What happened to the provisions that CETA has to be ratified by every country in the EU, and Wallonia agreed to sign it only on the promise that the European Court of Justice would be allowed to decide whether or not it violates EU law, which it almost clearly does (in terms of the ISDS provisions)? If it gets through all this, these are well-educated countries (i.e. no one is being exploited) and if they have so little self-respect as to fall for this US-supported agreement (42,000 companies is not nothing), there's some logic in letting them stew in their own juices.
Ireland did not violate the EU (currently the Lisbon Treaty) Treaty. EU has no jurisdiction over taxes. This is under the jurisdiction of the member states. Ireland did what many countries (and many US states, btw) do - gave a corporation a tax benefit to entice it to move to that country and provide jobs. The US does it all the time. What the EU claims is that this violates the competition law regarding state aids to enterprises which give local enterprises advantages over those in other EU member states. To my knowledge, this is the first time EU has claimed that tax preferences are state aids, as would be the case, e.g. if Ireland had simply paid Apple to locate jobs there.
First of all, EU has no power to tax. Only member states can tax. Secondly, however, the US pushed the EU into this. Countries (and US states) have been bribing companies with tax incentives to settle within their territories for the purpose of providing employment for a long time and no one had a problem with it. The US is scouring the world for funds to cover its never-ending war expenses. It thought it could get the EU to do its dirty work, but the whole thing backfired and Ireland is left holding the (empty) bag. How embarrassing.
One also wonders how much of a role Elsevier played in the forthcoming EU proposed directive overhauling copyright law to include 'publishers' among those eligible to exercise related/neighboring rights under EU copyright law (as well as extending these rights from 50 to 70 years). Much attention has been paid to new rights to newspapers, but at best Elsevier stands to gain, even if it was among the lobbyists (which is doubtful).
Half of humanity 'not creative'? What a ridiculous thing to say. No facts can convince a person who would willingly put such a statement in writing, but hey, China is pouring money into biotech research, and if you don't think this is creativity, take a gander at Chinese cinema. India not creative? Do you know what Europeans were wearing before they 'stumbled across' Indian textiles, prints, colors, etc.? Brown rags (see Braveheart for a taste of early European aesthetics) that's what. These are just a few of thousands of examples. Please, think before you tap.
Yes, Disney considers Mickey protected by trademark. But think about it - when you see a t-shirt or anything, with Mickey on it, does that indicate that the t-shirt was made by Disney? This is the function of trademark, which is totally inappropriate for protecting a character, as Disney well knew for the first fifty years of Mickey's life. This is a cheap attempt to extend Mickey monopoly in perpetuity, but one which arguably would never survive a court challenge. Again though, who would pay to launch a fight against Disney's army just to use the image of Mickey Mouse (and run the risk of losing, given the propensity of courts to bow to anything claiming to be IP). Better just get yourself another mouse and save the bucks/euros/rubles and rupees for a rainy day.
Yes, at this stage it would be a disaster. But some points to understand: this is not necessarily a copyright issue, but a design protection issue. One important difference: the term is not 70 years, but (if the US follows Europe) 5 years with a potential 4 renewals. I am not a great fan of exaggerated IP, BUT, one reason we have no designers in this country (and why we are terminally addicted to 'classics' (i.e. what my grandmother wore is good enough for me) as opposed to new designs) is that designers flee. All I'm saying is, there is a debate there.
Yes, at this stage it would be a disaster. But some points to understand: this is not necessarily a copyright issue, but a design protection issue. One important difference: the term is not 70 years, but (if the US follows Europe) 5 years with a potential 4 renewals. I am not a great fan of exaggerated IP, BUT, one reason we have no designers in this country (and why we are terminally addicted to 'classics' (i.e. what my grandmother wore is good enough for me) as opposed to new designs) is that designers flee. All I'm saying is, there is a debate there.
Yes, 'kick the crap' out of the all thieves (bankers included?). That's a brilliant strategy. Works everywhere. And when US biopirates steal from other countries (basmati, neem, pig genes, etc.), I assume Mr. Riley is all for 'kicking the crap out' of them too, right? Now that kicking the crap out of everyone is legal (Mr. Obama has also decided not to prosecute kickers, among others), why don't we just kick the crap out of everyone we meet, just in case.
Rereading the article linked in this, it is sad indeed that here as in so many other areas, Obama has done the opposite of what we had hoped. Staffing the "Justice Department" with RIAA front men and continuing to back the secretive ACTA are just the most obvious examples. What one lawmaker (Dan Durbin, I think) said of the banking industry, ("These guys own the place") is equally applicable to IP types. As the economy continues to tank, the IP lifeline to (pseudo) hegemony, creative costs be damned, can only thicken.
