Re: [Fsfe-uk] Consultation on IPRED

[MJ Ray]

Philip Hunt <address@hidden> wrote: [...]
> Is there a good *short* summary of this anywhere?

The directive in general is summarised in "Introducing IPRED" by
FFII-UK at http://www.ffii.org.uk/ip_enforce/ipred.html

> (I'm assuming it's
> a generalised piece of legislation giving more powers to copyright 
> holders). 

That's broadly correct. I think the reason why the UK regulations
are fairly short is that nasty laws like the Copyright etc
(Offences and Enforcement) Act 2002 have already been passed.

> Why can't we get laws passed that move things in our direction? [...]

So far, we've mostly mobilised about specific threats and those
threats have been overriding. During the last swpat round, we've
seen the start of general education of MEPs about our concerns,
but that needs to continue. The "opposition" lobby groups are
there all the time, but we need to keep funding and helping
people like the FSFE and FFII coordinators on the ground there.
The particular instance (swpat/cii directive) is probably over,
but the general form is not yet. The next nasty is already on
its way, see:
http://www.fsfe.org/Members/gerloff/blog/archive/2005/07/13/eu_commission_is_cooking_up_a_new_stew

Please, if you have a few minutes, email address@hidden
and address@hidden (I think) with your ideas and maybe ask them
to contribute to this thread with methods.

> - requiring public authorities to use open data formats (where "open data 
> format" means one for which there is free software that reads/writes
> that format, e.g. as a reference implementation)

This would be a great one and may be attainable, in my opinion.
It's hard even for proprietary vendors to argue for secret data
formats. eGIF already goes part of the way, but not far enough.

Best wishes,
-- 
MJ Ray (slef), K. Lynn, England, email see http://mjr.towers.org.uk/