[FYI] European Parliament postpones vote on IP law
<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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