EP: Draft reports on IPR enforcement published

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Deutsch: [Europäisches Parlament: Vorläufige Berichte zur Durchsetzung des geistigen Eigentumsrechts veröffentlicht | http://www.unwatched.org/node/1725]

The European Parliament (EP) is working on a position in regards with the
European Commission’s Green Paper on enhancing the enforcement of
intellectual property rights on the internal market.

Three EP committees are involved in this process: the Legal Affairs
Committee (MEP Mareille Gallo, EPP, France) in charge of this report,
“Opinions” provided by the Industry, Research and Energy Committee (MEP Paul
Rübig, EPP, Austria) and the Internal Market and Consumer Protection
Committee (MEP Zusana Roithova, EPP, Czech Republic).

MEP Rübig’s report calls for EU-wide licensing, interoperability and
supports the “mere conduit” status of ISPs. However, he also calls for
“effective” sanctions against copyright infringement.

MEP Roithova’s report is quite balanced and avoids confusing copyright and
piracy. It calls for transparency on ACTA and “calls for proportionate
measures to be proposed for effectively and successfully combating the
negative impact of infringement of intellectual property rights in the
digital environment (“piracy”) on the internal market and calls on the
Observatory to analyse the impact of alternative systems of equitable
compensation (for example, flat-rate licences)”

Unfortunately, MEP Gallo’s report still confuses piracy and counterfeiting
and paints a doom-laden picture of what piracy and counterfeiting mean for
the EU (“threatens our economies and societies”). The report also demands
reports on the implementation of existing IPR legislation, but notes already
that it is inadequate. The draft document also calls for “cooperation” with
and “warning messages” from ISPs.

The next steps planned for this IPR report are the discussion on amendments
and the vote on 17 March 2010, with the final vote in the plenary estimated
for April 2010.

EU Green Paper on enhancing the enforcement of intellectual property rights
in the internal market (11.09.2009)
http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/iprenforcement/docs/ip-09-1313/communication_en.pdf

Draft Report on enhancing the enforcement of intellectual property rights in
the internal market – MEP Mareille Gallo (15.02.2010)
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//NONSGML+COMPARL+PE-438.164+01+DOC+PDF+V0//EN&language=EN

Draft Opinion of the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy for the
Committee on Legal Affairs on enforcement of intellectual property rights in
the internal market – MEP Paul Rübig (29.01.2010)
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//NONSGML+COMPARL+PE-438.391+01+DOC+PDF+V0//EN&language=EN

Draft Opinion of the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer
Protection for the Committee on Legal Affairs on enhancing the enforcement
of intellectual property rights in the internal market – MEP Zusana Roithova
(5.02.2010)
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//NONSGML+COMPARL+PE-438.494+01+DOC+PDF+V0//EN&language=EN

(contribution by Joe McNamee – EDRi)