For those who think that Dmitry Sklyarov's arrest was just possible in the USA, think again. The "Directive 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 May 2001" simply brings DMCA-like laws to all the EU space. This directive must be made law by all countries by 22 December 2002. The complete text can be found at http://europa.eu.int/smartapi/cgi/sga_doc?smartapi!celexapi!prod!CELEXnumdoc...
For me the most important (and dangerous) is article 7:
Article 7 Obligations concerning rights-management information 1. Member States shall provide for adequate legal protection against any person knowingly performing without authority any of the following acts: (a) the removal or alteration of any electronic rights-management information; (b) the distribution, importation for distribution, broadcasting, communication or making available to the public of works or other subject-matter protected under this Directive or under Chapter III of Directive 96/9/EC from which electronic rights-management information has been removed or altered without authority, if such person knows, or has reasonable grounds to know, that by so doing he is inducing, enabling, facilitating or concealing an infringement of any copyright or any rights related to copyright as provided by law, or of the sui generis right provided for in Chapter III of Directive 96/9/EC. 2. For the purposes of this Directive, the expression "rights-management information" means any information provided by rightholders which identifies the work or other subject-matter referred to in this Directive or covered by the sui generis right provided for in Chapter III of Directive 96/9/EC, the author or any other rightholder, or information about the terms and conditions of use of the work or other subject-matter, and any numbers or codes that represent such information. The first subparagraph shall apply when any of these items of information is associated with a copy of, or appears in connection with the communication to the public of, a work or other subjectmatter referred to in this Directive or covered by the sui generis right provided for in Chapter III of Directive 96/9/EC.
What should we do ? Anyone experienced in political lobbying ?
-- Joao Miguel Neves