Brussels, 01/06/2010 (Agence Europe) - On Tuesday 1 June, the legal affairs committee adopted the draft report by Marielle Gallo (EPP, France) on strengthening the application of intellectual property rights (IPRs) in the internal market. The most controversial part of the report relates to the exchange, uploading and downloading of copyright protected works. Gallo says, “This has never been about transposing the French Hadopi law to European level”, which would ultimately have meant European legislation that would have allowed, as a last resort, removing internet access from those who illegally downloaded protected works. She said, too, that neither was there any question of illegal downloading of protected works being authorised. Giving assurances that her draft report makes no assumptions about any penalties that should be imposed, she, nevertheless, recommended that careful thought be given to “hosts” and internet access providers so that the public does not become used to illegal downloading.
Gallo's initial draft report described the pirating of protected content as the greatest obstacle to the development of legal offer online, and called on the Commission to bring forward a new proposal on criminal sanctions for IPR infringements. To help bring agreement, all reference to “pirating” has been replaced by the expression “IPR infringements”. The draft report simply notes the failure of the negotiations on the current proposal on the review of Directive 2004/48/EC which brings in criminal sanctions for IPR infringements, a move backed by the EP in April 2007 (see EUROPE 9414). The draft report also considers that the EU risks condemning efforts to develop a legal digital internal market to failure if it does not recognise that the lack of such a market constitutes a serious impediment to the development of a legal online market and if it does not adopt “urgent proposals” to address this issue.
The S&D, Greens/EFA groups in the EP voted against the Gallo draft report as amended. The parliamentary committee rejected three amendments, put down jointly by these two groups, which: - stress the interest in authorising file sharing among individuals for non-commercial use; - call on the Commission to “recognise the non-commercial file sharing associated with alternative reward systems, including the creation of a new exception or limitation to the making available and reproduction rights”; - call on the Commission to produce full information on the economic aspects of mutualised financing creation schemes on the basis on private sharing of digital content. “With today's vote, (the conservative European parties) are not protecting citizens', nor artists', interests, but rather the producers' and their obsolete model of distribution. We need to study proposals for alternative reward systems and for the development of innovative business initiatives that are more consumer-friendly,” said Françoise Castex (France) and Bernhard Rapkay (Germany) of the S&D in a press release. (M.B./transl.rt)