A vote on the European Union's proposed directive on the enforcement of intellectual property rights, which has been compared to a controversial U.S. law, has been pushed back to November

A U.K. civil liberties group says it believes the law could even backfire on some of its sponsors, such as Microsoft and eBay, by opening the companies up to more serious legal attacks. The proposed directive on the enforcement of intellectual property rights, earlier set for a vote in a Thursday plenary session, is now scheduled for discussion on Nov. 4. Janelly Fourtou, the European Parliament member responsible for guiding the proposal, has not yet produced her report on the draft legislation, according to those familiar with the situation. When the proposal on enforcement of intellectual property rights was first introduced in January, it drew a "dismayed" reaction from the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) and other copyright holder lobbyists, which called for the measure to be beefed up. The IFPI argued in January that the proposed measures are not tough enough to hold back an "epidemic of counterfeiting," complaining that "the tools the proposal introduces to bring actions against infringers do not even reach the levels already available under some existing national laws" and may "fall short" of what it called international standards, in a reference to the United States' controversial Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA). The IFPI estimated that more than 1 billion pirated music CDs have been sold, which means that one in every three CDs is illegal. The organization estimates that the industry has lost $4.6 billion because of piracy. Rather than taking on board the strongest antipiracy measures of the member states, the draft legislation aims to represent "best practice" legislation, according to the European Union.