March 27, 2013 · Blogs

Spain: New draft law to increase copyright infringements penalties

This article is also available in: Deutsch: [Urheberrecht in Spanien: Neuer Vorstoß für höhere Strafen | https://www.unwatched.org/EDRigram_11.6_Urheberrecht_in_Spanien_Neuer_Vorstoss_fuer_hoehereStrafen?pk_campaign=edri&pk_kwd=20130327] The Spanish Council of Ministers approved on 22 March 2013 the draft reform of the Intellectual Property Law, also known as Lassalle law, which is meant to punish more harshly some breaches of intellectual property rights. According to […]

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March 27, 2013 · Blogs

ENDitorial: Germany sees a "septimana horribilis" in Net politics

This article is also available in: Deutsch: [ENDitorial: Eine Woche des Schreckens für die deutsche Netzpolitik | https://www.unwatched.org/EDRigram_11.6_ENDitorial_Eine_Woche_des_Schreckens_fuer_die_deutsche_Netzpolitik?pk_campaign=edri&pk_kwd=20130327] In Germany, political developments in the last week have been perceived as a frustrating defeat by the “Internet community”, as three legislative measures that had been heavily criticised (and ridiculed) have progressed in the Parliament. On 20 […]

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May 18, 2011

EU and China adopt harmonised approach to censorship

This article is also available in: Deutsch: [EU und China harmonisieren ihre Zensurmaßnahmen | http://www.unwatched.org/EDRigram_9.10_EU_und_China_harmonisieren_ihre_Zensurmassnahmen] The European Union and China appear to have agreed to share their preferred approaches to censorship, producing a model that is a perfect mix between current EU and Chinese policies. On 20 April 2011, at an event in the European […]

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April 23, 2003

Germany expands academic use of copyrighted material

On 11 April German parliament agreed on the implementation-proposal of the EU Copyright Directive (EUCD). Only the small liberal opposition party opposed. Public debate centered around new educational and scientific limitations on copyright. The new law allows teachers to make works available to a limited group of class members, e.g. in an intranet, for the […]

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June 16, 2010

Possible solutions for remunerating content creators in the digital era

This article is also available in: Deutsch: [Urheberrecht im digitalen Zeitalter | http://www.unwatched.org/node/2001] On 8 June 2010, Green Party Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) hosted the conference Financing Culture in the Digital Era on how to balance easy public access to culture with guaranteed remuneration for content providers. The purpose of the meeting was […]

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May 7, 2003

New EU legislation on copyright infringements

The European Commission has launched a proposal for a new Directive that aims at no less than harmonising penalties for infringements against copyright laws. The proposal, adopted by the Commission at the end of January, is currently under discussion in the Legal Affairs Committee of the European Parliament. A first draft of a ‘Working Document’ […]

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May 16, 2018 · Blogs | Information democracy | Freedom of expression online | Platform regulation

Upload filters endanger freedom of expression

There are several examples of how automated upload filters are censoring human rights activists. As it has been proven, some filters used to classify content which is “offensive”, “extremist” or simply “inadequate for minors” have ended up censoring videos which tried to denounce injustices.

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June 20, 2018 · Blogs | Information democracy | Freedom of expression online | Platform regulation

We can still win: Next steps for the Copyright Directive

On the 20th of June 2018, the European Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee (JURI) ignored all advice and voted for the chaotic Article 13 of the proposed Copyright Directive. There are several steps for the EU institutions to go through before the Directive can finally be adopted. We can still win!

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November 21, 2017 · Blogs | Information democracy | Freedom of expression online | Privacy and confidentiality | Surveillance and data retention

The Civil Liberties Committee rejects #censorshipmachine

On 20 November 2017, the European Parliament (EP) Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) voted against the mandatory implementation of “censorship machines” (aka upload filters) in its Opinion on the Copyright Directive proposal. After a long process and diligent hard work led by Polish Members of the European Parliment (MEP) Michal Boni […]

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July 7, 2016 · Blogs

Copyfail #7: Not allowing research via “commercial” text and data mining

This article is the seventh in the series presenting Copyfails. The EU is reforming its copyright rules. We want to introduce you to the main failures of the current copyright system, with suggestions on how to fix them. You can find all the Copyfails here. How has it failed? We live in an era where […]

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January 21, 2009

Reject the Term Extension Directive

The European Parliament is being asked to nearly double the term of copyright afforded to sound recordings. Industry lobbyists suggest that extending copyright term will help increase the welfare of performers and session musicians. But the Term Extension Directive, which will be voted on by the Legal Affairs Committee in a few weeks’ time, will […]

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October 22, 2014 · Blogs

Google pushes forward with its voluntary pro-copyright policing

For the past number of years, Google has chosen to impose US copyright law on the world, completely de-indexing any website which fulfils the non-judicial criteria of a valid order under American law. Last year alone, it removed 222 000 000 links, which means 74 links per second. In addition to applying US copyright law […]

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