Call it the Universal Law of Bad Laws: the more problematic a proposed piece of legislation is, the keener its advocates are to rush it through. When that happens, it's often those in the system who call for delay that saves us all from its unintended consequences.
Praise, then, is due then for Nicola Zingaretti, the Italian Member of European Parliament (MEP) responsible for guiding the dangerous Second Intellectual Property Enforcement Directive (IPRED2) through the European Parliament. Zingaretti called last week for another delay in a key vote by the EU's Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI), originally scheduled for today.
Zingaretti's postponement of the vote (his third) shows the complexity and the growing contentiousness of the directive, first proposed by the European Commission in 2005.
Even after several months of negotiations, MEPs cannot agree its core concept - defining when behavior is on a "commercial scale" and therefore subject to the draft's harsh criminal penalties - and are taking a closer look at how the directive would affect consumers. That's a welcome development, although disconcerting that it is taking place so perilously close to the final key vote.
The good news is that Zingaretti's postponement gives everyone a much-needed three week window to ponder the dangers of the directive.
more at eff.org
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