Europe's internet piracy debate unresolved

European bureaucrats have failed to reach a decision on a directive that could introduce radical new measures to combat music and information piracy on the internet.

Hopes that the fierce debates over the EC directive 'Information Society: Copyright and Related Rights' would reach a conclusion were dashed last night as representatives of the Council of the European Union decided to postpone any decision to a special meeting to be held in mid-June.

The directive, of which online copyright protection is just a part, initially caused outrage amongst the internet community by effectively outlawing caching - the process of storing copies of files on servers without which the internet would slow dramatically.

But it has since been amended to give internet service providers (ISPs) scope to cache some files, but not others. The question of which files the directive covers is at the heart of the Council's dilemma. A decision was expected following meetings yesterday, but it was derailed.

Sources close to the negotiations have told vnunet.com that an ISP-friendly compromise was almost reached, but was scuppered by one Council member's insistence that three more words be added to a clause on caching.

It is thought that the three words were being insisted on to bring the copyright directive in line with another EC directive on ecommerce. However, the revised phrase, if adopted, would mean that even something as simple as updating websites for different kinds of browsers would be impossible without infringing the law.

Meanwhile, anti-piracy branches of the music industry, the strongest advocates of enforcing copyright law, are standing by waiting for a decision that has billions of pounds resting on it. Digital music distribution has been made easier by the introduction of MP3 compression technology, which makes music files smaller.

Jollyon Benn, operations executive at the anti-piracy unit of the British Phonographic Institute (BPI), explained: "The future of the whole music industry to deliver digital music online is at stake. The current situation provides companies with no incentive to publish online."

Should the EC's eventual decision go against the music lobby's interest, he said the anti-piracy unit will continue its policy of writing to individual ISPs requesting that they remove copyright-infringing material from their servers and wait for a technological, encryption-based solution of beating the pirates to be developed.Timeline

• Apr 1996: Original proposal: Copyright and related rights in the Information society. Green paper.
• Oct 1996: Receives first reading in European Parliament, and is scrapped.
• Nov 1996: Revived as Copyright and related rights in the Information Society. Follow-up to the Greenpaper.
• Nov 1997: Receives first reading in European Parliament, and is scrapped.
• Dec 1997: Revived as Information Society: copyright and related rights.
• Feb 1999: Receives first reading in European Parliament, and is passed.
• May 1999: Amendment to February text passed by European Parliament.
• June 1999: Modified proposal goes to the Council of the European Union to form a common position.
• May 2000: Hoped-for Council decision delayed at least until June.