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European Parliament Rejects Three Strikes and You're Out Approach

By Michael Geist

Days after New Zealand dropped its support for the "three strikes and you're out" approach (also known as "graduated response") that would see ISPs terminate subscribers on the basis of three unproven allegations of copyright infringement, the European Parliament has similarly rejected the proposed approach.  Le Quadrature du Net reports that France had tried to generate support with the EP for a pan-European approach (France now one of the lone holdouts for the system).   Today the EP rejected the French pressure, adopting a new report on security and fundamental freedoms on the Internet that expressly rejects disproportionate measures for IP enforcement and warns IP holders against excessive access restrictions.

The key paragraph states that the Parliament recommends that the European Council:

proceed to the adoption of the directive on criminal measures aimed at the enforcement of intellectual property rights, following an assessment, in the light of contemporary innovation research, of the extent to which it is necessary and proportionate, and while simultaneously prohibiting, in pursuit of that purpose, the systematic monitoring and surveillance of all users' activities on the Internet, and ensuring that the penalties are proportionate to the infringements committed; within this context, also respect the freedom of expression and association of individual users and combat the incentives for cyber-violations of intellectual property rights, including certain excessive access restrictions placed by intellectual property holders themselves;

While this is a mouthful, it is noteworthy that the Parliament emphasizes proportionality, the rejection of Internet monitoring, and the use of excessive access restrictions placed by IP rights holders.

Full post as published by Michael Geist on March 26, 2009 (boomark / email).