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The European Union must do more to protect intellectual property rights
Press Release - March 2002
In visions of a Europe as world leader in a growing knowledge-based economy, a number of buzzwords frequently appear: eEconomy, eEurope and eLearning. The knowledge society, it is said, will be built on flexibility, freedom, transparency and deregulation. As an e-publisher, we have had first-hand experience of what this may mean in practice.
Whole World is a publisher providing English language products and services at university and research level. Our publication, a digital PhraseBook for Writing Papers and Research, is used by researchers, students, universities and companies worldwide.
With the European Council in Barcelona on 15-16 March 2002 and the Spanish Presidency of the European Union, we are writing about serious copyright violation by a major European university, the University of Barcelona. In July 2001, University of Barcelona Library staff purchased and downloaded a Single User Licence version of the PhraseBook from our website, and subsequently made it available to over 80,000 students and staff from the home page of the University of Barcelona Library website.
Whole World wrote to the EU Commission for Enterprise and the Information Society in Brussels. However, they were uninterested in our concerns, in spite of comments by the Commissioner that 'Europe is now on the right tracks to rapidly become an "eEurope". But we haven't won this game. The ultimate success will depend on each of us.' A Meeting of Ministers for Telecommunications and the Information Society held in February 2002 in Vitoria in Spain was scheduled to report to the Barcelona European Council - 'where the Heads of State and Government are due to lend political impetus to the growth of the Information Society in Europe'.
We are concerned that disregard for copyright law and intellectual property rights may have a negative impact on electronic publishing and the development of the Information Society in Europe. For authors and publishers, writing, marketing and distributing a new book require a great deal of time and investment. Without support from the European Commission and respect for intellectual property law by major European institutions, the risk of copyright infringement threatens innovation and investment, and the development of digital educational publishing and distribution.
The Internet has great potential for education, providing access to materials for universities, researchers and students in all parts of the world. For some types of book, such as the PhraseBook for Writing Papers and Research, the digital format has distinct advantages. Not only does it help non-native speaking researchers publish in English, but it also furthers understanding by English-speaking academics of research conducted in other parts of the world. However, the downside of this form of knowledge dissemination is that unscrupulous institutions can use the anonymity and remoteness of the Internet to avoid copyright law - the University of Barcelona purchased and downloaded their Single User Licence PhraseBook online by credit card without revealing their full identity. Unlike Napster and the major record companies, cases such as ours show that the reverse can also be the case - the intellectual property rights of a publisher and authors exploited by a major European educational institution.
Without support and protection from the European Union bodies responsible for 'e-Europe', the EU has a long way to go before it is 'the most competitive and dynamic knowledge-based economy in the world'. Development of 'eEurope' is not only about protecting consumers' rights: publishers too require EU support if the European Union is to really achieve its declared aims of 'eLearning', 'goDigital' and 'eContent' for the production and dissemination of European digital content.
For 'eEurope' to become a reality, the European Union and the Commission for Enterprise and the Information Society - and important institutions such as the University of Barcelona - must do more than simply pay lip service to it. It is ironic that this lack of respect for intellectual property rights is on the doorstep of the European Council where these matters were under discussion last weekend.
Relevant links
July 2003: Whole World wins out of court settlement against the University of Barcelona
April 2002: The University of Barcelona tried it on online - Research Today
European Commission Information Society: http://europa.eu.int/information_society/index_en.htm
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