Hi,
IANAL so forgive me if it is irrelevant, but to me it seems important enough to pass the information on.
Quoting http://www.copycrime.eu/ :
"On April 24th, the European Parliament will vote on IPRED2, the Second Intellectual Property Enforcement Directive. ... If IPRED2 passes in its current form, "aiding, abetting, or inciting" copyright infringement on a "commercial scale" in the EU will become a crime."
The two key problems here are: 1. undefined meaning of "commercial scale" and "incitement" 2. it becoming a crime (as opposed to a a subject of civil law)
My understanding is that e.g. it could become a crime to write software which could be used to record pay-TV without the broadcaster's consent, even though using a valid subscription. (But, again, IANAL, so my understanding could be wrong -- you have to decide for yourself. I think currently there is no law against writing such software, only using it might be a (minor) infringement.)
The goal of the petition is to ask the European Parliament to amend IPRED2 with clear definitions of the language, and to clearly limit the scope to real criminals (i.e. people making money selling fake designer watches or cloned DVDs etc.).
Visit http://www.copycrime.eu/ for more info and to sign the petition if you want to support it.
Thanks, Johannes