Europe To Block ACTA Disconnect Provisions

superglaze writes "The European Commission is 'not supporting and will not accept' any attempt to have ACTA (the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) force countries to disconnect people for downloading copyrighted material, a spokesman for the new EU trade commissioner has said. All the signs are that the new commission, which took office earlier this month, intends to take a hard-line stance against US proposals for a filesharing-related disconnection system. 'Three strikes' is allowed in EU countries, but not mandated by the European government itself, and it looks like the new administration wants to keep it that way. From trade commission spokesman John Clancy, quoted in ZDNet UK's article: '[Ac ta] has never been about pursuing infringements by an individual who has a couple of pirated songs on their music player. For several years, the debate has been about what is "commercial scale" [piracy]. EU legislation has left it to each country to define what a commercial scale is and this flexibility should be kept in ACTA.'"

Microsoft Admits Company Benefits From Piracy

[h00manist]

Jeff Raikes, head of the company's business group, said at a recent investor conference that while the company is against piracy, if you are going to pirate software, it hopes you pirate Microsoft software. --- http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20070312/165448.shtml [techdirt.com]

UK experience

[LordSnooty]

Despite this, the UK takes a line that typically follows the US one. Our govt sees no problem in disconnecting users without anything like a 'trial'.

The "commercial scale" excuse

[Anonymous Coward]

Yes yes, proponents of ACTA and the like do not tire to claim the average Joe would not be affected as only "commercial" piracy would be targetted.

Of course that's all nonsense. In Germany we have this "commercial scale" clause in copyright laws. The result is that judges twist words until they can define a single album or movie as "commercial scale", as long as said album/movie is commercially available somewhere.

Phrases like "commercial scale" are the usual smoke and mirrors to silence critics without backing down one bit.

Counterfeiting?

[Bert64]

I imagine most warez groups will be quite insulted to have their work branded as counterfeiting... Counterfeit goods are typically cheap (often inferior) copies which are falsely sold as originals...
Warez on the other hand, at least the kind you download, is quite clearly labelled as warez and often branded by the group who ripped it, and is usually a superior product to the original work as the warez copies have drm schemes and other nasties removed.

Re:Czarspeed

[Anonymous Coward]

Above link is NSFW! ... you could have warned us. dork.