Digital Copyright Canada

Just forwarding at this time.

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 Russell McOrmond, Internet Consultant: <http://www.flora.ca/> 
 Recently at Ottawa Linux Symposium: July 23rd-26th
 http://www.linuxsymposium.org/2003/view_abstract.php?talk=193
 Hosting "Birds of a Feather" for http://www.goslingcommunity.org

---------- Forwarded message ----------
Date: Sun, 10 Aug 2003 20:14:34 -0700
From: Robin Gross <robin@ipjustice.org>
To: robin@ipjustice.org
Subject: International Civil Liberties Coalition Urges Rejection of IP 
    Enforcement Directive

IP Justice Media Release

August 11, 2003

International Civil Liberties Coalition Urges Rejection of IP Enforcement 
Directive
Campaign for an Open Digital Environment (CODE) Sends Letter to EU to 
Protect Consumer Rights and Competition

An international coalition of 38 civil liberties groups and consumer rights 
campaigns sent a letter to the European Union today urging rejection of the 
proposed Intellectual property Enforcement Directive.  The coalition warns 
that the proposed Directive is overbroad and threatens civil liberties, 
innovation, and competition policy.  The proposal requires EU Member States 
to criminalize all violations of any intellectual property right that can 
be tied to any commercial purpose, with penalties to include imprisonment.

"If this proposal becomes a reality, major companies from abroad can use 
'intellectual property' regulations to gain control over the lives of 
ordinary European citizens and threaten digital freedoms", said Andy 
Müller-Maguhn, a board member of European Digital Rights and speaker for 
the Chaos Computer Club.  "Under this proposal, a person's individual 
liberty to use his own property is replaced with a limited license that can 
be revoked or its terms changed at any time and for any reason," added the 
German civil rights activist.

"Currently EU-Member states are implementing the EU Copyright Directive and 
the EU Software Patent Directive is next in the line.  We should really 
wait and see what effect these new laws have before adding any new 
legislation, " said Ville Oksanen, a lawyer and Vice Chairman of Electronic 
Frontier Finland (EFFi), a signatory on the organizational 
letter.   "Contrary to what the Enforcement Directive claims, Member States 
are already obliged by international treaties like TRIPS to protect 
intellectual property rights,” Oksanen continued.

In conjunction with the publication of the letter, the international group 
of activists launched the Campaign for an Open Digital Environment (CODE) 
to raise awareness about the IP Enforcement proposal’s threat to consumer 
rights and market competition.  CODE encourages European citizens to 
contact the EUROPARL Committee on Legal Affairs and Internal Market and 
urge the proposal’s rejection before the September 11, 2003 hearing on its 
merits in Brussels.

“Major IP holders are highly organized to impose maximalist provisions in 
transnational agreements,” said Robin D. Gross, Executive Director of IP 
Justice, an international civil liberties organization.  “The CODE campaign 
unites people from many different countries to defend civil rights against 
the encroachment of overzealous intellectual property protection.”

In its letter to EU members, the coalition expressed particular concern 
over Article 9 of the proposal, which gives intellectual property holders 
broad new subpoena powers to obtain personal information about any European 
citizen that is alleged to be connected to an infringement.  Similar 
subpoena powers created by the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act are 
abused by the Recording Industry Association of America to obtain personal 
information about thousands of users of file-sharing software.  The 
proposed IP Enforcement Directive would extend the ability to abuse this 
power to Europe.

The international coalition also urged rejection of Article 21 of the 
proposal, which requires Member States to forbid technology including 
software that is capable of bypassing technical restrictions imposed by 
intellectual property holders.  This provision threatens market competition 
by permitting foreign IP owners to restrict parallel imports and impose 
price discrimination within the EU.  Article 21 would also forbid Europeans 
from deactivating or removing technical devices such as Radio Frequency ID 
(RFID) tags that are embedded into clothing and other consumer goods to 
prevent counterfeiting but can also be used to track people.

"Forbiding tools that are required for the exercise of legally protected 
rights, like private use, preservation of works by libraries, and reverse 
engineering, means giving a complete monopoly to right-holders on the basic 
infrastructure needed to communicate in the digital world," said João 
Miguel Neves, Vice-President of Portuguese National Association for Free 
Software (ANSOL).

“One can think of the EU IP Enforcement Directive as the ‘DMCA on steroids’ 
since any industrial property right that can be licensed will be enforced 
through technical devices that it will be absolutely illegal to circumvent 
throughout Europe,” added Gross, an intellectual property attorney.

Media Contacts:
Robin Gross, Executive Director, IP Justice
robin@ipjustice.org
+1 415.553.6261

Andy Müller-Maguhn, Board Member, European Digital Rights (EDRi)
andy@edri.org
+ 49 (0) 30-3087 1710

João Miguel Neves, President, Portuguese National Association for Free 
Software (ANSOL)
joao.neves@ansol.org
+351 933 252 302

Ville Oksanen, Vice-Chairman, Electronic Frontier Finland
ville.oksanen@effi.org
+358 40 5368583

Frederic Couchet, Association Pour la Recherche en Informatique Libre (APRIL)
fcouchet@april.org

Alexandre Dulaunoy, President, NGO/ASBL Association Electronique Libre (AEL)
alexandre.dulaunoy@ael.be
+352091303303

Martin Keegan, Deputy Leader, UK Campaign for Digital Rights
mk@ukcdr.org
+44 7779 296469

Links for More Information:

CODE Organizational Letter Urging Rejection of EU IP Enforcement Directive:
http://www.ipjustice.org/codeletter.shtml

Campaign for an Open Digital Environment (CODE) Website:
http://www.ipjustice.org/code.shtml

IP Justice White Paper on EU IP Enforcement Directive:
http://www.ipjustice.org/ipenforcewhitepaper.shtml

Foundation for Information Policy Research Analysis on Directive:
http://www.fipr.org/copyright/draft-ipr-enforce.html

Association Electronique Libre Webpage on IP Enforcement Directive:
http://wiki.ael.be/index.php/IPRProposalDirectiveInfoPage

Electronic Frontier Finland Statement on Enforcement Proposal:
http://www.effi.org/julkaisut/lausunnot/ipr_enforcement_lausunto.en.html

Text of Proposed European Union IP Enforcement Directive:
http://www.europa.eu.int/cgi-bin/eur-lex/udl.pl?REQUEST=Service-Search&LANGUAGE=en&GUILANGUAGE=en&SERVICE=all&COLLECTION=com&DOCID=503PC0046

Portuguese Translation of CODE Letter from ANSOL::
http://www.ipjustice.org/code/portcodeletter.html

French Translation of CODE Letter from AEL:
http://wiki.ael.be/index.php/IPRProposalDirectiveLetterIPJusticeFr

IP Justice is an international civil liberties organization that promotes 
balanced intellectual property law. IP Justice defends individual rights to 
use digital media worldwide and is a registered California non-profit 
organization.  IP Justice was founded in 2002 by Robin D. Gross, who serves 
as its Executive Director.  To learn more about IP Justice, visit the 
website at http://www.ipjustice.org

IP JUSTICE
Robin D. Gross, Esq.
Executive Director     www.ipjustice.org
robin@ipjustice.org    +1 415.553.6261

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[d@DCC] International Civil Liberties Coalition Urges Rejection of IP Enforcement Directive (fwd)

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