From: "Rich Gauszka" 

Frighten them first with the threat of imprisonment?  - EU Parliament seems
like they want to out Bush Bush

"Adam" 
wrote in message news:46013e79{at}w3.nls.net...
> Rich Gauszka wrote:
>> Imprisonment if your network even serves as a conduit for illegally
>> copied material? EU IT workers immediately go to jail - Do not pass GO
>>
>
> It'll never happen. IMHO it's been put there into frightening IP based
> companies into shutting up about IP.
>
> Adam
>
>> http://news.yahoo.com/s/pcworld/20070320/tc_pcworld/129995
>> Companies from across IT face criminal sanctions, including prison time
>> for employees, if their networks, software programs or online services
>> are ever used to carry illegally copied material such as music or film,
>> according to a draft law from the
>> European Commission supported Tuesday by a committee of the European
>> Parliament.
>>
>> The proposed directive switches the onus from end users to the
>> technological conduits, which could include ISPs (Internet service
>> providers), mobile phone operators, instant-messaging services, video-
>> and music-sharing Web sites such as YouTube, as well as open-source
>> software producers.
>>
>> The controversial draft law has sparked an outcry, uniting rivals within
>> the IT industry, ranging from free and open-source software advocates,
>> the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure, at one end to a
>> lobbyist for the world's biggest software companies, the Business
>> Software Alliance (BSA), at the other.
>>
>> The clause in the draft law that most worries them is one that
>> criminalizes aiding and abetting or incitement to infringe an
>> intellectual property such as copyright-protected music, software or
>> film. Another major concern across the board is the inclusion of utility
>> models-- in effect short-term, unexamined patents-- within the scope of
>> the law.
>>
>> Patents themselves were included in the original version of the law
>> proposed by the European Commission but the legal affairs committee of
>> the Parliament excluded them from the scope of the law Tuesday.
>>
>> "The exclusion of patents is welcome, but we are very disappointed the
>> committee chose to keep the incitement clause," said Francisco
>> Mingorance, European affairs manager at the BSA.
>>
>> "This creates a huge legal threat right across the IT
industry," said
>> Ante Wessels, an analyst at the FFII. He added that if the draft becomes
>> law "it will hamper software designers' freedom to act in the
market."

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