EU finally ratifies copyright treaty
It only took 13 years
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The European Union has ratified an international agreement on copyright law which was first negotiated in 1996 and which has formed the basis of EU copyright law since 2001.
The European Union and its member states have finally ratified two agreements created by the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO), the Copyright Treaty and the Performances and Phonograms Treaty.
Negotiations on the treaties began in 1996 and the European Commission said that the Copyright Directive of 2001, which forms the basis of copyright law in all the EU's 27 member states, was based on the treaties.
"Immediately after the [WIPO] Diplomatic Conference in 1996, work started at the European level to adapt European copyright law to the WIPO 'internet' Treaties," said a Commission statement. "A European Copyright Directive was adopted in 2001."
Countries that have agreed to sign up to WIPO treaties formally do so by ratifying them. Though the decision to ratify was taken by the European Council in 2000, it has only just taken place.
"Today is an important day for the European Union and its Member States and WIPO," said Internal Markets Commissioner Charlie McCreevy. "We as a group have shown our attachment to the international system of protection of copyright and related rights. These two treaties brought protection up to speed with modern technologies."
The treaties were the first time that the EU itself was allowed to be a full 'contracting party' at WIPO on a copyright issue, rather than just an observer.
The ratification comes as EU countries meet with the Commission as part of a newly created body designed to co-ordinate copyright protection and anti-piracy activity across the EU.
The European Observatory for Counterfeiting and Piracy was founded earlier this year by McCreevy.
"The Observatory will work on existing legal frameworks and establish a databank on the specific areas of threat facing the EU," said a Commission statement.
"We must do more to protect ourselves and the Observatory is a fundamental step in bringing together Member States, authorities, private businesses and consumers in a joint, concerted effort to rid ourselves of this dangerous problem," said McCreevy.
The Observatory first met in September and established two sub-groups to work on assessing the existing legal framework and to look at data gathering, the Observatory said.
The Commission said that the Observatory was a necessary attempt to find ways to enforce intellectual property laws outside, as well as inside, the courts system.
"The Commission aims to ensure that a truly efficient and proportionate system of enforcement of intellectual property rights exists, both within and outside the internal market," said the Commission statement. "The current legal framework offers the tools to enforce intellectual property rights in a fair, effective and proportionate way, but there is an acute need to support enforcement efforts through practical non legislative means."
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OUT-LAW.COM is part of international law firm Pinsent Masons.
COMMENTS
So does this mean
that copyright terms in Europe will now follow the US convention of life-of-the-author until heat-death of the universe, allowing a creator's great-great-great-great-great-granchildren to freeload through life because some centuries-dead ancestor wrote a bloody song?
so link to the damn legal paper then
so Directly link to the damn EU paper then outlaw, or how are we to judge for ourselves if what you outline is a fair and accurate account of the story....
so were does this directive stand as regards renumeration and proof of commercial piracy?
as in How Exactly does an ISP end user "enforce [their] intellectual property rights in a fair, effective and proportionate way" Today under The Existing Copyrights and Privacy Torts: Compensation for Harm under this EU and UK related directives.
and how does this latest EU directive strenthen the Copyright
Criminal Liability for any Corp person that might consider signing off commiting Copyright Offences against consumers and their copyrighted datastreams without prior authority to do so for instance
http://www.ipit-update.com/copy29.htm
what newest guidelines and practices have or will be put in place to UK Trading Standards Officers to make sure they also follow through on their mandate that Anyone involved in copyright theft (and that includes any involved Executives authorising such unlawful hardware puroses use ) now faces the threat of a criminal prosecution by a local authority trading standards department for commercial copyright infringement Piracy (as well as any other infringement) with the possibility of a maximum ten year prison sentence or unlimited fine For commercially profiting form consumers copyrighted content and derivative works there of without concent.
currenty before these new EU directives were ratified
the LEGAL SUMMARY By FACT states
.
Prosecutions for piracy will usually consist of trade
mark and/or copyright breaches and also conspiracy
to defraud. Consideration should also be given to use
of the Fraud Act 2006 when dealing with these
offences.
"COPYRIGHT OFFENCES
Section 107, Copyright, Designs and Patents Act
1988
Elements of the Offence
The illegal activity must be in the course of a
business"
"Section 107(1) A person commits an offence who,
without the licence of the copyright owner –
Section 107 (1) (a) makes for sale or hire, or
...
...
Section 107 (1) (c) possesses in the course of a
business with a view to committing any act
infringing the copyright,
Section 107 (1) (e) distributes otherwise than in the
course of a business to such an extent as to affect
prejudicially the owner of the copyright,
an article which is, and which he knows or has reason
to believe is, an infringing copy of a copyright work.
Section 107 (1) (a), (b), (d), (iv) and (e) above are all either
way offences for which a maximum sentence of ten
years’ imprisonment and / or an unlimited fine are
available by way of penalty on indictment.
"
in the case of Virgin Media and their partners Defica for instance,
a clear case of covert wiretaping and diverting consumer owned copyright Unique datastreams for commerial profit without prior authorisition of the copyright owner it seems.
"Their system starts by using fibre taps to pick off traffic from an appropriate part of the ISP network. They use a fibre tap rather than “port mirroring” to make it easier for the ISP to be sure that they won’t disrupt any traffic."
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