European Commission infringes EDRI's Intellectual Property Rights

By EDRi · October 29, 2004

The European Commission, otherwise known as being in favour of taking rigorous action against infringers of Intellectual Property Rights, is an infringer itself. On its e-Government news site, the Brussels executive body published, on October 14, an
Article about a biometrics hearing at the European Parliament that is almost entirely made up by snippets from
another Article published in EDRI-gram more than a week earlier. While the Creative Commons License that the EDRI-gram Article is published under clearly allows “to copy, distribute, display, and perform the work, to make derivative works” and even “to make commercial use of the work”, it states one condiditon:

Attribution. You must give the original author credit.

For any reuse or distribution, you must make clear to others the license terms of this work.

EDRI EU Affairs Director Andreas Dietl, who is also the author of the original EDRI-gram Article, says:

Honestly, I am quite happy that the European Commission has shown its adherence to our views on biometrics by infringing our Intellectual Property Rights. I would just wish that Commission officials would put this critical point of view on a broader foundation by coming to such hearings themselves.

Concerning the IPR infringement, it really is a minor one, and I have no doubt the European Commission will fix it as quickly as possible by introducing the attribution to EDRI and the terms of the Creative Commons License on its website.