ACTA was stopped in the EU a few days ago. Now the European Commission reworks a guideline called IPRED (Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive), also dealing with the protection of immaterial goods which will raise concerns similar to ACTA.
The German pirate party compares IPRED to an Acta² and German university teacher and rights expert Thomas Hoeren complains about only two extreme sides of the discussions being visible. On one side people who want to completely abolish copyrights and on the other side groups completely lobbying against everything suspicious on the internet.
According to Hoeren, many questions are still unanswered yet. What should be allowed to rights owners following up on copyright infringement? Are the fines for illegal copying adequate? How helpful are warnings preventing people from illegally copying?
For allowed private copying people are charged when buying drives or media. Why these charges if private copies are not possible due to DRM? Will IPRED just continue where ACTA (was) stopped? What do you think about ACTA, IPRED and all the other treaty that are supposed to protect intellectual property?
