EUROPE — European Parliament members have rejected a move by the music and movie industries to require internet service providers install copyright filters and extend the life of EU copyrights to match the U.S.’s life-plus-70-years term.In November, members of the European Union’s common governing body began examining the continent’s cultural products and heritage as economic engines. The project found inspiration in a 2006 study entitled “The economy of culture in Europe” and a draft report about cultural strategies. Parliament’s stated goal was to boost the so-called “cultural and creative sector” of the region as a means to spur economic growth.
The draft report, compiled by a socialist, alarmed the movie and music industries by urging “balance” between the rights of intellectual property owners and consumers and suggesting “that criminalizing consumers so as to combat digital piracy is not the right solution.” Fearing the draft report would become policy, lobbyists for intellectual property groups immediately began trying to channel the discussion in ways that might benefit their clients.
They were successful to an extent. The European Parliament’s Committee on Industry, Research, and Energy (ITRE) eventually submitted an amendment to the draft report, calling on ISPs to implement filtering mechanisms that would help intellectual property owners enforce their copyrights. In mid-February another amendment surfaced. It proposed European copyright laws be lengthened significantly in order to match those already in effect in the U.S., which often sets a de facto worldwide standard.
On Friday, the parliament’s Culture and Education Committee rejected the amendments outright, apparently preferring to avoid the sorts of embarrassing mistakes recently admitted by the Motion Picture Association of America and what some view as the more draconian provisions of U.S. copyright law. Consumers and free-speech activists applauded the move, but intellectual property owners worry it may increase the frequency of piracy by sending a message that their products have little intrinsic value.
“[This] is great news for Europeans,” senior editor and co-founder Jon Stokes wrote at Ars Technica. “Now if we could only get the U.S. Congress to show as much spine as the French (ouch).”
