International Campaign for an Open Digital Environment
The CODE campaign is an international coalition of civil liberties groups and consumer rights initiatives to protect consumer rights, innovation, and competition to reform the European Union Directive on the Enforcement of Intellectual Property.
The EU IP Enforcement directive passed the EU Parliament and Council of Ministers in March 2004. The directive allows for unannounced searches ("midnight knocks"), ISP's being forced to turn personal information about customers over to Hollywood lawyers, and imprisonment for non-commercial infringements throughout the European Union. EU Member States are given 24 months in which to adopt the Directive into their own national laws.
While there remained a number of troubling provisions in the final directive that was passed by the EU Parliament, several of the most dangerous, like measures that would have forbidden Europeans from bypassing technological restrictions such as RFID tags and the criminal penalties were removed from the directive's final version.
Above: (L) BUEC Representative Victoria Villamar, MEP Marco Cappato, IP Justice Executive Director Robin Gross, and European Digital Rights Initiative (EDRi) EU Affairs Director Andreas Dietl
General Information on EU IP Enforcement Directive:
On January 30, 2003 the Commission of the European Communities published its proposal for a Directive on measures and procedures to ensure the enforcement of intellectual property rights throughout the Community. Unfortunately, the European Union Intellectual Property Enforcement Directive contains a number of seriously troubling provisions that threaten innovation and competition and endanger the civil rights of all Europeans. Specifically, Article 9 creates broad and easily abused subpoena powers for intellectual property holders to obtain personal information on consumers. And Article 2's scope must be limited to only intentional commercial infringements. See IP Justice's "Top 8 Reasons to Reject the EU IP Enforcement Directive" Read the White Paper |
Above: IP Justice Executive Director Robin Gross explains consumers' concerns about the new enforcement directive at an EU Parliament press conference in Strausbourg, March 2004.
CODE Response:
 Original Image Courtesy Liam Heffernan |
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Take Action:
Send a fax or letter to your member of Parliament. Sample faxes and letters are available. Contact information for the members of the EUROPARL Committee on Legal Affairs and Internal Markets can be found here. Send them your thoughts regarding the proposed Directive.Enforcement Directive News Read recent news about the proposed IP Enforcement Directive. Join the Discussion List IP Justice hosts a public email discussion list to enable wider community debate about the Directive. Sign up to participate in the public discussion today!
