An amendment planted by the French film industry remains firmly at the centre of the Telecoms Package.

I occasionally get asked if copyright is still in the Telecoms Package, and  now that we have the Council's Common Position, and the Second Reading has officially begun, it is worth reviewing the case. Recent legal developments in Member States, such as the Irish music industry  v Eircom case in Ireland, also help to shed light on the issues.

The answer is that copyright is  still there. Some of the provisions have been weakened, and the Package -  as in the Council's Common Position of 9 February -   no longer contains the  onerous "lawful content" provision  that risked making  ISPs liable  for Internet  content. The issue now is how much weaker the provisions are, and what they would or would not permit.  

To be clear, the Telecoms Package copyright amendments do not directly mandate graduated response/3-strikes. The copyright amendments have the effect of putting in place  the  legal foundation stones for 3-strikes. They were intended to get around certain provisions in EU law, which prevent ISPs from accepting liability for content and copyright infringement, and which also prevented them from divulging information about their subscribers to third parties. They are inter-linked, and  it is necessary to interpret them as a linked series rather than individually - as explained in a report by the European Data Protection Supervisor .

The central amendment calling for ISPs to "cooperate" with rights-holders, that was drafted by the French film industry

A Telecoms Package  amendment on the processing of traffic data could lead to large-scale deployment of filtering technology, according to a body which advises the European Union on privacy matters, known as the Article 29 Working Party.

The Article 29 Working Party  issued an opinion on the proposals to amend the e-Privacy directive. In the document, it warns  that  the  amendment on the processing of traffic data for security purposes (ePrivacy directive, Article 6.7 in the Council's Common position and Amendment 181 in the European Parliament text) could "lend  legitimacy to large-scale deployment of  deep packet inspection." Deep packet inspection is the technology that facilities filtering, as well as "traffic management" by network operators.

And it reiterates the opinion of the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) that the amendment is unnecessary. The legal basis for network operators to process traffic data is found in a

AT&T's hidden agenda...AT&T doesn't like a decision by the FCC in America, so it is trying to sneak in changes to European law that will compromise net neutrality. It wants  to prevent European regulators from regulating fairly on peer-to-peer filesharing traffic. It is also trying to sell its global Internet services to the content industries.

The AT&T amendments being promoted around the European Parliament have a hidden American agenda. It concerns a ruling made by the American regulator, the Federal Communications  Commission (FCC) against the network operator Comcast, in August last year. The effect of the  ruling is that ISPs cannot filter peer-to-peer traffic, or indeed, they can't pick on any specific type of traffic and filter or slow it down or ‘restrict' it.

AT&T, and its partner Verizon, wants to prevent a similar regulatory decision happening in Europe. So it is trying to get the law changed.  And it has targeted the Telecoms Package, currently about to enter the Second Reading in the European Parliament.  It wants  changes to Article 22(3) of the Universal Services directive, and associated Recitals, as I have previously reported. The impact of these changes would not only be negative for net neutrality. They would mean that European national  regulators would not have the power to intervene in cases where peer-to-peer traffic is being throttled or restricted, or where any type of content or service was blocked. Nor would the pan-European regulatory body or the Commission have any power.

The FCC ruling was made

An event on 26th February positions AT&T and Google lobbyists taking the lead in a Brussels seminar on net neutrality.

The event is timed to coincide with the Second Reading of the Telecoms Package, where amendments promoted by AT&T, opposed to net neutrality, are under consideration in the Universal Services directive (Harbour report). Google is also reported to be touting amendments around the European Parliament. The Google amendments are understood to be purveyed under the title of 'net neutrality' but they may or may not be good for citizens' interests.

The event is organised by the European Newspaper Publishers Association (ENPA) and the European Federation of Magazine Publishers (FAEP), two voices so far unheard in the whole Telecoms Package debate . The two groups represent national, regional and local newspaper and magazine publishers around Europe. It is curious why they want to get involved now.

ENPA opposed the copyright amendments in the Telecoms Package. On its website, it says: "we would resist

Net neutrality has to be guaranteed, says EU Commissioner Viviane Reding. It's a 180 degree turn from her graduated-response-supporting position a year ago. And it gives her a new challenge to deal with the AT&T  amendments to the Telecoms Package  which attack net neutrality.

"I believe that we are at the start of a new phase of internet driven innovation and growth...We will only reap the full  benefits if we  safeguard the openness of the Intenet...take advantage of the  win-win of open interfaces...net neutrality has to be guaranteed ..." 

Not the words of a technology entrepreneur, as you might expect,  but Information Society Commissioner Viviane Reding, speaking last week at a conference on the future of the Internet . She called for investment in the Internet infrastructure and commitment to openness, in order  to