EU Commission is cooking up a new stew
The software patent directive’s dead body is not quite cold yet, as another beast is raising its head. It goes by the name of “Proposal For EU Directive on criminal measures aimed at ensuring the enforcement of intellectual property rights”.
On the face of it, this is a proposal for a directive which will impose harsher penalties for counterfeiting and “piracy”. The reasons given for this are that these practices are penalised too lightly, that they are hurting the economy, and that they are often connected to organised crime.
This is only a draft, of course, but quite a thorough one already. What I don’t like about it is this: The proposal suffers from over-simplification and the fuzziness of the term “intellectual property”: There is no specific reference to the legislation infringed. What is it? Copyright? Patents? Trademarks? It just lumps all of them into one. It is seven articles long, of which only Arts. 2, 3 and 4 actually refer to the matter. What will happen to the infinitely more complex and refined legislation of member states? By making matters look so simple, the proposal reinforces the erroneous belief that a limited monopoly on ideas, such as copyright, is in fact a natural right. Consequently, the proposal makes no mention of any consideration of public interest or fair use. The reasoning for why this directive is needed is worded right out of the rightsholders lobby’s vocabulary. The reference to organised crime is a classic, as is the notion behind the text that every illegal copy means a lost sale. Article 4 of an “Explanatory Memorandum” calls for “Joint Investigation Teams”, in which the rightsholders cooperate with prosecuters. Considering it is in their best interest to do so anyway, what additional powers would this instrument give to the rightsholders?
And then, there is the same question that had to be asked for the software patents directive: This area is already protected by existing laws. Why do we need this directive? This duplication of legislation is somewhat ominous.
Keep your eyes open. This does not smell good, somehow.