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December 18, 2003

No criminal sanctions in IPR enforcement directive

There will be no criminal sanctions in the proposed European directive on the enforcement of intellectual property rights after all. In the previous edition of EDRI-gram there was a report about an amendment of MEP Mercedes Echerer (Greens, Austria) on Article 20 that would re-introduce sanctions in criminal law, even for private and relatively small-scale […]

December 3, 2003 · Blogs

EDRI-gram – Number 23, 3 December 2003

December 3, 2003

EP Committee wants to jail file sharers

On 27 November the Legal Affairs Committee (JURI) of the European Parliament finally voted on the Draft Directive on the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights. The vote was a total victory for the Rapporteur, French Conservative Janelly Fourtou. Every single one of her amendments passed, and so did all of the compromise amendments she had […]

December 3, 2003

PNR talks between EU and US move slowly

Talks between the European Commission and the US department of Homeland Security about airline passenger data are moving very slowly. Commissioner Frits Bolkestein told the European Parliament that the US are only willing to compromise on a few disagreements. Most importantly the US do not want to limit the use of airline passenger data to […]

December 3, 2003

Irish Labour Party wants to stop e-voting

The Irish Labour Party is urging suspension of e-voting until major flaws are fixed. Ireland is planning to completely changeover to electronic voting in June 2004, for both local and European elections. According to a report commissioned by the party the major defects are: – An integrated end-to-end test of the entire system has not […]

December 3, 2003

EP Rapporteur sceptic about biometrics in ID-cards

Ole Sorensen, the Rapporteur for the European Parliament on two proposals for Council Regulations to include biometric identifiers into visas and ID cards, is questioning the proportionality and the adequacy of this measure to enhance security standards of EU travel documents. In a Working Document discussed at an internal meeting with the shadow rapporteurs of […]

December 3, 2003

Retrial of DVD-Jon in Norway

The Norwegian Jon Johansen pleaded ‘not guilty’ during the retrial on 2 December of his acquittal for reverse-engineering DVD technology and creating DeCSS in 1999. DeCSS is computer software that Johansen and others wrote in an effort to build an independent DVD player for the Linux operating system. In January 2003, a three-judge panel in […]

December 3, 2003

Dutch parliament questions crypto telephone

The presentation of a crypto mobile telephone has stirred some controversy in the Netherlands. The Cryptophone has been developed in the Netherlands and is sold through a German company. The device is a combined GSM and organiser running Windows Pocket PC. The software encrypts the call when connecting to another Cryptophone. The Cryptophone should make […]

December 3, 2003

UK government's biometric plans undermined

The biometric technique that has been selected for incorporation into the new UK national ID card has been undermined in the scientific press. New Scientist has reported that the technique of iris scanning is not as perfect and infallible as the Home Secretary (Minister of Internal Affairs) has claimed. The article alleged that the technology […]

December 3, 2003

European court allows trademark Fur Elise

According to the European Court of Justice, music can be deposited as a trademark in Europe. This is the outcome of a test-case instigated by the Dutch trademark agency Shieldmark. The founder of the company Shieldmark formally sued his father, founder of the trademark agency Kist, in order to get a European trademark on part […]

December 3, 2003

French provider wins lawsuit about website

The French provider RAS does not have to remove a website from the trade-union SUD-PTT. On 24 November a Paris court rejected the claim from 2 telemarketing companies that the website was both hurtful and defamatory. The rejection is technical; the companies should have chosen 1 single argument for their complaint. The contested remarks state […]

December 3, 2003

Statement on human rights in the information society

Early in November independent experts from all regions of the world met in Geneva to discuss about the fundamental human rights in the information society. The meeting was supported by the Swiss Agency for Development and Cooperation (SDC), the European Commission, the Office of the High Commissioner for Human Rights and the Government of Mali, […]