Amendment H1, Harbour : Allows national regulation authorities and the Commission to establish standards which restrict the running of lawful applications and lawful services and access and distribution of lawful content. A national regulatory authority may issue guidelines setting minimum quality of service requirements, and, if appropriate, take other measures, in order to prevent degradation of services and slowing of traffic over networks, and to ensure that the ability of users to access or distribute lawful content or to run lawful applications and services of their choice is not unreasonably restricted. Those guidelines or measures shall take due account of any standards issued under article 17 of Directive 2002/121EC (Framework directive). The Commission may having examined such guidelines or measures and consulted [XXX], adopt technical implementing measures in that regards if it considers that the guidelines or measures may create barrier to the internal market. Theses measures designed to amend non-essential elements of this directive by supplementing it, shall be adopted in accordance with the regulatory procedure with scrutiny referred to in article 37(2).
A national regulatory authority may issue guidelines setting minimum quality of service requirements, and, if appropriate, take other measures, in order to prevent degradation of services and slowing of traffic over networks, and to ensure that the ability of users to access or distribute lawful content or to run lawful applications and services of their choice is not unreasonably restricted. Those guidelines or measures shall take due account of any standards issued under article 17 of Directive 2002/121EC (Framework directive).
The Commission may having examined such guidelines or measures and consulted [XXX], adopt technical implementing measures in that regards if it considers that the guidelines or measures may create barrier to the internal market. Theses measures designed to amend non-essential elements of this directive by supplementing it, shall be adopted in accordance with the regulatory procedure with scrutiny referred to in article 37(2).
This is basically a call for DRM for both software and content, and possibly bandwidth caps on file sharing.
But DRM exists already, and so do bandwidth caps. Measures like these are always unenforceable in practice because it would mean data monitoring at the OS level. Considering what a disaster that has been in Vista, and considering how much iTunes sucks, and considering how easy it is to rip CDs and DVDs without DRM, and considering that there is no reliable DRM technology, it's not going to happen. I can't see Linux being outlawed just yet, especially when some governments are looking at Open Source options to save cash.
Para 2 is more worrying, because it could be read as a net neutrality Trojan, depending on how generous your definition of 'lawful' is.
But I'm not convinced yet that this is a serious push to give corporate content bandwidth priority, or that the support exists to make any such push a reality.
Article 2 point 5 a (new) Directive 2002/58/EC Article 14 paragraph 1 (5a) In Article 14, paragraph 1 shall be replaced by the following: 1. In implementing the provisions of this Directive, Member States shall ensure, subject to paragraphs 2 and 3, that no mandatory requirements for specific technical features, including, without limitation, for the purpose of detecting,intercepting or preventing infringement of intellectual property rights by users, are imposed on terminal or other electronic communication equipment which could impede the placing of equipment on the market and the free circulation of such equipment in and between Member States. For information paragraph 2 and 3 mentionned in this paragraph 1 : 2. Where provisions of this Directive can be implemented only by requiring specific technical features in electronic communications networks, Member States shall inform the Commission in accordance with the procedure provided for by Directive 98/34/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 June 1998 laying down a procedure for the provision of information in the field of technical standards and regulations and of rules on information society ser vices(9). 3. Where required, measures may be adopted to ensure that terminal equipment is constructed in a way that is compatible with the right of users to protect and control the use of their personal data, in accordance with Directive 1999/5/EC and Council Decision 87/95/EEC of 22 December 1986 on standardisation in the field of information technology and communications(10).
This is 'If there are measures, they have to be standardised across the EU and can't be seen as restriction of trade.'
It's almost redundant given the previous amendment.
I'm not seeing suggestions here for institutional government monitoring of all data, or blanket crack-downs on file sharing. If there are proposals to do that, they're not in these amendments.
File sharing can't be stopped, because if someone is prosecuted for file sharing legal files - which is always possible - these amendments mean there's no legal case against them.
If I upload one of my own songs to Demonoid, and people download it, it's going to be hard to persuade any court that laws have been broken.
The entire "codecision" file is here. This is a first reading of the original Commission proposal. When the capital development of a country becomes a by-product of the activities of a casino, the job is likely to be ill-done. — John M. Keynes