Regardless of what you might think about the origins on The Pirate Party, there’s no denial that the movement resulted in a substantial number of votes across Europe. While it’s almost a given that the Pirate Party would have no success in U.S. (we doubt the well-lobbied legal system would refuse the registration of such political option) and many other ‘advanced’ parts of the globe – in Europe the situation is different.

The Pirate Party managed to enter European Parliament and several parliaments across Europe, and immediately begun with its campaigns to modify copyright laws. In a recent post on TorrentFreak, Rick Falkvinge, the founder of Pirate Party highlighted perhaps a key highlight in a short, not-even-decade old political initiative.

As noticed by Falkvinge, it is strange that the mainstream media failed to report that Julia Reda, representative of German Pirate Party is currently working on revising the copyright law in the European Union:

“The collateral damage to liberties has been immense, and has spilled far outside the net. In the US, people are complaining that copyright monopoly law is now unintentionally preventing them to modify items they legally own, such as cars or games consoles. They’re absolutely wrong: that was the exact intention with the most recent round of revisions to copyright monopoly law – to limit property rights and to lock people out of their own possessions. (The copyright monopoly is, and has always been, a limitation on property rights.)”

One such example of how EUCD and DMCA legislations were used was Neste Oil’s attack on Greenpeace by threatening the internet provider of Greenpeace. Then again, Europe always had different approach to copyright when it compares to the U.S. In 2005, European Commission refused to accept software patents which are at the core of many lawsuits in the U.S. and in front of the WTO.

If we forego the political boasting of the post, Falkvinge revealed that a Pirate Party member of the European and German parliament is working on the “European Union’s official evaluation of the copyright monopoly, and listing the set of necessary changes.”

What those changes might be remains unknown at this point in time, but if European Union adopts the report on April 16, 2015 (it needs a majority vote to pass), we just might see a very interesting change in dynamic in negotiations between MPAA / RIAA-led U.S. negotiators and the European Union. As a reminder, right now the members of U.S. is trying to create not just Trans Pacific Partnership (TPP), but to create a single market between U.S. and the E.U.

Even if they fail in this attempt, there’s no denying that Pirate Party is creating an impact of copyright legislature. Time will tell how hard MPAA / RIAA-backed lobbyists can reply.

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The European Commission, a part of the European Union, has been handing out warnings to various smartphone manufacturers letting them know that their frivolous lawsuits and patent attacks are not going to be welcome by the European Commission. In two separate statements, the European Commission has reprimanded Motorola Mobility and worked with Samsung (after reprimanding them) in regards to anti-trust behavior pertaining to injunctions on their competitors they have sought based on essential patents. Interestingly enough, both of these cases pertain to 3G and GSM patents that Motorola and Samsung had brought against Apple and requested that there be injunctions against Apple’s products being imported into those countries based on those ‘infringements’. This is without a doubt a win for Apple, even though they themselves are the responsible party for the start of all these patent wars among all of the smartphone manufacturers.

Sure, there was a time when Qualcomm and Nokia had patent wars with each other, but that was a very long standing battle that didn’t really bring anyone else into the industry and well pre-dated all of these ludicrous battles between Microsoft, Google, Apple, Samsung, Motorola, HTC and many others.

The European Commission has reached an agreement with Samsung that they will not seek injunctions in Europe on the basis that its standard essential patents for mobile devices against licensees who sign up for a specified licensing framework. According to the EU agreement, under such a framework, any dispute over what are fair, reasonable and non-discriminatory (FRAND) terms for the standard essential patents in question will be determined by a court, or if both agree, an arbitrator. These commitments will create a “safe harbor” for all potential licensees of relevant Samsung standard essential patents. Any licensees that agree to such a framework agreement will essentially be immune to any sort of standard essential patent litigation in Europe and such a model is likely to be applied to Motorola as well, in order to prevent any sort of anti-competitive behavior.

What is most amusing is that in the frequently asked questions, the European Commission answers a lot of questions about these two cases, but doesn’t address the fact that both of these companies have partaken in anti-competitive behavior solely because they were sued in the US and other places by Apple. Perhaps, then, it would explain the reason why the European Commission chose not to fine either company for their behavior, which is rare on the European Commission’s part because they have fined people for having done much less. If anything, it may just serve as a nice warning to Samsung and Motorola, and setting an example for others not to try to do the same thing. I just wish the European Commission would at least openly admit that the core of this patent war started with Steve Jobs and his desire to crush Android.

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