The European Commission strikes back!

I thought I´d try to write in English from time to time when my posts refer to events mainly on the european or the international level. Who knows, with time and practice it might even become readable texts if I keep it up. I was actually planning to write about something completely different tonight, but that all changed in an instance when this document came tumbling into my mailbox from Erik Josefsson (It sure feels nice to have people within the system nowadays).

The document is a Communication from the European Commission regarding new, non-legislative, measures to fight IPR infringement. Throughout the text IPR infringement is labelled as "counterfeiting and piracy" thus merging two, widely different, violations of the current IPR regime into one inseparable item. Means deemed necessary to battle the one violation can thus be justified against the other as no clear distinction between the two exists in the document. But what exactly is it all about? Well, the core of it all is clearly stated in the document:

The Commission is now establishing an Observatory to serve as the central resource for gathering, monitoring and reporting information and data related to all IPR infringements. However, the Observatory should play a much wider role, becoming the platform for representatives from national authorities and stakeholders to exchange ideas and expertise on best practices, to develop joint enforcement strategies and to make recommendations to policy-makers.
Ensuring that the Observatory becomes the pan-European source of knowledge and a central resource for stakeholders and public authorities engaged in IPR enforcement activities will require close collaboration between the Commission, the Member Sates and the private sector.

There you have it. The Commission is creating an Observatory to monitor IPR infringements, i.e. among othr tings internet activity. But that is not the end of it. It also clearly states that it will involve the stakeholders and the private sector in the process. So Ifpi, MPAA and the rest will most likely end up with access to the gathered information and the possibility to "develop joint enforcement strategies and to make recommendations to policy-makers".

This document need to be analysed word by word. And it need to be spread to Internet activist across Europe so that we can join together in an effort to thwart this latest scheme by the EU bureaucracy to put leach on the free web. So please spread the word!

Given that my native tongue is Swedish, and I realized, mid through the document that there should be a Swedish translation (found here) I´ll continue with a more thorough analysis of the Swedish text tomorrow .

Mikael Nilsson, on the board for the Swedish Pirate Party, are way ahead of me and have begun deciphering the text (in Swedish)