European Parliament passes controversial copyright directive

The Second Intellectual Property Enforcement Directive or IPRED2, was recently passed by the European Parliament. This Directive states that copyright infringement at a commercial level as well as inciting those infringements is punishable buy up to 300,000 euros and up to 4 years in jail.

The directive is ostensibly designed to crack down on commercial piracy and counterfeiting operations, but critics warned that, thanks to the vague terminology of the directive, it could apply much more widely. They note that no definitions are offered for the terms "incitement" or "commercial scale," opening the possibility that the courts could interpret them to include innovators building new media products. Those terms could be interpreted, for example, to hold ISPs liable for the infringing activities of their users.

- Timothy B. Lee

Due to the vague wording in this legislation, it causes concern. What is "commercial scale"?

Either way this directive is losing support with each step it goes through. For now the directive will go to the Council of the European Union, and hopefully they will reject it and send it back to the European Parliament.