European Parliament rapporteur Arlene McCarthy has withdrawn the draft directive on software patents. The directive will now go back to the committee stage for some more work. A new vote is scheduled for the plenary sessions between 22 and 25 September.

Even though officially the European Patent Office does not allow for patents on software, many trifle software inventions and business methods have already been accepted.

Today, both online and off-line demonstrations were organised in a final attempt to change a proposed EU-directive on software patents. The European Parliament will vote on the proposal in the plenary session on 1 September. The demonstrations were organised by FFII. In an open letter to the members of parliament, FFII points out that the proposal 'would make calculation rules and business methods such as Amazon One Click Shopping patentable, as in the USA.' Moreover, FFII fears that the 30.000 patents on software that have already been granted by the European Patent Office 'against the letter and spirit of the current law', would become enforceable in Europe, making it impossible for national courts to continue to revoke these patents.

Resistance against the proposal was also strongly voiced by a group of 10

The Finnish Ministry of Education has published a new draft copyright law. The new proposal does not differ a lot from an earlier version that was rejected by parliament last February. It is still highly complicated and overzealous.

On the positive side the so-called 'community first sale doctrine' is now limited to commercial entities only. Also, DVD-country codes are now clearly defined to be outside the anti-circumvention rules. On the negative side the proposal only allows circumvention of copyright protection in case of listening or watching, but not for private copies. The proposal also forbids the reverse engineering of software if the software is used as a technical protection measure.

In a first result of legal procedures against record companies instituted by two French consumer unions, EMI Music France is condemned for deception. Within a month, they must print the following warning on copy protected CD's: 'Attention, this CD cannot be read by all players or car-radio's.'

Late in May, the 2 unions started legal procedures against several major record companies in order to fight copy protection on CDs. The Union Fédérale des Consommateurs (UFC-Que Choisir) deposited complaints in the courts of Paris against EMI Music France, Warner Music France, Universal Pictures Video as well as the distributors Auchan and FNAC.

A proposal to hasten the plenary vote about the EU Software Patent directive was stopped just in time. The voting date now remains set at the 1st of September. The extra time seems extra important now that the public debate about the implications of this directive has only just taken of.

Last Monday, the French Social Democrat Michel Rocard, president of the EP Culture Committee and former prime minister of France, showed himself an avid opponent of the directive in an interview with the French Daily Liberation.

EDRI-member Electronic Frontier Finland (EFFI) submitted a statement on a proposed EU Directive to harmonise the enforcement of intellectual property laws, including copyrights and patents, across member states. According to EFFI, the new directive is based too unilaterally on studies made for the media industry. For example, the proposal compares piracy to drug trade and terrorism. Besides proposing punitive damages, the draft directive suggests that defendants should pay for the publication of judgements in newspapers. Another principle objection of the Fins against the draft Directive is that it treats digital products the same way as the counterfeiting of medicines, alcohol, toys and car parts.

A recent verdict from the European Court of Justice implies that all EU countries should choose the same legislative translation of 'equitable remuneration', a crucial formula in the European Copyright Directive. Weighing the case of the Dutch copyright collecting society SENA versus the national broadcasting organisation NOS, the Court explains how the 1992 EU directive on rental and lending rights should be interpreted.

On 11 April German parliament agreed on the implementation-proposal of the EU Copyright Directive (EUCD). Only the small liberal opposition party opposed. Public debate centered around new educational and scientific limitations on copyright. The new law allows teachers to make works available to a limited group of class members, e.g. in an intranet, for the sole purpose of teaching, or to a limited group of persons for their own scientific research to the degree necessary by a given purpose and only for non-commercial use.

Academic publishing houses feared that they would loose a major source of income, suggesting that libraries would purchase one copy of a book and make it available on the Internet to all the world.