MEPs - understanding how the internet works

[Anonymous <nobody@replay.com>]

---fwd message - from http://www.sunday-times.co.uk - 14.02.1999

   Internet service providers are up in arms over an EU
 directive that is designed to protect copyright. Report by
                 Sean Hargrave 

  Piracy law may make Web illegal 


 INTERNET companies claim a draft European Union
 directive will make the Web illegal. 

 MEPs have overwhelmingly approved an amendment to a
 proposed copyright directive that would outlaw a Net user
 copying data without the approval of its copyright holder. 

 Internet Service Providers (ISPs) claim that taken in its most
 literal sense the directive would render most Net activity
 illegal. They claim that not only would it be against the law to
 download a web page without first asking its author, it would
 also be illegal for an ISP to "cache" content. 

 The record industry, which was one of the leading
 campaigners for the amendment, vigorously rejects the ISPs'
 interpretation of the new clause. 

 Whenever anybody downloads information from the Net the
 ISP has to temporarily copy or cache the data so it can be
 passed on. Without this temporary copy, the data cannot be
 sent to a subscriber. 

 When the customer receives the web page, another
 temporary cache copy is made on his computer's hard disk
 so it can be displayed on screen. 

 ISPs also cache data for longer-term use. This "proxy
 caching" allows popular sites stored on foreign computers to
 be stored locally, which speeds up the downloading process
 and cuts the amount of traffic crossing national borders. 

 Originally the directive made provision for caching as long as
 it did not harm the rights of copyright holders and was
 "integral and essential" for the functioning of the Net. 

 An amendment successfully put forward last Wednesday by
 Roberto Barzanti, an Italian socialist MEP, tightened the
 proposed law. It added a need for copyright holders to give
 their permission for all digital copies of their work. ISPs
 lobbied against the proposals, dismayed at the lack of
 understanding shown by MEPs. 

 Janet Henderson, rights and public policy manager at BT
 Internet and a council member of the Internet Service
 Providers Association (ISPA), is astonished by the vote. 

 "It's absolutely unbelievable. They have passed an
 amendment that would effectively outlaw the Net," she says. 

 "We lobbied hard to highlight the fact that ISPs and their
 customers have to cache data if the Net is to work. It has
 nothing to do with attacking copyright. This is just the way
 the networks operate." 

 The record industry says the ISPs are over-reacting. Olivia
 Regnier, legal adviser to the International Federation of the
 Phonographic Industry (IFPI), says: "The amendment and
 the proposed directive simply state the obvious - that
 copyright applies to the Net. We are not suggesting that
 people have to get prior authorisation from the author of
 every work they download. The proposed directive is just
 there to underline that pirated material cannot be
 downloaded because it does not observe copyright." 

 Graham Watson, liberal MEP for Somerset & North Devon,
 opposed the Barzanti amendment. He believes the wording
 of the final directive will be changed to clarify the issue when
 it receives its second reading later this year. 

 "The proposed directive will have to go before parliament for
 a second reading, probably around autumn, and I'm sure it
 will look different to the draft directive passed on
 Wednesday," he says. 

 "If the ISPA takes a lesson from this it should be that if you
 don't lobby well and get a technical message over in plain
 language, then people will not understand you. 

 "We had to sit through about 250 amendments and I think a
 lot of MEPs found the whole process too complicated." 

 The row over the draft proposal is set to sour the
 relationship between computer companies and the record
 industry. Only two months ago the IFPI set up a forum so it
 could talk to technology companies about protecting record
 labels against piracy. 

---end fwd



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