This conflict has been a done deal for a long time. The European Court of Justice confirmed the 2006 Data Retention Directive that requires data retention last year, in seemingly (the devil is in the details) direct conflict with its own 1995 Data Protection Directive. All 27 EU member states should theoretically implement the Data Retention Directive this year, if they haven't already done so. Privacy rights, friends, are a thing of the past, even in Europe, where they started. To call this Swedish law 'IPRED' (Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive) is a bit of a misnomer though. This term was used to describe a 2004 EC Directive in which the 27 member states agreed to harmonize enforcement, but fell short of the heavily lobbied provisions that such measures include criminal sanctions. RIAA and MPAA lobbies are still lobbying heavily (in an unregulated EU lobbying environment) for prison terms though, so whether the secretive Commission and the unfortunately powerless Parliament will go for it this time remains to be seen.
Thanks for this excellent summary. The situation is the same in Europe - it is the basis of copyright. You can't own a game, only the fixed form of the performance (a related right, along with those of record producers and performers). This is why we are seeing an increasing amount of criminal penalties being enacted for bringing a copying aparatus (camera or recorder) to any kind of performance, including a sports event. It's the only way to stop people from recording their own 'version' of the sports event.
Did they understand TRIPS (written by the pharma industry among others)? Did they understand the Patriot Act (silly question, I know, since they didn't claim to have read it as there wasn't time) (written by the torture industry?). They don't write legislation anymore, they sell the right to others to write it. Get over it. It's the American way.
The EU has kept Europeans for bashing each other (which they previously did whenever the opportunity presented itself) for over 50 years and encouraged millions of people to think beyond their own little cultural pen - that's no small potatoes. The culprits here are US lobbies operating in Brussels and the Commission for responding to them. Calm down anonymous coward.
Are there, can there be, two anonymous cowards, or have we started conversing with ourselves? But yes, why does singing a song one night lead to perpetual income while flipping the burg to perpetual poverty. Lobbying power? Flippers unite!
Hi Tor Arguably. I guess you still have confidence in 'competent national authorities' and 'national law'. I have long abandoned such comforts. Don't the former dream up methods of abuse and then write up memos backing themselves up with the latter? Or am I confused here?
Doesn't IPRED refer to IP Rights Enforcement Directive(2), the as yet un-enacted EC Directive, pushed by US lobbies, that mandates criminal penalties for IP offences? (There is IPRED1, enacted in 2004 and addressing civil penalties, but the controversial IPRED2 is still waiting in the wings.) Sweden's law (relating to criminal penalties for illegal downloads discoverable through the retention directive) cannot be an IPRED law if there's no IPRED. It is hard enough to follow the fate of this proposed Directive without using its name for only tangentially related legislation, no?
Hi Tor, Articles 4 and 6 of the 2006 Data Retention Directive (see below) would appear to suggest that there is a case for mandatory disclosure.
What's next? See ACTA, and combine it with Data Retention, the mix of BSA, MPAA and RIAA aversion to new business models and equating piracy (patch kind), terrorism and downloading, and and Sarkozy's shenanigans, and the picture is not pretty.
Article 4
Access to data
Art. 4 - Member States shall adopt measures to ensure that data retained in accordance with this Directive are provided only to the competent national authorities in specific cases and in accordance with national law. The procedures to be followed and the conditions to be fulfilled in order to gain access to retained data in accordance with necessity and proportionality requirements shall be defined by each Member State in its national law, subject to the relevant provisions of European Union law or public international law, and in particular the ECHR as interpreted by the European Court of Human Rights.
Article 8
Storage requirements for retained data
Member States shall ensure that the data specified in Article 5 are retained in accordance with this Directive in such a way that the data retained and any other necessary information relating to such data can be transmitted upon request to the competent authorities without undue delay.
Google news
CETA
Re: Not playing by the rules
EU, Apple and taxes
Elsevier
Re: not creative?
Re: Mickey Mouse
Re: Super Secret Club
fashion
fashion
Re: Mr. Riley
trade agreements
IPRED
Re: sports copyright
understanding legislation
Re: Character of the EU
Re: Burgers in perpetuity
IPRED
ipred
(untitled comment)
What's next? See ACTA, and combine it with Data Retention, the mix of BSA, MPAA and RIAA aversion to new business models and equating piracy (patch kind), terrorism and downloading, and and Sarkozy's shenanigans, and the picture is not pretty.
Article 4
Access to data
Art. 4 - Member States shall adopt measures to ensure that data retained in accordance with this Directive are provided only to the competent national authorities in specific cases and in accordance with national law. The procedures to be followed and the conditions to be fulfilled in order to gain access to retained data in accordance with necessity and proportionality requirements shall be defined by each Member State in its national law, subject to the relevant provisions of European Union law or public international law, and in particular the ECHR as interpreted by the European Court of Human Rights.
Article 8
Storage requirements for retained data
Member States shall ensure that the data specified in Article 5 are retained in accordance with this Directive in such a way that the data retained and any other necessary information relating to such data can be transmitted upon request to the competent authorities without undue delay.
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