It's typical short-sighted Eurocrats, I doubt it will last, or wind up being as all inclusive as it seems.
One has to remember that there is more than one side to this. Not only the issue of creators being paid for their work which is perfectly fair and reasonable, but also the issues of taxes and tariffs being collected by the goverment. For every sale being made the goverment whether it's state, federal, or whatever else, takes a percentage of the transaction as one of their ways of making money. E-business not collecting taxes (which has become a factor with Amazon.com and Connecticut, just resolved in Connecticut's favor) has been a long standing issue, as has the simple fact that all of these lost sales and potential tax money. On top of this companies are taxed based on their overall revenues, more employees from successful companies mean more taxes being raised, and of course the taxes gained from the buildings and facilities and all the materials they buy if successful... etc... this is part of why an economic downturn is such a bad thing because with all the damage also goes a lot of mechanisms by which the goverment makes money.
When it comes to international trade there is also the issue of tariffs and taxes on goods entering a country, the US is stupidly liberal with it, but not all nations are. The thing with E-business, especially digital IPs, is that it's difficult to levy tariffs against. This both amounts to a lot of extra money for the IP holders, and presumed losses to the country that tries to police them because they spend money doing so on something they are likely to never see a share of the profits on.
As much as you might hate corperate greed, and taxes (everyone hates taxes) in the current economic crisis, and the debt we've got, you as the everyman should have some concern about people not paying their fair share, especially right now, and that incudes things like sales taxes. If your roads suck in your state, and your driving past all these closing businesses, remember that everyone who paid for something without paying the taxes (which might include you) are responsible for your state going bankrupt, and the fact that the brick and mortar businesses DID have to collect taxes (making the products more expensive) contributed to their demise, saving a buck or two on tax for each purchuse was one of the things that helped catapult things like Amazon to success.
At any rate, when it comes to Eurocrats it should be noted that Europe produces very little media compared to the US. This is not to say NONE, but the bottom line is most of the big movie studios, TV producers, music houses, etc... are largely American businesses. This applies to things like video games as well, though you are seeing Europe become a bit more competitive in terms of production. The bottom line is that enforcing copyright laws doesn't favor Europe since they will wind up spending more to protect America's profits than they will make through their own media sales.
It's like any business/goverment relation, if your country does a large business in a paticular type of goods you want to see it protected, if not, you by definition care less, and you especially don't care if it amounts to you getting something for free that your not really profiting off of.
Eurocrats (as in European goverment/Bureaucrat for those who might not have figured out the term before now, or thinking Democrat for some reason) tend to be more invested in the piracy of tangible goods, focusing on China's bootlegging of drugs, electronics, and other physical products which European nations have more of a stake in. For example France has a massive stake in Viagra which is one of the biggest knock-off thefts in history. The way Pfizers works both the US and France should be entitled to a cut (via taxes and trade) for every viagra pill sold, in addition to the profits going to Pfizers. When you consider the global market for bootleg boner pills which are on virtually every nightstand (whether you need them or not) just imagine what a differant that money makes, and you begin to see why our economy sucks while China's is growing (since this isn't the only product of it's kind).
The thing is that Eurocrats are being short sighted because seperating the issues isn't really popular and plays into the hands of the problem nations like China. After all it can be argued things like patents are IP since they just represent instructions and details on how to make something. If we ever did finally get up off our arse, and send a combine Western military after China to force them to acknowlege/follow copyright and IP laws, it's going to be nearly impossible when we remain divided on what those laws should actually be, depending on our own paticular needs. This kind of divide happens to play to the hands of nations like China and has hampered any kind of meaningful non-diplomatic response, despite almost the entire western first world agreeing they represent a problem that needs to be dealt with (yes, I know a lot of US democrats will not agree with that here, but I'm not going to argue this specific point at the moment).
At the end of the day, things like E-business, downloads, etc... become largely a US issue because we produce/manufacture very little. We tend to innovate and then do the manufacturing elsewhere, selling mostly ideas, services, and creative intellectual properties. That's fine until nobody wants to acknowlege your right to an idea or concept, and pay you for it, or related services.
To a short sighted European mentality, they only care about their immediate intrests. They do not see the point of spending the money to enforce laws for IPs and Downloads, including warehousing people in jail, on behalf of business interests they ultimatly see little or no benefit from. The bottom line being Euro law enforcement basically becoming enforcers for publisher like EA or big Hollywood studios with their businesses and tax payments centralized towards the US. Not much caring about the big picture, or how it influances related issues, and prevents the establishment of a desperatly needed common front. Not to mention being how trade wars start and continue. If this law DOES operate like it says (and has indeed been passed) you can almost guarantee the US is probably going to start screwing around with European trade in retaliation as much as it can. Even bigger trade wars between the US and Europe don't benefit anyone except businesses in The Far East.
