Eudoxa

Intellectual property issues are among those most important to our information society, but since they involve a complicated mix of technology, economics and politics, they are not easy to explain or to resolve.

The fundamental cultural differences between the legally oriented content owners and the more technologically oriented digital rights activists are unlikely to promote constructive dialogue. While the former have a better understanding of the political, economical and legal system, the latter have a cultural and technological impetus.

In this, your work is of the greatest importance in protecting privacy and obtaining a balance between rights holders and the privacy of the European citizen, since the intellectual property right holders are seeking increasingly intrusive measures for the enforcement of their rights. The intellectual property rights owners have some legitimate concerns, but these concerns must balanced towards the right to privacy of the citizen.

Thus, in reference to the ongoing digital rights management consultation, working paper 104, I would like to make my support for a restrictive approach to rights holdes private enforcement tactics known, and issue a warning that the current practices are dangerously starting to threat privacy. Europe needs to think clearly about intellectual property issues a strike a better, more enduring, balance between intellectual property rights and privacy rights than the present situation.