EU adopts stricter piracy stance

The proposal from Italian MEP Nicola Zingaretti was actually watered down a bit. Its aim was to harmonise the regulations across the EU to avoid the situation in which similar offences carried a 10-year jail sentence in the UK but only a three-month tariff in less primitive Greece.

Said Zingaretti: "It is about punishing mafia-style criminals, not about jailing kids who download music from the Internet," according to AP.

"We want to discourage the illegal trafficking of millions of tons of goods coming through the EU and make sure that all over the EU pirates and counterfeiters are punished," he added.

In a statement the Parliament said sanctions should apply "only to infringements deliberately carried out to obtain a commercial advantage. Piracy committed by private users for personal, non-profit purposes is therefore also excluded." µ

L'INQ
Free Software Foundation