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Gallo Report: 3 Strikes Model Passes EC Parliament

No doubt, there are various views and opinions on how to meet the challenge of updating copyright (standing for all aspects of intellectual property rights) to be fit for the digital age:
Some people think that well conducted educational campaigns will help to increase the level of ethic awareness when downloading copyright protected content without authorisation. Others point out that neither technical barriers nor threat of punishment will change people’s online behaviour, they rather suggest a “content leger” or “cultural tax” to be collected through internet providers for pragmatic reasons.

And then we find rather divergent positions: on the one hand the call for intellectual property to be free of charge for private use, copyright is since antisocial and would endanger cultural progress of society. On the other hand the “3 Strikes Model” which has already been implemented in France (locking a user’s internet connection after two warnings). By the way: the term “3 Strikes” has it’s origin in baseball and has been adopted by law people, although the principle as such has been very common, mainly in US-jurisdiction for over 100 years.

On the European level recent discussions covered the so-called “Gallo Report”, initiated by the French government. This initiative recommends “3 Strikes” as the best method to enforce intellectual property rights in the internal market. (more ...)

Last week this initiative successfully passed the European Parliament. It is worth watching some short video coverage on this debate, including the contribution of the Austrian delegate Eva Lichtenberger :

Now that the Gallo Report has passed European Parliament, it has made an important step towards  achieving the status of an EC directive. On this topic Austrian delegate Evelyn Regner says: “Well informed citizens who are aware of the problem will always be ready to pay a fair price for goods and services – especially if they can be sure that their cash will end up with those, who have in fact created them.”