The draft Directive, proposed in January this year, covers infringements of all intellectual property rights, including copyright, trade marks and designs. It concentrates on infringements carried out for commercial purposes and provides for counterfeiters to be jailed and have their accounts frozen.
For criminal sanctions to apply, the draft law requires that the infringement is serious. An infringement is considered serious if carried out intentionally and for commercial purposes.
This means that this Directive will not introduce new sanctions against individuals downloading music from the internet for their own use, though it will not stop Member Sates' authorities from introducing and applying tougher laws.
An international coalition of 38 civil liberties groups and consumer rights campaigns, including IP Justice, European Digital Rights and the UK Campaign for Digital Rights, sent a letter to the European Union on Monday urging rejection of the proposed Enforcement Directive.
The letter warned that the proposed Directive is overbroad and threatens civil liberties, innovation, and competition policy.
"If this proposal becomes a reality, major companies from abroad can use intellectual property regulations to gain control over the lives of ordinary European citizens and threaten digital freedoms", said Andy Müller-Maguhn, a board member of European Digital Rights and speaker for the Chaos Computer Club.
He added, "Under this proposal, a person's individual liberty to use his own property is replaced with a limited license that can be revoked or its terms changed at any time and for any reason".
The group was particularly concerned over an article in the proposal which gives intellectual property holders broad new subpoena powers to obtain personal information about any European citizen that is alleged to be connected to an infringement.
Similar subpoena powers were created in the US by the controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), and the coalition alleges that these are abused by the Recording Industry Association of America to obtain personal information about thousands of users of file-sharing software.
The proposed IP Enforcement Directive would extend the ability to abuse this power to Europe, says the letter.
Another concern is an article of the draft Directive which requires Member States to prohibit technology, including software, that is capable of bypassing technical restrictions imposed by intellectual property holders.
The coalition states that this provision threatens market competition by permitting foreign IP owners to restrict parallel imports and impose price discrimination within the EU.
It also forbids Europeans from deactivating or removing technical devices such as Radio Frequency ID (RFID) tags that can be used in goods to prevent counterfeiting but that civil liberties groups fear will also be used to invade privacy.
"One can think of the EU IP Enforcement Directive as the 'DMCA on steroids' since any industrial property right that can be licensed will be enforced through technical devices that it will be absolutely illegal to circumvent throughout Europe," said Robin Gross, Executive Director of IP Justice.
The letter was sent on the same day as the coalition launched the Campaign for an Open Digital Environment (CODE) to raise awareness about the proposed IP Enforcement Directive's perceived threat to consumer rights and market competition. CODE encourages European citizens to contact MEPs to urge the proposal's rejection.
When the Directive was first proposed it met with harsh criticism from the parties currently most affected by digital piracy – the software and music industries.
In a joint statement at the time, a group of trade associations, including the Business Software Alliance, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry and the Motion Picture Association, claimed that the draft Directive "fails to introduce urgently needed measures to hold back the epidemic of counterfeiting", and that it "falls short of providing the legal framework necessary to fight piracy in all its forms in the EU."
The next step for the proposed Directive takes place on 11th September when it will be put before the European Parliament for consideration. It has also to receive the approval of the Council of Ministers.