Portal: IPRED/What

IPRED (Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive) is an EU directive organizing the repression of infringements of copyrights, patents, trademarks, etc. Because of its overreaching nature, IPRED harms access to culture, and hampers new cultural practices such as remixing, but also the development of new technologies and innovation in general.

In 2011, the EU Commission proposed a revision of IPRED to “adapt” it to the digital environment, and to step up the war on online sharing, in line with the anti-counterfeiting trade agreement ACTA. IPRED would push Internet actors –search engines, hosting services, access providers– to automatically censor communictions in order to combat online sharing of cultural works.

The IPRED revision must be the opportunity for a public debate answering the following questions: should we keep on harming fundamental freedoms and the free Internet to protect the entertainment industry's outdated business models? Or should we legalise sharing and focus repression only on infringements carried out for profit? This is a partial page. It is visible in Portal: IPRED