FFII.org: Europe’s New IP Law: “You Just Have To Trust Us”

“The EU Parliament’s Legal Affairs committee is set to rubber
stamp a new text on Monday for the controversial EU Directive on
the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights, despite serious
unanswered concerns from across the EU–including the UK House of
Lords. It will have been only six days since the final text,
drafted in secret without any public analysis of its detailed
national implications, was finally released to the European
public.

“In the words of one MEP speaking at a meeting in Strasbourg
last week, ‘This is Europe, not London. This is how we do things
here. You just have to trust us.’

“FFII is very concerned that, without better defined safeguards,
the Directive will lead to a far more agressive, lawyer-driven
legal environment for creative businesses; and having seen how such
legislation can be used in the United States, that it may provide
the means for agressive litigators holding dubious intellectual
property rights to ‘pull a SCO’ and use the powers of the Directive
to seriously harass and even inflict lasting damage on small
innovative businesses…”

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