European Parliament Urged to Endorse EU Copyright Law

Legislators of the European Union (EU) were urged on Thursday to endorse the proposed EU-wide copyright law that was slated for parliamentary voting next week.

Europe's entertainment community urged the 626 members of the European Parliament (MEP) to consider the importance of creative content and its quality when voting on February 14.

The MEPs were sent a written appeal by a coalition of over 30 organizations representing publishers, performers, authors, musicians, visual artists and film makers, who called on MEPs to ensure that their works are properly protected in the digital era.

These creative artists said that they urgently needed a fair set of rules to protect their works from abuse on the computer networking or else their works victim would fall victim to mass- scale unauthorized download copying.

The legal and internal market committee of the European Parliament approved on Monday the draft copyright law proposed by the European Commission, the executive body of the 15-nation EU.

Under the copyright law, copyright owners will be given the right to use advanced technologies, such as encryption, to block illicit copying of works protected by copyright and to limit the illegal downloading of audio and video files.

The new draft law was submitted to the parliament for a second reading before it convenes for a full parliamentary vote.

EU member states and the European Commission, however, wanted the draft law to pass unchanged at the parliamentary assembly.

Proposals to update the EU copyright law were introduced in 1997 and have been discussed by various EU institutions during the past three years.

The EU parliamentarians have been lobbied hard by both the entertainment industry seeking tougher controls on Internet downloading and their opponents including educators, consumer groups, CD makers and telecommunications companies.

One point under debate is a possible extension of national levies currently charged in some EU countries on blank videotapes, compact discs, recorders and players. These surcharges are meant to compensate artists for pirated copies.

The record industry and artists argue that on-line levies for artists are necessary as the technical restrictions to limit on- line copying are still limited.

To get the point across, artists including Sophia Loren and Andrea Bocelli have spent the last few months campaigning against music piracy.

Meanwhile, educators and libraries worry that the new restrictions will hamper their access to books, music and other resources now easily found available on-line.






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