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Deutsch: Copyright in der digitalen Umgebung
During the 1st European Innovation Summit that was held on 12 - 16 October 2009 at the European Parliament in Brussels, a workshop on the future of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) in Europe included a panel to debate the subject of the IPRs in the new digital environment.
In the introduction it was asserted that national copyright laws are no longer adapted to the digital environment, that old business models have failed to produce results, that DRMs have been rejected by the consumers and that the issue now at stake is how to adapt to new business models.
Professor Hugenholtz (IvIR, University of Amsterdam) said that licensing had been impacted heavily by the territorial nature of copyright. The only effective way forward is to create truly harmonising copyright regulation, as has been done for trademarks already. The problem of exceptions and limitations also needs to be effectively rethought.
Antoine Aubert (Google) repeated the point that the current exceptions and limitations regime needed to be reviewed. He explained that the current 70-year copyright terms was too long. Google's priorities have been to ensure that content can find its audience in the digital world and that rights owners get value for their contents.
Malte Behrmann (European Gaming Developers Federation) described how games developers had profited from the Internet to reduce the number of intermediaries in their path to the market. The online games industry has quickly adapted to the digital challenges and has developed a variety of business models. As a result, piracy is not an important issue and the games industry therefore does not support extreme solutions for copyright enforcement. He encouraged the film and music industry to follow the example of his industry.
Giancarlo Miglioro (MrGoodIDEA) said that the issue of finance was missing in the debate on the future of IPR. He said that major companies saw intellectual property as a major asset and trade in it.
Francisco Mingorance (Business Software Alliance) said that the adoption of the Hadopi law in France had demonstrated that technology was neutral and can be used efficiently to enforce copyright without any risk to people's privacy. There should be a focus on adopting codes of conduct for IPR enforcement, with ISPs responsible for monitoring and enforcement.
Christian Engstrom, MEP (Greens/EFA (Pirate Party), Sweden) said that his party was pro-copyright but also pro-reform and pro-adaptation to the digital age. He argued for a 5-year term of protection and that all non-commercial uses should be free of copyright.
Professor Hugenholz reminded participants that adjustments to the copyright term should comply with the international treaties and five years could not be acceptable. However, the recent proposal of the Commission to nearly double the term of protection for related rights has failed to provide evidence as to the need for such a long term.
Margot Froehlinger defended that proposal by pointing out that it had been accompanied with an impact assessment and that the Commission's aim had been to help performers. She warned against the criterion of "commercial infringement" and gave the example of somebody copying a film and putting it online without wanting to make a profit but doing so simply as a hobby.
1st European Innovation Summit
http://www.knowledge4innovation.eu/k4i/default.aspx
(contribution by Joe McNamee - EDRi)