[FYI] European Parliament postpones vote on IP law

["Axel H Horns" <axel.h.horns@gmx.net>]

<http://www.thestandard.com/article.php?story=20040223155324217>

European Parliament postpones vote on IP law

Monday, February 23 2004 @ 03:53 PM GMT

By Paul Meller, IDG News Service

The European Parliament has postponed a vote on a controversial law 
on intellectual property enforcement until early March, following 
drawn out negotiations with the European Commission and member state 
governments.  

The Parliament's legal affairs committee is to discuss the proposal 
with the Irish government, which currently holds the presidency of 
the European Union (EU), and with the Union's executive body, the 
European Commission, on Monday in an attempt to reach an agreement 
that can be rubber stamped at next month's vote by the European 
Parliament.  

The Commission is resisting signing up to an agreement that would 
stretch the reach of the law to all infringements of intellectual 
property such as patents, copyright and trademarks, according to 
people close to the Commission.  

In its original proposal, the EU executive body limited the tough 
criminal sanctions only to infringements made for commercial 
purposes, tailoring the law to fight counterfeiting and piracy.  

When it unveiled its proposal at the beginning of 2003 the record 
industry and Hollywood movie studios slammed it as insufficient. The 
record industry in particular wants the law to apply to private 
infringements, such as those committed by peer-to-peer exchanges of 
music files.  

[...]



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