A rights-holder onslaught on the Medina report attempts to force the Parliament’s vote on graduated response and P2P filesharing issues...contrasted against  the Lambrinidis report calling for a the policy principles establishing a balance between privacy and surveillance...the two reports present MEPS with a dilemma on how to move forward on Internet policy for Europe.

The Medina report, from the 73-year old Spanish MEP Manuel Medina Ortega , contains the full rights-holder wish-list of graduated response, ISP “cooperation”, secondary liability for peer-to-peer filesharing sites and other websites, content liability for ISPs, and content filtering. It reads like an onslaught by the rights-holder lobby.

For example, it "Calls for cooperation from internet access providers in preventing and curbing electronic piracy"  and it "Supports the setting-up in the individual Member States of mecanisms, to be employed on instruction from rightholders and using a graduated approach, for the enforcement of copyright on the Internet". 

Several amendments can be traced directly to the former French culture minister MEP Jacques Toubon – responsible for the “cooperation” amendment in the Telecoms Package; as well as MEPs Janelly Fourtou and Arlene McCarthy. Mme Fourtou is the wife of Jean-René Fourtou, who is President of the French film and music conglomerate Vivendi.

The significance of the Medina report becomes clear in

The French Presidency of the European Union is promoting an EU working group to develop and implement content identification and filtering techniques - those behind it are understood to include IFPI, Vivendi, SACEM and CISAC.

 The news has emerged in a  speech given  by French culture minister Christine Albanel ,  to a conference hosted last month in Paris by the French government, which currently holds the Presidency of the European Union. She was speaking at the end of the proceedings, and giving the conclusions  of the seminar sessions.  One of those conclusions was to set up a joint working group of the European Commission, rights-holders from the media industries, and ISPs, to test and implement  content filtering technologies.

 Mme Albanel  makes a point of thanking the moderators of the sessions,  whom, she says, 'worked late into the night to put together the conclusions'. Among those moderators were John Kennedy, President of IFPI, Bernard Miyet, president of Gesac (and SACEM), Eric Baptiste, director General of CISAC, and Phillippe Kern, of KEA, a consultancy with links to the French film industry. Thus, we have to assume, in the absence of any other information, that the filtering working group was devised by them. The conference was also sponsored by Vivendi, and had a bias toward content industry speakers, several of them from IFPI. 

Mme Albanel says that she wants to turn the weapons of the content pirates against them. She is particularly thinking of content recognition and fingerprinting technologies, as well as

Report on EPP-ED Hearing, Creative Content Online, European Parliament, 12 June 2008

Three minutes and you're out!  Michael Bartholomew, director of ETNO - the European Telecommunications Network Operators group - walked out of the European Parliament hearing on online content when  he was cut off from speaking after just three minutes.  Mr Bartholmew was one of only two speakers from the telecoms industry, in a seminar entitled 'the search for consensus' - compared with four speakers from the content industry who had 10 minutes each.

He did get across the point that his members are investing three hundred billion Euros in new network infrastructure, capable of carrying mass-scale, broadcast-quality television which the content industries want to do. He asked whether it was really fair that the telcos and ISPs should foot the bill for the enforcement measures which the content industries want.  And, directing comments straight to the heart of the cultural lobby, he stated that the market needs to meet requirements for cultural diversity, as well as the consumer's right to privacy, and the right NOT to be criminalised for a civil misdemeanor. 

 The overall tenor of the hearing was  skewed against the ISPs - and was it me, or did I understand correctly the suggestion that if the content industries go down with piracy, they will drag the ISPs down with them? 

Report on EPP-ED Hearing, Creative Content Online, European Parliament, 12 June 2008

The French government will use its presidency of the EU to push through legislation necessary for copyright enforcement. The aim is to have everything  ready for a Council of Ministers meeting in November. This was revealed by Ms Laurence Franceschini, director of creation and broadcasting at the French Ministry of Culture, who had the longest speaking slot - 20 minutes - at this event. She gave a series of dates for Presidency events where cultural issues and online content would be discussed, and stated that the French government's "objective is to prepare Council conclusions for November".  

 Ms  Franceschini also spoke of the plans for the so-called "telecoms package": 'In the amendments added, we have seen a clear political will to raise awareness of  measures which are there to educate the consumer on piracy and respect of copyright'. And she underlined the need to get the right legal and fiscal instruments in place - but she did not expand, notably on what she meant by" fiscal"  instruments.

 Ms Franceschini's statements are worrying for privacy campaigners and indeed for the ISPs and telecoms industry.  The telecoms package contains a number of hidden amendments which will compromise privacy and enable draconian copyright enforcement practices to happen throughout Europe. MEPS voted in April against such measures being brought in, clearly stating that criminalising people for copyright infringement, and / or cutting off Internet access, is not acceptable (see here for French and here for English version). The MEP Guy Bono continues to campaign against copyright enforcement in the EU  - see his website here.  

2nd report: European Commission  High Level Conference on Counterfeiting and Piracy 13 May 2008

 Is the online auction platform, eBay, going to be the next Internet  target for the legislators? Judging by the mood at the  European Commission's policy forum on counterfeiting, the answer could be 'yes'.

Phillippe Lacoste, chairman of the clothing manufacturer of the same name, and grandson of the champion tennis player and  founder,  served first. His charming manner belied a tough message:   "eBay..ils doivent prendre responsabilite" (eBay must  take responsbility) he said.  M.Lacoste alleged that