delivery for hard drives, but at the same time pays digitally protected music chocolates, which are not copied anyway or just cranked.
Significant influence also seems to have remedied the discussion about Napster on legislation, with the court’s decision in the US explicitly found in the opinions of the EU parliamentarian entrance. The legislation is designed to ensure that operators of systems such as Napster do not knowingly swap copyright-protected materials through their technical systems. This applies to any peer-to-peer model of file exchange.
Even explicitly, the directive is for tools and active actions to avoid digital protection measures. Closely based on the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, so should tools for copy protection and bypassing measures such as Z.B. Decss in the future in community europe be illegal. To praise this, such tools are not yet illegal with this Directive, but it demands the introduction of new laws that will make them illegally.
The EU parliamentarians also agreed on a restriction of the implementation period of 24 to 18 months. Overall, the copy protection lobby seems to have sampled. Although EUROPA reserve some exceptions that can be determined by the respective national interest, but exceptions are definition. Instead of taking the possibilities to offer the digital media for a free flub of knowledge and information, the scope for not explicit copies is concentrated further. The exceptions Moge a Userrevolte and the financial collapse of the education system just help to prevent, but in principle, habes are more likely to be written here.
A more detailed description of the various positions and the career of this legislation can be found in "Copy prohibited" by Stefan Krempl.