The EU Report on Cultural Industries in Europe by Guy Bono sparked a lot of Webside debate with a French-supported call for a "3 strikes and you're out" rule for copyright. Although the implementation of such a rule was always going to be controversial, and almost impossible to enforce given the international variation in copyright law exemptions, we've been saved from the prospect of having our online life curtailed due to a few questionable copies of Eurovision Jazz Greats Vol. 4 by two amendments narrowly accepted by a vote in the Parliament.
The wording of the amendment(s) has been taken by some bloggers to mean that "access to the Internet is a human right", but that's not the case at all. The wording could've been better, but what it actually says is that blocking Internet access would go against the policy of the EU Commission to avoid adopting measures which aren't proportional. It certainly doesn't say that having Web access is a human right, but it says that having the freedom to choose to use the Internet is one of the civil liberties of a citizen of the EU, and because the Internet has so many possible benefits for the user (aside, of course, from access to copies of Eurovision Jazz Greats Vol. 4) to remove all possible access to it would be disproportionate.
Personally I support the amendment, as if nothing else it would've made the lives of IP enforcers and legal experts a living Hell, as not only would illegal downloading become such an important crime we'd all be spending hundreds of hours on each case, but it would also put the EU in a very different position to the rest of the world, so pushing the problem elsewhere. That's not to say the original intent wasn't valid - policing copyright is essential lest the entire concept of IP dissolve into a gray goo - but being too draconian with the recipients of data will only turn the attention away from the real issue, which is how to make the concept of intellectual property work in everyone's benefit.
The important point of course is how I referred to the original document - it's a Report and so carries no weight in law. Member States within the EU are free to implement national laws which include the "3 strikes" rule if they wish, and France seems intent on doing precisely that. The MEPs may have decided they don't like the idea, but can't do a whole lot to stop it.
