can someone in Europe please explain this in a bit more detail.

here's a good explanation of the issues:

http://www.boingboing.net/2008/07/05...ou-have-u.html

Awsome living in Sweden right now, first we get the "FRA" Law, which puts us in the bottom of the list in Europe when it comes to personal integrity, then we might get this on top of that. Nice, time to migrate to Norway.

Hardly being snuck out, I have known about the proposed 3 strikes rule for a year and its already been realised it conflicts with the Human Rights legislation which guarentees free speech (and interpreted to mean unrestricted internet usage) which takes precedence so will lose its first challeneged test case anyway.

I see myself as fairly up to date with news arround the EU but I've actually never heard about this so it's quite the shock for me. But then on the other hand I might have seen it and just misread and ignored. Either way, I certainly hope you're right Watcher.

So when we download the new WoW patches, we'll get a warning as that is P2P? Anywhere they state they will throughly look at the content?

Well, I certainly hope that this is the tiny bit that has yet to be explained. The intention behind this surely was to prevent illegal downloads and file sharing of unauthorised downloaded music and video files?

Or does it indeed mean you can become a target of this law by downloading your patches? Wowmovies? Freeware fonts? Wallpapers?

From the reading I've done there's a couple of issues:

1) it OBLIGATES your ISP to snoop on your traffic.
2) If they believe you're using P2P you get a strike (not sure how/if this is communicated)
3) 3 strikes, you're out.

This was proposed in the UK awhile ago and voted down... now it's being snuck in as amendments to another bill (hey, your politicians are like ours!! awww.... er i mean ewww). Not this though... if a teen does do some 'illegal' file downloading the entire household is cut off. Um....

And really - in a future where having everyone connected to broadband and increasinly using the services that enabled by those connections... the EU wants to start disconnecting people who they THINK are stealing songs? Sigh... and I thought we'd contained the RIAA virus.

I just had to write this after reading this article . It made me laugh my ass off. You europeans got owned majorly.

Your not used to european law are you? The finer details never get observed like standardised fruit and vegetable shapes and sizes, use of the metric system, etc.

...and you live where? America the land of the free? Or China? Africa...continents of free speech and democratic votes?

Nice first post....^^

Det! Put the Troll Food® away!!

Whether or not this was ever enforced I'd not want it on the books if I lived in the EU. Luckily I live in the US where the RIAA sues us and... oh never mind... :P

hmmm... i wonder how long it will be until all of Europe is disconnected from the Internet.