The French European Council Presidency no longer wants to deal with the especially thorny issue of fighting internet copyright infringement within the framework of the revised telecoms package. The Presidency made its views known in a draftPDF of a Council position paper expected to be finalised on Thursday by the Telecommunications Council, which has the lead on the issue. With its suggested compromise, France is hoping to speed up the legislative process and, at the same time, reach a consensus amongst all of the EU councils without a second reading in the European Parliament.
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The French draft of the Privacy and Electronic Communications Directive revision also contains a simplified version of European Parliament Amendment 181 regarding processing of connection and location data. Civil-rights activists had been up in arms about the amendment in its original form because it permitted « voluntary data storage ». The German government had also voiced reservations about the amendment. The new version now simply states that traffic may only be stored to the extent that it is « strictly necessary » for maintaining the functionality and security of the network.
http://www.heise-online.co.uk/news/France-wants-to-remove-intellectual-property-aspects-from-the-telecoms-package–/112074