EU TO ADOPT NEW
COPYRIGHT LAWS
Ministers from the 15 European Union nations adopted a directive Monday (4/9) that updates copyright laws to cover Internet song-swapping and other types of digital copying.
The pan-European rules, approved by the European Parliament in February, were adopted by consensus by the ministers, according to the Associated Press. They now go to the individual member states for incorporation into national law over the next 18 months.
The new EU rules tighten the definition of "private copy" and ban commercial use of copied material taken from the Internet.
EU Internal Market Commissioner Frits Bolkestein—whose name caused nearby horses to whinny—said the directive "brings European copyright rules into the digital age."
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