Mot du Jour: Pan-european Copyright Laws

The European Parliament has today endorsed the report produced by Marielle Gallo ('the Gallo Report'), a French MEP, on the enforcement of intellectual property rights ('IPR') in the internal market. It has recommended the creation of a pan-European copyright law which would tackle the issue of lack of harmonisation of copyright laws across Member States.

The Gallo Report has criticised the Commission for not assessing how the European legal framework could be strengthened in relation to cyberspace. It has asked the Commission to review the impact of the 2004 Directive on the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights.

calls on the Commission to conduct "an assessment of the ways to strengthen and upgrade the legal framework with respect to the Internet".

The report, by Marielle Gallo, asks the Commission to review the impact of 2004's Directive on the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights, and to propose amendments to it which would strengthen EU powers to tackle infringement. It has also highlighted the need to review the impact on the legal frameworks of Member States on reducing instances of infringement. This will be in line with the current negotiation of the Commission of the Anti Counterfeit Trade Agreement.

The Parliament is pioneered the creation of better legitimate online content markets to tackle the growing instances of online infringement. Thus the Commission will have to propose strategies (including legal and technological ones) to create such a market.

Proposals for the Child Internet Safety Council.

The Culture, Media and Sport Select Committee has been reviewing safety online and has criticised video websites as YouTube for the lack of adequate control over the published content. The Select Committee has called for a new industry body (Child Internet Safety Council) whose role would be to protect minors from harmful content. In addition, it has recommended the proactive review of content by the platform, reclassification of video games and speedier removal of illegal content by the platform. C

Currently, platforms as YouTube remove child
abuse images within 24 hours which the Committee has tagged as a"lax" approach.

CyperPanda is glad that the Committee has remarked that the current trend of removing the offending images after posting is not actually an adequate measure. It is ovbious that a more appropriate approach would be for the infringing activity not to take place in the first instance. These recommendations should be used as an impetus to rethink seriously how such activities can be stopped by a consistent, fair and transparent regulatory framework and put an end to the current approach of passive reaction from platforms.