More on IPRED2 - the criminalisation directive

Ciaran O'Riordan ciaran at fsfe.org
Wed Apr 18 12:50:23 UTC 2007


FSFE will be sending an open letter to the MEPs tonight when translations
are done:
http://fsfeurope.org/projects/ipred2/letter-april-2007.en.html

And I've put all the useful links I could think of into a blog entry:
http://fsfe.org/en/fellows/ciaran/ciaran_s_free_software_notes/act_now_on_next_week_s_ep_vote_on_ipred2

The amendments that FSFE endorses are on this page (now also in PDF):
http://action.ffii.org/ipred2/FFII_Analysis


The open letter is not exhaustive, and there is plenty I would like to add,
but it hits the key points:
* Short and simple enough for the MEP to read
* Short enough to be translated to many languages in a short timeframe
* Show that we have read the Directive and that we understand it
* Make it clear that we want amendments, and say which amendments we want
* Finish it and send it to the MEPs as early as possible
* Show that the current text is *not* supported by the free software
  commmunity 

(That last point is important because the person in charge of this
Directive, Nicola Zingaretti, likes to tell people he is a free software
supporter - so we have to tell MEPs that we do not support his version)


The amendments we're endorsing are very good.  I would rather endorse
rejecting the Directive, but that proposal would fail in the European
Parliament, and I would rather the amendments didn't use the word "piracy"
so much, but there are two good reasons for doing this.  One is that
"copyright piracy" is much narrower than "copyright infringement", which is
good, and the other is that the TRIPS agreement requires that signatories
prevent "copyright piracy", so by addressing "copyright piracy" in this
Directive, we prevent people from using "copyright piracy" as an excuse for
a further Directive.


The vote is next week and the MEPs are discussing it this week, so if you
want to get active on this, please do so as soon as possible.  The most
useful thing to do is to contact your MEP and ask them to vote for the
amendments that I linked above.

-- 
CiarĂ¡n O'Riordan __________________ \ http://fsfeurope.org/projects/gplv3
http://ciaran.compsoc.com/ _________ \  GPLv3 and other work supported by
http://fsfe.org/fellows/ciaran/weblog \   Fellowship: http://www.fsfe.org



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