IFPI Fails to Force ISPs to Become Anti-Piracy Enforcers
Written by enigmax on January 22, 2008The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) has been lobbying politicians of the European Parliament to force ISP’s to identify, filter, block and remove copyright infringing content from the Internet. Now, according to an early report, it appears that all three anti-piracy measures have been defeated.
The IFPI has been hard at work in its attempts to lobby members of the European Parliament to introduce legislation which would force ISPs to take extreme measures to fight piracy. They suggested that ISPs should start to filter infringing content, block access to websites such as The Pirate Bay, and block filesharing protocols, no matter what they’re being used for.
In addition the IFPI was also looking for an extension of copyright, supposedly to help artists whose works will fall into the public domain in their lifetime, which is great for the artist but bad for culture. The extension was said to try and bring Europe closer to the protections available in the United States.
According to Danny OBrien at the EFF, the extensions wouldn’t make any sense: “..five Nobel-prize winning economists concluded that “copyright term extension is unjustified both as a protection to current artists (who rarely earn much from far future extensions), or as an economic positive for society as a whole. Yet the music industry, fearful of losing tight control of its own back catalog, still continues to advocate for more copyright, no matter the cost.”
Now, in what will be a huge blow to the IFPI, Danny O’Brien says that the proposals have been defeated.
He says: “Just got word from the European Parliament all three of the filtering/copyright extension amendments were defeated or withdrawn in the committee vote. We’re still waiting on the official record, but if that’s true, it’s an amazing victory — one was originally proposed by the original author of the report, Guy Bono himself, one was voted in by the powerful industry committee, and one was drafted by an EPP-ED member, the largest bloc in the parliament.”
In December we reported that the IFPI had already convinced several European politicians to support the proposals. However, The Committee on Culture and Education from the European parliament made a wise decision not to turn the proposed amendments into European policy.
Previously: The Pirate Bay, Guilty Before Trial!
Next: aXXo’s Pirated Movies Used to Promote the iMac



48 Responses
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This is great news. Anything that keeps Europe from being like America is.
Let’s See If i dont get to download, i don’t need an expensive plan. I’ll just go with the basic plan. What the hell. I’ll just remove my internet. Everybody does that for just a month. The ISP’s will gladly remove the block.!
Artist like Madonna etc wont be living in a cardboard box anytime soon if we all download her latest album. :)
Thas my 2 cents worth.
Good news, great news. Screw metalica
and Bono dl 4 life!
US should stop fucking with other countries… seriously, its not their country, if Europe doesn’t want to increase its actions to fight back piracy then let them be… holy fuck….
I’m disappointed. I can’t survive on my royalties any more from all this piracy.
My income has been halved. I’m only earing a maximum of $15 million per year now and finding if very hard to survive.
You are all thieves. I’m struggling to feed my family now.
If my income falls much more i’ll be on the streets with the bums.
I Think İt is very good information…
Webmaster
Great news!
Filtering and Blocking internet content? What are they thinking? That every country will shit on it`s constitution to protect incomes of some bastards?
@25 “Crandom”
If you think BT ( or any other ISP for that matter) doesn’t keep logs of dynamic IP addr allocation, you are plain silly.
I am fully aware that no country, or continent, is perfect. However, I do have to give a lot of credit to the European politicians. They really debate the issues, and bring in the voice of “Nobel Prize Economist winners” into the forum of their discourse, and debates. I find the European politician to be more cultured, and educated in their speech and decisions. However, our North American politicians leaves a lot to be desired. I am actually an American, in the American soil, and have to say that our so-called politicians, very few–if any–have any culture. The majority of our North American politicians make deci$ion$ based on how much money they can get from lobbyi$t$ in Congress. It’s a shame that our American politicians can hardly have a cultured conversation, except on how much money they can get for their political campaigns. And, of course, the Corporate lobbyists jump into the opportunity of “legally” bribing the politicians into making decisions that they themselves don’t even understand the ramifications. That’s what apparently we call Democracy, here in the USA. (Don’t take me wrong. I really love living in the US. However, the major detractors of Democracy are the politicians themselves and their petty decisions that affects the whole country.
If what I am reading regarding the European Parliament’s decision on the ISPs and File-Sharing is true, I am very happy for the Europeans.
[quote comment="269526"]This is great news, it is time to update copyrights not extend them![/quote]
Nuff Said!…
@Cameron, On what fucking planet do you live?
My parents dont even come near your 15 mil per year.
How fucking dare you do act like you are poor with 15 mil per year.
People are dying because they got no food and no water and you bitch about 15 milion a year… Get a life.
@LoL. I think he was be sarcastic my friend. ;)
I think I’m gonna renew my eff membership. lol they are one of the very few who kick the shit out of these bastards.
US copyright suck major buttholes!!!
Why do you think they can’t come up with any good material for their movies? The Ring anyone? Ju-on, One missed call. They had to go to Asia and buy remake rights for new material. I guess they got tired of reusing their stock storylines.
I think something like this is actually happening in Australia in a month…
Still no linkage to anything valid regarding this. Am I just too stupid to not find the news on this or are you people into crying wolf a lot?
@42 is this what your after?
http://www.boingboing.net/2008/01/22/proposal-to-extend-e.html
Thanks anon, but I saw that :0)
I was more into the likes of larger media outlets, you know, not that there is nothing wrong with the “truth” of boingboing - just to get 2nd, 3rd, etc versions of this.
lol check this out
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/story/RTGAM.20080124.WBmingram20080124165521/WBStory/WBmingram
All in all, probably not that surprising a response, given that the IFPI is the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry — a reactionary response from a body whose name harkens back to the earliest days of recorded sound, when discs played at 78rpm and weighed about a pound each.
Umm, not sure that what the EFF says should be taken as fact. They are a lobbying organisation too.
If the movie and music industry won’t stop subverting all those political prostitutes in the European, US and other parliaments to sell the fundamental rights of their constituents to the highest bidder, then I will surely continue to boycott them. These greedy bastards try to destroy the free Internet just to maintain their ridicules profit margins. To hell with them…
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