From the internal rumbling around Brussels, it sounds that IPRED2 is going through the JHA (Justice and Home Affairs) route. Its next port of call will be at the Council's Working Group on Substantive Criminal Law (DROIPEN), possibly on June 1.

DROIPEN's job will be to prepare the Council's first reading on the directive. The national government's representatives might come up with a proposal that all Member States agree on, or else they will identify issues that the Ministers of Justice will have to vote on.

If you're an activist, what's important to know is that IPRED2's content can still change during this process. But these transformations will not be as transparent as during the European Parliament's deliberations.

That means that lobbying national governments to introduce fixes to IPRED2 now can lead to better language - language that we already know that many in the European Parliament support.

For instance, in informal discussion last year the Council considered that IPRED2's criminal sanctions should only apply sanctions should only apply, if at all, to EU-wide IP law (not local law that hadn't already been harmonised by the EU). That's something our coalition called for in our Parliamentary amendments. A slight majority of MEPs rejected that limitation, but the Council could restore it.

It also means that vigilance is still necessary. It was only a few months ago that IPRED2 included language that turn companies who unintentionally infringed on patents into criminals. One MEP proposed an amendment that would have made anyone receiving a copyright-infringing item a criminal "fencer" of stolen goods.

Language bad or worse could be inserted by nation states in the next few weeks. When the Council is done, IPRED2 will return for a second parliamentary reading, with all these new proposed changes, good or bad.

We'll be keeping track.