December 16, 2015 · Blogs

EU Parliamentarians make statement on the Digital Single Market

On 14 December 2015, the Committee on Industry, Research and Energy (ITRE) and the Committee on the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) met in Strasbourg to vote on their report ”Towards a Digital Single Market Act”. This non-legislative statement is a response to the European Commission’s Digital Single Market (DSM) strategy, presented on 6 […]

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February 15, 2006

No private copy for DVD in France?

According to information published by the newspaper Les Echos a working document of the Ministry of Culture on the draft copyright law excludes the DVD from the private copy exception. Representatives of the industry such as SEV (The Audio Edition Union) consider such an approach will only acknowledge a reality. As Jean-Yves Mirski, general delegate […]

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March 25, 2015 · Blogs

Patriot Act à la française: France to legalise unlawful surveillance

In recent years, France has increasingly tightened its laws on crimes committed on the Internet. From the LOPPSI law voted in 2012 to the latest anti-terror law voted in November 2014, the bill on Intelligence announced on 19 March by the French Prime Minister, Manuel Valls, is fully consistent with a history of repressive Internet […]

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June 19, 2013 · Blogs

US agencies have unlimited access to Internet data

According to documents obtained by The Washington Post and the Guardian, NSA and FBI are extracting e-mails, photographs, documents, video and audio chats directly from the central servers of nine leading U.S. Internet companies, within a programme called PRISM which has not been made public until now. As one of the documents mentions, the companies […]

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March 14, 2007

YouTube blocked for 2 days in Turkey

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar) The video-sharing website Youtube, was blocked on 7 March 2007 by a court order in Turkey, after some videos insulting Turkey’s founding father, Mustafa Kemal Ataturk had been uploaded on its servers. The ban was lifted two days later, when the videos were removed from the website. […]

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August 24, 2011

German DPA asks for the removal of Facebook "like" button

This article is also available in: Deutsch: [Deutscher Datenschützer fordert Entfernung des Facebook-“Like”-Buttons | http://www.unwatched.org/EDRigram_9.16_Deutscher_Datenschuetzer_fordert_Entfernung_des_Facebook_Like_Buttons?pk_campaign=edri&pk_kwd=20110901] Thilo Weichert, the German data protection commissioner from the Independent Center for Privacy Protection (ULD) – the Data Protection Authority (DPA) from the state of Schleswig-Holstein, on 19 August 2011 called on website owners in his north German state to […]

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May 24, 2006

French draft copyright law continues to be criticised

As a continuation of the “saga” of the French draft law on copyright and related rights of the information society (DASDVSI), the French Senate voted this month the law which continues to be severely criticised by the consumer associations as well as software companies. The Senators have adopted the law with 164 votes for and […]

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June 20, 2007

Prüm's Treaty is now included into the EU legal framework

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar) The EU has adopted as its own law, with very little alterations, the so-called Prüm Treaty, signed on 27 May 2005 by Belgium, Germany, Spain, France, Luxembourg, The Netherlands and Austria, which allowed the police forces of their countries to compare and exchange data more easily. The […]

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July 5, 2006

Swedish company offers file-sharing damage insurance

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar) Swedish company Tankafritt offers insurance against file sharing law suits damages and intends to expand to other Scandinavian countries. Magnus Brath, the owner of the company, found it in reaction to the recent copyright infringement cases in Sweden. He also thinks he could develop his business in […]

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July 2, 2008

ICAAN supports custom domains and discusses whois privacy issues

(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar) During its 32nd International Public Meeting in Paris of 22-26 June, the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN) approved the proposal to expand the world’s Domain Name System. Dr Paul Twomey, ICANN’s president and CEO, said in a statement: “The Board today accepted a recommendation […]

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January 12, 2011

EU Commissioner criticises US for the data protection negotiations

This article is also available in: Deutsch: [Verhandlungen zum Datenschutz: EU-Kommissarin kritisiert USA | http://www.unwatched.org/node/2502] Following a meeting she had in December 2010 with US attorney general Eric Holder and Interior Minister Janet Napolitano, the EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding expressed her concern on what she believed to be a lack of interest of the […]

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September 10, 2014 · Blogs

Finnish copyright initiative: Unbalanced expert hearings

In its meeting on 9 September, the Education and Culture Committee of the Finnish parliament decided to continue the expert hearings for the citizens’ initiative on an update to the copyright legislation, “Common Sense For Copyright”. The decision was somewhat unexpected and a positive surprise, as the original agenda of the meeting stated that the […]

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