ABSTRACT
During the drafting of the Act, the government (especially Mary Harney, the relevant Minister at the time) came under pressure from both Europe and the US. In Europe, there was a feeling that Ireland was lagging behind the implementation of the World Trade Organisation Agreement on Trade Related Aspects of Intellectual Property Rights (TRIPS) and from the US side, there was pressure from the software industry in particular to make sure that any amended laws would be strong on software piracy. There had been some misconceptions about the proofs required in copyright infringement prosecutions in Ireland and the industry was trying to put this right and clarify some issues that were in doubt. Some of these misconceptions are mentioned later in this chapter.
