EU Intellectual Property Law Sets Dangerous Precedent

5.09.25pm UTC (GMT +0000) Wed 25th Apr 2007

Liberal Democrats in the European Parliament have been forced to vote against a key report on the basis that it would seek to harmonise across the EU criminal law in the field of intellectual property violations. Sharon Bowles MEP introduced amendments to limit the scope of criminality in this directive to organised crime, counterfeiting, piracy or where there was a real risk to health and safety but they were voted out by an EPP-PSE alliance.

Commenting Sharon Bowles said:

"A few improvements have been achieved, patents have been taken out, as have private individuals downloading for personal use and also one of my amendments relating to invalid rights was also passed. However, rather than sticking to counterfeit and piracy this report has widened the scope, covering matters for which criminal sanctions are inappropriate.

"In the UK we only have criminal prosecution through the state, but in some countries this opens the door to companies and individuals bringing criminal prosecutions.

"It is now over to the national governments to forge some reasonable agreement on this."

ENDS