In the last days, there has been a great unrest respect to the Sopa (Stop Online Piracy Act) and Pipa (Protect Ip Act). And there was even the strike made by many great US Web sites to demostrate their opposition respect to the two proposals that, after the protests, have been “frozen”.

In this “sparkling” moment the positions taken by the different Eu Commissioner, involved in the field, seems not to be… similar.

First of all, the Commissioner of the Digital Agenda, Neelie Kroes, even contrasting those who enrich themselves by the online piracy, expressed her disapproval to the Stop Online Piracy Act (that would have been discussed at the US Congress), defining it as a “bad” proposal. Neelie Kroes criticized moreover the decision connected with the Megaupload platform and its close (a very controversial item above all, as it is on the “board” between legality and illegality).
The Commissioner said “we don’t need a bad law. What we only need is the protection for a free and open Internet”. The laws made to protect the Intellectual Property Rights must not damage the freedom of the Internet.

Viviane Reding, Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental rights and citizenship seems to take similar positions. She defined Internet as a public good, whose freedom has  to be preserved first, or at least as, the copyright. “The protection of creators must never be used as pretext to intervene in the freedom of the Internet”, Reding told at the International Internet conference in Munich. “Freedom of information and copyright must not be enemies, they are partners… European policy aims at equilibrating the respect of both rights”, she even said.

Different or even opposite are the beliefs of Michel Barnier, Commissioner for Internal Market and Services who, as an Italian blogger said, “considers the copyright’s breakers more or less as the US considered Bin Laden”. He announced last week that, by the spring of 2012 a revisal of the “Copyright enforcement” will be passed by the European Commission. This means an embitterment to the current laws against those who violate the Intellectual Property Rights.