måndag 14 september 2009

The European Commission strikes back!

I thought I´d try to write in English from time to time when my posts refer to events mainly on the european or the international level. Who knows, with time and practice it might even become readable texts if I keep it up. I was actually planning to write about something completely different tonight, but that all changed in an instance when this document came tumbling into my mailbox from Erik Josefsson (It sure feels nice to have people within the system nowadays).

The document is a Communication from the European Commission regarding new, non-legislative, measures to fight IPR infringement. Throughout the text IPR infringement is labelled as "counterfeiting and piracy" thus merging two, widely different, violations of the current IPR regime into one inseparable item. Means deemed necessary to battle the one violation can thus be justified against the other as no clear distinction between the two exists in the document. But what exactly is it all about? Well, the core of it all is clearly stated in the document:

The Commission is now establishing an Observatory to serve as the central resource for gathering, monitoring and reporting information and data related to all IPR infringements. However, the Observatory should play a much wider role, becoming the platform for representatives from national authorities and stakeholders to exchange ideas and expertise on best practices, to develop joint enforcement strategies and to make recommendations to policy-makers.
Ensuring that the Observatory becomes the pan-European source of knowledge and a central resource for stakeholders and public authorities engaged in IPR enforcement activities will require close collaboration between the Commission, the Member Sates and the private sector.

There you have it. The Commission is creating an Observatory to monitor IPR infringements, i.e. among othr tings internet activity. But that is not the end of it. It also clearly states that it will involve the stakeholders and the private sector in the process. So Ifpi, MPAA and the rest will most likely end up with access to the gathered information and the possibility to "develop joint enforcement strategies and to make recommendations to policy-makers".

This document need to be analysed word by word. And it need to be spread to Internet activist across Europe so that we can join together in an effort to thwart this latest scheme by the EU bureaucracy to put leach on the free web. So please spread the word!

Given that my native tongue is Swedish, and I realized, mid through the document that there should be a Swedish translation (found here) I´ll continue with a more thorough analysis of the Swedish text tomorrow .

Mikael Nilsson, on the board for the Swedish Pirate Party, are way ahead of me and have begun deciphering the text (in Swedish)

5 kommentarer:

Hans J sa...

"IPR" could mean "Intellectual Property Rights" for 'distinguished members of the enlightened club of elevated wisdom' but it could equally well mean a lot of other things

Please explain all TLA's at first occurence.

Christian Wohlert sa...

Här finns lite bakgrundsinformation på Europaportalen från i april tidigare i år om budget med mera.

http://tr.im/yEx3

Nemokrati sa...

Bra att du skriver på engelska - och att vi twittrar på engelska - att kommunikationen är öppen där så de ser att vi är på det. Jag har skrivit en bloggpost med en massa kontaktuppgifter, och även gjort beskärd del av övrigt. Hoppas nu vi får igång folket inför tredjebehandlingen av Telekompaketet - det är väl ändå ganska viktigt, för att inte säga avgörande.

Nemokrati sa...

Jag menar - du pratade ju i en kommunikation med mig för ett tag sen om att vi måste dela på arbetsbördan. Jag tycker det är viktigt att vi får igång det så att det fungerar. Vi är ju många från hela det politiska spektrat som är upprörda över händelseutvecklingen - och den går snabbt. Vi måste ju aktivera parlamentarikerna nu.

Mab sa...

Nemokrati:

Ja, jag tror verkligen att vi måste bredda deltagandet. Både inom det politiska spektrat, och över fler länder. Det krävs ett tryck på både lokala parlament och EU-parlamentariker i alla Europeiska länder om vi ska kunna vända trenden