Intellectual property rights
Right-liberal majority votes for copyright legislation unfit for the internet age
The Greens/EFA today voted against the controversial "Gallo report" (1) on copyright enforcement in the Legal Affairs Committee of the European Parliament, with a view to eventually legalising non-commercial file sharing. A right wing-liberal majority adopted the report with 15 votes to 9, with some Liberal members abstaining. Commenting on the vote,Christian Engström MEP (Swedish Pirate party) said:
"This vote on the enforcement of intellectual property rights offers no solutions adapted to the modern online-world and just defends the interests of some copyright lobbies. Unfortunately, the advocates of a modern and fact-based legislation - the Greens, the Socialists and the Left - today remained the minority on the crucial question of copyright. The Christian Democrats, Conservatives and some Liberals decided to support a vision of copyright, which might be suitable for previous century but ignores the necessities of the internet age.
Moreover, they ask for more figures on the impact of non-commercial file sharing to be collected but then don't bother to wait for those figures to be evaluated. Instead, they have jumped the gun and called for more and stricter enforcement of today's copyright, regardless of what the facts may turn out to be.
Today the Internet Community suffered a defeat, but the last word has not been said yet. We will try to get better legislation at a vote in the plenary session in Strasbourg (2). The Greens/EFA will be tabling an alternative resolution in the plenary session and we believe it has a realistic chance of success."
Note the editors:
1) Marielle GalloReport on enhancing the enforcement of intellectual property rights in the internal market
2) The plenary vote is currently scheduled to take place in the week beginning 14th of June, but may be postponed until the plenary session in July.
