As posted to the A2K list. -- Hi all,
as some of you already know and for the information of the others:
There is another nasty directive being brought up by the European Commission, putting together the more contentious the remains of the infamous "IPR Enforcement Directive" (IPRED). This new directive, which many of us have begun referring to as IPRED II, seeks to introduce criminal sanctions for "infringement of intellectual property on a commercial scale."
IPRED II could get nasty for many of us and is likely to create massive problems for professional authors, artists and programmers:
In the current legal environment, just doing their job puts all of them in constant danger of infringement. Trying to prove that they did not intend to infringe might be difficult -- and this directive will largely foreclose the possibility to settle things peacefully between parties as such settlement is unlikely in criminal court cases.
We will need to build up force against this so it does not pass as silently as IPRED was passed.
The Free Software Foundation Europe (FSFE) has put up a web page explaining the directive and things that we could work for at
http://fsfeurope.org/projects/ipred2/ipred2.en.html
Please check it out and let others know this is headed our way.
Regards, Georg
-- Georg C. F. Greve greve@fsfeurope.org Free Software Foundation Europe (http://fsfeurope.org) Join the Fellowship and protect your freedom! (http://www.fsfe.org) -- [ Content of type application/pgp-signature deleted ] _______________________________________________ A2k mailing list A2k@lists.essential.org http://lists.essential.org/mailman/listinfo/a2k