6 giorni, 12 ore fa

Never before have I seen such cross-party unity in bashing a Commissioner as last night when Internal Market head Michel Barnier got a real roasting for the EU not supporting an effective Treaty for the visually impaired and print-disabled at the World Intellectual Property Organization.  Today a resolution in favor of the Treaty was passed [...]

1 settimana fa

Acceso de los ciegos a los libros Con el fin de hacer frente al problema del acceso de los ciegos y las personas con problemas de lectura a los libros y otros productos impresos, la Unión Mundial de Ciegos y la Unión Europea de Ciegos han propuesto un tratado internacional vinculante en el marco de [...]

1 settimana, 1 giorno fa

Press Release: Oral Question, Debate and Resolution in European Parliament Wednesay the 15th and Thursday the 16th of February, 2012 Should there be an international exception to copyright to help end the “book famine” for tens of millions of blind persons? The European Parliament debates the EU´s support for a Global Treaty for the Visually [...]

1 settimana, 6 giorni fa

Blind and dyslexic people need to read books in accessible formats such as braille, formatted audio or large print books. These are often made thanks to exceptions to national copyright laws that now work smoothly in most EU member states. Nevertheless, these books cannot legally cross borders. Please support the legal right for blind people [...]

3 settimane fa

1. Myth: “ACTA is about large-scale and organized infringements of intellectual property” Reality: The criminal sanctions proposed in ACTA could apply to not-for-profit infringements of copyright.  ACTA´s article 23.1defines “commercial scale” violation of IPR as any “direct or indirect economic or commercial advantage”.  This term is very unclear and, therefore,  greatly disproportionate penalties could easily [...]

3 settimane fa

ACTA could have perverse anti-competitive effects on business models in the IT field. By strongly promoting copyright enforcement as a key function and legal responsibility of Internet Server Providers (under the guise of “self-regulation), it encourages the “functional bundling” of communication services and cultural content management.  In other words, ACTA helps builds a new legal [...]

3 settimane, 1 giorno fa

Notes on ACTA from a Consumer Perspective 1. Is ACTA really an anti-counterfeiting agreement? Consumers are in favour of measures that confront commercial fraud, especially when it affects public safety and health, the quality of consumer products or the false representation of a trademark. Nevertheless, real counterfeiting or trademark fraud, that can really be dangerous [...]

3 settimane, 1 giorno fa

THE EUROPEAN COMMISSION REJECTS  ASKING FOR A EUROPEAN COURT OF JUSTICE OPINION ON the LEGALITY OF ACTA. DESPITE MANY DOUBTS AND LEGAL UNCERTAINTIES IN THE ACTA TEXT THE EC REFUSES TO ALLOW A European Court opinion on its legality and also rejects the carrying out of an independent study the impact of ACTA on innovation, [...]

4 settimane fa

MEP Gallo´s and Commissioner Barnier´s crusade against access to our cultural legacy French Member of the European Parliament Marielle Gallo is leading a destructive political campaign to close the door on easing access to the vast cultural legacy of millions of books, films and songs that are not presently available to citizens due to being [...]

2 mesi fa

European Digital Rights on ACTA´s Democratic Vacuum The European Parliament has given its legal service the task of explaining why a circle is a square – or rather why ACTA is simultaneously in line with existing EU legal provisions, while not denying that it will ultimately require changes to EU law. The sleight of hand [...]