EDRi-gram 12.21
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CJEU: Embedding not a copyright infringement
On 21 October 2014 the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled that embedding copyrighted videos is not a violation of copyright, even when the source video is uploaded without the permission from the rightsholder. The case, dealing with a dispute between a water filtering company BestWater International and two independent commercial agents […]
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FTDI: Is the law criminal?
The EDRi-gram has previously reported on the general silliness, if not active harmfulness to an open society, of certain copying controls that are generically referred to as Digital Rights Management (DRM). However, it’s not often that a practical example comes around that underlines the problem and at the same time has potential to demonstrate the […]
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The “Google tax” that is not a Google tax
The new European Commissioner with responsibility for “digital agenda” issues, Guenther Oettinger caused a stir in the media recently when he raised the possibility of introducing “ancillary copyright” payments, requiring search engine providers to pay for displaying copyrighted materials on their sites, on the EU level. The press was all of a sudden full of […]
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Hungary’s Internet tax postponed but not yet abolished
On 28 October about 100,000 Hungarians gathered to protest a planned introduction of a tax on Internet data transfers. The new tax would have required Internet Service Providers (ISPs) to pay 150 forints (0,48 euro) per gigabyte of data traffic. According to the Hungarian government’s proposal, the intended tax was meant solely for ISPs. However, […]
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Poland: New project on public institutions’ surveillance practices
Every year more and more public money is invested in surveillance technologies – everything from drones and video surveillance to data mining software for public administration. Recently, the Polish government announced a new programme of co-financing surveillance cameras in the schools. Why do governments spends public funds on surveillance without justifying such investments or evaluating […]
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Finland: Web service to request verifying of secret registry data
EDRi-member Effi ry has launched a web service for citizens to request the data protection authorities to verify that any records in various law enforcement and secret services registries are filed according to the relevant regulations. Previously, this kind of request required detailed knowledge of relevant registers, leaving the process practically unavailable for the majority […]
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Samaritans RADAR monitors tweets
On 29 October, the Samaritans, a suicide prevention and counselling charity registered in England and Wales, launched an application that monitor people’s public Tweets. The aim of the application is to identify a potentially suicidal Twitter user and notify her/his followers (who are using the necessary software) or potentially get her/him in touch with Samaritans. […]
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