Yet another ill-conceived EU idea on fighting copyright infringements

The European Commission has a new idea – to fight copyright infringements by targeting companies who advertise on file sharing sites. To nobody’s surprise, what the commission suggests is a mess.

EDRi:s Joe McNamee:

It is currently discussing “guiding principles” for withdrawal of services by advertising companies to penalise and prevent “commercial scale” infringements. Tellingly, the final paragraph of the “guiding principles” contains very similar wording to the ill-fated “Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement” (ACTA) that was rejected in 2012.

Like ACTA, the “guiding principles” include illusory “safeguards”, such as references to non-existent legal terms like “fundamental principles” and “fair process” (not due process). Like ACTA, it refers to “commercial scale”, as if this was a safeguard. The European Commission itself has previously said that the term is too vague in existing law.

The text also refers to a “right to access lawful content”, even though there is no such “right”. We have a right to freedom of movement (not a right to legal movement), we have a right to freedom of communication. The implication of the expression “right to access lawful content” is that everything we do or say should be assumed to be illegal until proven otherwise. This is profoundly objectionable.

Why is it that every time the European Commission address issues like copyright, file sharing and a free and open Internet – they totally loose it?

The commissioners are supposed to be the elite of European bureaucracy and they have top legal advisors. But do they even know what they are doing? Or do they deliberately conspire to deceive the public?

/ HAX

EDRi: “Follow the money” on copyright infringements »

2 Responses to Yet another ill-conceived EU idea on fighting copyright infringements

  1. Arne October 20, 2016 at 5:34 pm #

    Totally the latter

  2. Bengt October 24, 2016 at 4:24 pm #

    Lose = förlora
    Loose = lös, att inte sitta fast/åt.

    Tyvärr är de flesta politiker idioter, då blir det så här illa. Det finns ju inga kompetenskrav för politiker.

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