European DMCA

João Miguel Neves joao at silvaneves.org
Thu Jul 26 20:58:50 UTC 2001


For those who think that Dmitry Sklyarov's arrest was just possible in
the USA, think again. The "Directive 2001/29/EC of the European
Parliament and of the Council of 22 May 2001" simply brings DMCA-like
laws to all the EU space. This directive must be made law by all
countries by 22 December 2002. The complete text can be found at
http://europa.eu.int/smartapi/cgi/sga_doc?smartapi!celexapi!prod!CELEXnumdoc&lg=EN&numdoc=32001L0029&model=guichett

For me the most important (and dangerous) is article 7:

Article 7
Obligations concerning rights-management information
1. Member States shall provide for adequate legal protection against any
person knowingly performing without authority any of the following acts:
(a) the removal or alteration of any electronic rights-management
information;
(b) the distribution, importation for distribution, broadcasting,
communication or making available to the public of works or other
subject-matter protected under this Directive or under Chapter III of
Directive 96/9/EC from which electronic rights-management information
has been removed or altered without authority,
if such person knows, or has reasonable grounds to know, that by so
doing he is inducing, enabling, facilitating or concealing an
infringement of any copyright or any rights related to copyright as
provided by law, or of the sui generis right provided for in Chapter III
of Directive 96/9/EC.
2. For the purposes of this Directive, the expression "rights-management
information" means any information provided by rightholders which
identifies the work or other subject-matter referred to in this
Directive or covered by the sui generis right provided for in Chapter
III of Directive 96/9/EC, the author or any other rightholder, or
information about the terms and conditions of use of the work or other
subject-matter, and any numbers or codes that represent such
information.
The first subparagraph shall apply when any of these items of
information is associated with a copy of, or appears in connection with
the communication to the public of, a work or other subjectmatter
referred to in this Directive or covered by the sui generis right
provided for in Chapter III of Directive 96/9/EC.

What should we do ? Anyone experienced in political lobbying ?

--
						Joao Miguel Neves




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