Organizations representing Europe‘s electronic-communications industry on Friday urged the European Commission not to change the directive on the civil enforcement of intellectual property rights (IPRED).

Cable Europe, ECTA, ETNO and EuroISPA together represent fixed and mobile telecoms operators, ISPs and cable companies. The group warned that “introducing stricter enforcement through increasingly restrictive technical measures” would have “a chilling effect” on innovation, consumers’ confidence in digital products, freedom of communications and Internet openness.

The group is particularly worried that under a revision of the IPRED directive, ISPs “may be ordered to implement unspecified, disproportionate and possibly repressive technical measures in a blanket fashion against their customers.”

The directive was passed in March 2004, but the Commission is now considering an overhaul and recently closed a public consultation to identify where changes may need to be made. However, the group said it is too soon to assess the impact of the IPRED directive as, according to the Commission’s own report, “due to late transposition of the directive in many member states, experience in applying the directive is limited.”

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