IP Enforcement Directive – DMCA on steroids

An international coalition of 47 civil liberties groups and consumer rights campaigns sent a letter to the European Union today urging rejection of the proposed Intellectual property Enforcement Directive .

The coalition warns that the proposed Directive is overbroad and threatens civil liberties, innovation, and competition policy. It requires EU Member States to criminalize all violations of any intellectual property right that can be tied to any commercial purpose, with penalties to include imprisonment. Andy Müller-Maguhn, a board member of European Digital Rights and speaker for the Chaos Computer Club explains:

If this proposal becomes a reality, major companies from abroad can use ‘intellectual property’ regulations to gain control over the lives of ordinary European citizens and threaten digital freedoms. Under this proposal, a person’s individual liberty to use his own property is replaced with a limited license that can be revoked or its terms changed at any time and for any reason.

Ville Oksanen, a lawyer and Vice Chairman of Electronic Frontier Finland (EFFi) who signed the letter, points out:

Currently EU-Member states are implementing the EU Copyright Directive and the EU Software Patent Directive is next in the line. We should really wait and see what effect these new laws have before adding any new legislation organizational letter. Contrary to what the Enforcement Directive claims, Member States are already obliged by international treaties like TRIPS to protect intellectual property rights.

The letter marked the launch of the Campaign for an Open Digital Environment (CODE) to raise awareness about the IP Enforcement proposal’s threat to consumer rights and market competition. CODE encourages European citizens to contact the EUROPARL Committee on Legal Affairs and Internal Market and urge the proposal’s rejection before the September 11, 2003 hearing on its merits in Brussels.

Particular concerns are over Article 9 and Article 21 of the proposal. The former gives intellectual property holders broad new subpoena powers to obtain personal information about any European citizen that is alleged to be connected to an infringement. Similar subpoena powers created by the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act are abused by the Recording Industry Association of America to obtain personal information about thousands of users of file-sharing software. The proposed IP Enforcement Directive would extend the ability to abuse this power to Europe.

Article 21 requires EU member states to forbid technology including software that is capable of bypassing technical restrictions imposed by intellectual property holders. This provision threatens market competition by permitting foreign IP owners to restrict parallel imports and impose price discrimination within the EU. It would also forbid Europeans from deactivating or removing technical devices such as Radio Frequency ID (RFID) tags that are embedded into clothing and other consumer goods to prevent counterfeiting but can also be used to track people. João Miguel Neves, Vice-President of Portuguese National Association for Free Software (ANSOL) warns:

Forbiding tools that are required for the exercise of legally protected rights, like private use, preservation of works by libraries, and reverse engineering, means giving a complete monopoly to right-holders on the basic infrastructure needed to communicate in the digital world.