[Infowarrior] - European Commission Planning New, More Draconian 'Anti-Piracy' Laws

[Richard Forno]

European Commission Planning New, More Draconian 'Anti-Piracy' Laws

from the but-of-course dept

This is hardly surprising, but the European Commission is currently discussing "IPRED 2," its latest attempt to craft pro-Hollywood laws concerning copyright infringement. As in the past, these are incredibly broad and conflate a variety of issues. They also seek (of course) to make everyone else copyright cops for Hollywood -- with specific focus on getting ISPs to start blocking and/or filtering users. The link above highlights some of the problems with the current outline, but the very worst part in my mind is the continued conflation of copyright infringement with physical counterfeiting. We've pointed out how common and nefarious this is. It allows certain lobbyists to change their argument as necessary. Basically, they can point to organized crime's involvement in physical goods counterfeiting, and then lump in fans listening to their favorite bands, as if they were the same thing. They're not. Treating them as if they were only serves to make people respect copyright law even less. Anyone can tell the difference between these scenarios, and pretending that they're the same makes it look like these lobbyists and politicians know that they're trying to hide behind one scenario to pitch laws that the industry wants, but clearly does not need.

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110114/10490912670/european-commission-planning-new-more-draconian-anti-piracy-laws.shtml