Collecting societies
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German ruling against violation of GPL software license
A district court in Munich, Germany granted a preliminary injunction against Sitecom Germany GmbH for violating a GNU General Public License (GPL). Sitecom is offering a wireless access router product based on software developed by the netfilter/iptables project and licensed under GPL. The GPL offers a free license to software, but requires any re-distributor to […]
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IPR Directive soon to be law
Adoption of the Directive on Measures and Procedures to Enforce Intellectual Property Rights – the infamous Fourtou Report – is a mere formality. The General Secretariat of the European Council has invited the Council’s Committee of Permanent Representatives (COREPER) to suggest to the Council, at one of its forthcoming meetings, to adopt the Directive as […]
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Heated debate in Italy about fines for downloading
Today, 21 April, the controversial Urbani decree will be discussed again by the Culture Commission of the Italian Parliament. This law (named after the Minister of Culture) puts heavy fines on the download of movies, music or other copyrighted works even when done without any commercial purpose. Downloaders and file-sharers also risk the seizure of […]
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European Commission: More rules for Collecting Societies
The European Commission has issued a Communication on the Management of Copyright and Related Rights. In the period since 1991, 7 Directives have entered into force on copyright law, but none of these specifically addressed the role and functioning of the collecting societies. The Commission now recommends a Community framework instrument regulating the ‘establishment and […]
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EDRI condemns actions against European file-sharers
European Digital Rights condemns action taken by the international phonographic industry association (IFPI) against European users of file-sharing networks. On 30 March IFPI announced legal actions against a total of 247 file-sharers in Denmark, Germany, Italy and Canada. Similar actions were announced by the French and Swiss music industry shortly after. Following previous actions in […]
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Microsoft gets record-breaking fine
After a five-year investigation into Microsoft’s business practise the EU Commission has decided that the company has violated the EU competition rules by abusing its near monopoly in the PC operating system. Microsoft will have to pay a 497 million euro fine. The Commission has been investigating Microsoft practices since 1998 following a complaint by […]
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New Italian decree forbids file-sharing
The Italian government has issued a decree on Friday 12 March that puts a fine of 1.500 euro on the internet file-sharing of feature movies. On top of the fine, computers and digital storage media can be seized. To complete the humiliation for the file-sharer, the sentence has to be published in 1 national daily […]
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EU adopts contested IPR Enforcement Directive
On 9 March the European Parliament finally adopted the Directive on the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights. The Strasbourg Plenary passed the text, which had previously been agreed behind closed doors by a handful of MEPs in no less than 11 informal meetings with the Council, without any amendment. Although majorities were much thinner than […]
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Fast track procedure for IPR Enforcement
The European Union’s disputed Directive on the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights is scheduled for a fast-track procedure that may lead to it being adopted by the European Council in little more than two weeks. At present, it is still under discussion in the Brussels Parliament. The Rapporteur, French Conservative Janelly Fourtou, and the Council […]
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IFPI sues Belgian ISP over Usenet
The IFPI, the international representative of the recording industry, has instigated legal proceedings against the Belgian ISP Telenet for the unauthorised distribution of music via Usenet (newsgroups). Telenet refuses to block the access to certain newsgroups in its newsservice ‘Bommanews’. The ISP argues that providing Usenet services is a ‘mere conduit’ activity, and under the […]
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German DP Commissioner criticizes draft IPR Enforcement
Peter Schaar, appointed 2 months ago as Germany’s chief Data Protection Commissioner, has severely criticized the draft Directive on the Enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights, currently under discussion in the European Parliament and the Council. Interviewed by the online news service Heise, Schaar said the Directive brought along many risks, including deep cuts into the […]
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EP in favour of collecting societies and levies
On 15 January 2004 the European Parliament accepted an own-initiative report about the importance and future of collecting societies, the organisations that collect the rights on copyright and neighbouring rights. The report states that Digital Rights Management is insufficiently developed to replace the work of collecting societies. According to the report, reasonable levies (for example […]
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