---------- Forwarded message ---------- From: at <[email protected]> Date: Thu, May 12, 2011 at 9:00 PM Subject: [fcforum] brussels, June 7: hearing - on the enforcement of intellectual property rights To: [email protected] Will anyone be in Brussels for this or consider attending? Public Hearing Directive 2004/48/EC on the enforcement of intellectual property rights: Challenges posed by the digital environment http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/iprenforcement/docs/conference20110607/p... A piece from Monica Horten's iptegrity.com ------------------- 3-minute speech limit at EU copyright hearing Written by Monica Horten May 10, 2011 at 11:38 PM The European Commission threatens to handbag* all speakers who go over 3-minutes at a public hearing on the IPR Enforcement directive (also known as IPRED). A key focus of the hearing will be Internet copyright enforcement and peer-to-peer file-sharing. What will the Commission's new, ex-IFPI, head of copyright have to say? Following the demise of its secret ‘stakeholder dialgoue', the European Commission has announced a public hearing on intellectual property enforcement in the digital environment. The hearing - on the enforcement of intellectual property rights: Challenges posed by the digital environment - is the final part of DG Markt's consultation exercise regarding the IPR Enforcement directive (IPRED). The Commission's objective is to obtain further feedback to its plans for revision of this directive. According to the Commission's Communication on the IPRED review, the main focus of the policy agenda is Internet enforcement, and the Internet will be the main discussion topic for the hearing. Challenges in this context, means how to stop peer-to-peer file-sharing, and how to get the ISPs to do the dirty work for the rights-holders, in enforcing copyright online. The head of intellectual property policy at the European Commission, Margot Fröhlinger, will be chairing the discussion. Potentially over two hours of time has been allocated for stakeholder comments. But anyone who wants to speak must register beforehand, and will only be allowed to speak 3 minutes. We should therefore ask whether the Commission is really willing to listen to anyone other than a few favoured lobbyists, and whether the public interest will be considered? It is likely that the three-minute limit will be enforced, and one does have to question whether the Commission will enable a balance of interests to be heard. In particular, I do wonder whether she will permit citizens groups to speak at all. In 2008, I attended a hearing at the beginning of the Telecoms Package with a similar 3-minute rule, and the gavel came down swiftly on head of the telecoms lobby group, ETNO, when he tried to speak for longer. It was ETNO who brought down Mrs Fröhlinger's recent ( and secret) Stakeholder Diablogue talks. Observers will be keenly interested to see Margot Fröhlinger's number two in copyright, Maria Martin Prat and any presentations by her will be closely watched. Ms Martin-Prat, formerly worked as Director of Legal Policy for IFPI, the music industry lobby group , and was recently appointed as head of the European Commission's Copyright Unit. She replaces Tilman Lueder who has apparently left the Commission. Ms Martin Prat's appointment to head the copyright unit is highly controversial and her ability to act impartially has been highlighted. As a member of the Commission services, she is a civil servant, and is duty bound to show no favoritism, however, her former connection with IFPI does raise question marks and will certainly test her integrity to the full. My first question is - which brand of handbag does she carry? ----- + info http://list.fcforum.net/wws/info/fcforum ------- -- P2P Foundation: http://p2pfoundation.net - http://blog.p2pfoundation.net Connect: http://p2pfoundation.ning.com; Discuss: http://lists.ourproject.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/p2p-foundation Updates: http://del.icio.us/mbauwens; http://friendfeed.com/mbauwens; http://twitter.com/mbauwens; http://www.facebook.com/mbauwens