Urs Gasser, having left us and taken up his new post as a prof at the University of St. Gallen in Switzerland, writes in about the newly proposed EU IPR enforcement directive.  (The proposal itself is here.)

Prof. Dr. Gasser’s take-away: “Personally, I agree with the draft
Directive’s objective to fight organized IP crimes and infringements
that bear risks for public health and safety. However, the much broader
provision on ‘attempting, aiding or abetting’ and ‘inciting’
infringements is highly problematic and should be removed or at least
significantly limited in scope. Under this standard, for instance,
software programmers would run the risk to be criminalized if their
software could be used for large-scale copyright infringements,
especially vis-