Strasbourg, March 8th, 2010 – Tonight, the JURI committee of the European Parliament will discuss the amendments tabled on the Gallo report1Update, March 10th: At the last minute, the meeting was postponed to a future date. The reasons for this delay remain undetermined.. This initiative report2A non-legislative position of the European Parliament preparing or encouraging a legislative initiative is a response to a communication of the Commission on “intellectual property rights” enforcement, which La Quadrature has already strongly criticized. To make sure that the Parliament promote the interest of European citizens, the report must be profoundly revised.
Whereas the communication from the European Commission was already full of analytical flaws, the draft report written by rapporteur Marielle Gallo (EPP, France) is even worse. It tends to focus on what it calls “online piracy”, and appears to be written by the copyright lobbies themselves. As outlined before by La Quadrature du Net, the draft report displays an extremely dangerous approach, assimilating file-sharing to commercial counterfeiting and calling for the further criminalization of non-commercial copyright infringements.
Fortunately, MEPs of the JURI committee have tabled some constructive amendments3See also this document presenting the tabled amendments: http://www.laquadrature.net/files/amendments_on_gallo_draft_report_ipr.doc to correct the flaws of the original draft. The JURI committee will vote on these amendments in the coming weeks4The vote is supposed to take place on March 23rd, but it could be postponed to April 28th, and the amended report will then be debatted and voted upon in plenary session (i.e by the whole European Parliament).
“Enough of giving in to copyright extremists! It is time for the European Union to stop the stupid ‘war on sharing’ and enact policies that benefit citizens instead of inhibiting innovative practices. EU lawmakers must realize is that the Internet allows for a new cultural economy – one that enables everyone to participate in the creation and dissemination of culture for the benefit of the whole society. With the Gallo report, the European Parliament should make clear that it will refuse to undermine the positive contribution of the Internet to creative activities”, says Jérémie Zimmermann, spokesperson for La Quadrature du Net.
Resources:
- Dogmatic IPR enforcement fails to address the challenges of the Internet-based creative economy – La Quadrature’s response to the European Commission’s communication on “Enhancing the enforcement of intellectual property rights in the internal market”.
- Creative Content in the Digital Age: Reasserting the Rights of the Public – La Quadrature’s response to the European Commission’s consultation regarding “Online Creative Content”.
- The Creative contribution – Proposal by La Quadrature’s co-founder Phillipe Aigrain.
References
| ↑1 | Update, March 10th: At the last minute, the meeting was postponed to a future date. The reasons for this delay remain undetermined. |
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| ↑2 | A non-legislative position of the European Parliament preparing or encouraging a legislative initiative |
| ↑3 | See also this document presenting the tabled amendments: http://www.laquadrature.net/files/amendments_on_gallo_draft_report_ipr.doc |
| ↑4 | The vote is supposed to take place on March 23rd, but it could be postponed to April 28th |