Civil liberties in Europe were handed a severe set-back today as the European Union Parliament passed a controversial directive that will treat average consumers who accidentally infringe a single copyright with the same harsh penalties formerly reserved for large commercial counterfeiters.

The EU Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive creates powerful new enforcement measures to be applied throughout the EU that permit Hollywood and recording industry executives to civilly prosecute consumers for minor and non-commercial infringements of intellectual property rights.

The directive’s most controversial issue, Article 2, which widened its scope to include any non-commercial infringement, passed in the EU plenary with a final vote of 307-185. Never did the parliament provide any justification or public policy rationale for why average consumers who make a single private copy should be treated as if they were peddling counterfeit pharmaceuticals by European law courts.

The enforcement directive creates a broad new “Right of Information” which requires Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to disclose personal information about their customers to recording industry executives for civil prosecution of Peer-2-Peer (P2P) file-sharing and other activities. Similar subpoena powers, created under the notorious US Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) have been abused by the US recording industry to obtain personal information on thousands of US consumers and have resulted in financial settlements from those consumers, including 12-year girls who live in public housing and 70-year old grandparents. Under this directive, the personal information of European citizens must be forcibly disclosed to companies such as Vivendi-Universal who can now harass and financially extort European consumers as well. And the EU directive applies to all types of intellectual property infringements, not just copyrights.

It also provides for Anton Pillar orders or “midnight knocks” that permit private citizens’ homes to be raided by recording industry executives, and Mareva injunctions, which freeze consumers’ bank accounts and other assets without the need for a court hearing.

ISPs are concerned about the directive because it allows for their equipment and servers to be confiscated and destroyed without the need for a court hearing for the allegedly infringing activity of their customers.

“Traditional civil liberties, fairness, balance, and proportionality have all be thrown to the wind in the over-zealous rush to pass this dangerous directive,” said Robin Gross, Executive Director of IP Justice, an international civil liberties organization that promotes balanced intellectual property laws.

During the 9 March final vote, Scottish Green Party MEP Sir Neil MacCormick commented on the inherent conflict of interest for the directive’s Rapporteur, French Conservative MEP Janelly Fourtour, who will directly profit from the new EU law she rushed through the parliament without a usual “Second Reading” debate. Fourtour’s family owns the world’s largest entertainment company, Vivendi-Universal, and has today been granted powerful new enforcement provisions to prosecute consumers for minor and non-commercial infringements.

“How can a member of parliament be in the official position to shepherd through a law in which she personally stands to gain millions of Euros?” asked Gross, a civil liberties attorney. “Such a glaring conflict of interest calls into question the entire legitimacy of the EU Parliament’s law-making capacity,” she added.

A set of key amendments proposed by Italian Radical MEP Marco Cappato to narrow the directive’s scope to only commercial infringements in order to protect consumers from the law’s excesses did not pass in the final vote. The European Council is expected to approve the directive on 11 March and Member States will have 24 months in which to implement its provisions in their own countries.

More Information:

Campaign for an Open Digital Environment (CODE):
http://www.ipjustice.org/CODE

Text of EU IP Rights Enforcement Directive:
http://www.ipjustice.org/CODE/021604.html
http://register.consilium.eu.int/pdf/en/04/st06/st06376.en04.pdf
http://www.ipjustice.org/CODE/st06376.en04.doc

IP Justice's Top 8 Reasons to Reject the EU IP Rights Enforcement Directive:
http://www.ipjustice.org/CODE/release20040302_en.shtml#top8

8 March Consumer Rally Against Directive:
http://www.ipjustice.org/CODE/rally.shtml

IP Justice is an international civil liberties organization that promotes balanced intellectual property laws. IP Justice defends consumer rights to use digital media worldwide and is a non-profit organization based in San Francisco. IP Justice was founded in 2002 by Robin Gross, who serves as its Executive Director. To learn more about IP Justice, visit the website at http://www.ipjustice.org.