ARS Technica: Proposed EU ISP filtering and copyright extension shot down

Proposed EU ISP filtering and copyright extension shot down
Jon Stokes

All that talk of striking a “balance” between access and intellectual property, and the negative reference to industry tactics that “criminalize” consumers spawned a flurry of lobbying activity, and by the time the dust settled lobbyists had succeeded in getting the European Parliament’s Committee on Industry, Research, and Energy (ITRE) to submit an amendment to the draft report urging European ISPs to implement filtering mechanisms for the purpose of copyright enforcement.

The European recording industry followed up this move with another amendment, proposed last week, to extend EU copyright terms to match those of the US (the author’s life plus 70 years).

The EFF’s Danny O’Brien sent a heads-up to BoingBoing that, as of today, the Culture and Education Committee rejected all of the proposed filtering and copyright extension amendments. Clearly, they’re not going to let the ITRE or the European recording industry push them around, which is great news for Europeans. Now if we could only get the US Congress to show as much spine as the French (ouch).