Freedom of speech
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French collective society sues P2P producers
(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar) Under the cover of the DADVSI law with the so-called Vivendi amendment (initiated by Vivendi Universal) the French association SPPF (Société civile des producteurs de phonogramme en France – The French collective society for phonogram producers representing the independent labels) started a legal action against P2P software […]
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IPRED2 on the DROIPEN table
(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar) The Second Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED2) is now going through the Justice and Home Affairs route. On 4 June, it passed it’s first port of call at the Council’s Working Group on Substantive Criminal Law (DROIPEN) – the first step on the road to the […]
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French State Council allows tracing P2P users
(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar) The State Council of France validated on 23 May 2007 the automatic tracing of illegal downloading in P2P networks. This decision cancelled the 18th October 2005 CNIL (Commission nationale de l’informatique et des libertés) decision that rejected the introduction of surveillance devices proposed by Sacem and other […]
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Bulgarian actions against online piracy – "collateral damage"
(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar) Bulgarian authorities went beyond the EU limits in investigating Internet users and website owners in 2005 according to MEP Antonyia Parvanova who thinks the Bulgarian officials have caused the bankruptcy of some Internet clubs and brought serious damages to a website owner by prosecuting people who had […]
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OECD finds the real piracy losses
(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar) Financial Times obtained an executive summary of a new report produced by Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) that estimates the trade losses due to piracy and counterfeiting did not exceed 200 billion USD. The report should be endorsed by the OECD board this month and […]
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Polish people arrested for publishing movie translations
(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar) A popular subtitle exchange community in Poland, Napisy.org, was in shock, after nine of its members were accused of posting illegal translations of movies and were held by the Police for questioning. The Napisy.org community, that gathers approx. 600 000 users, allowed the submission of translated subtitles […]
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RapidShare sues German rights holder association
(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar) Rapidshare AG sued the German society for musical performing and mechanical reproduction rights (GEMA) in order to clarify the legal situation regarding free file hosting in Germany. The counter-attack from Rapidshare, a well-known free file hosting provider based in Switzerland, comes after the suit initiated in Germany […]
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IPRED2 voted in first reading by the European Parliament
(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar) The Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED2), with the changes made by a report produced by Nicola Zingaretti (PES), was voted by the European Parliament in its first reading today with a vote a 374 in favour, 278 against and 17 abstentions. Unfortunately, the suggestions from an […]
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EC suggests new compromise on an EU patent system
(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar) A new communication was published on 3 April 2007 by the European Commission (EC) on enhancing the patent system in Europe, suggesting new ways of creating a Community patent. The communication supports a compromise between the European Patent Litigation Agreement supported by the European Patent Office and […]
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IPRED2 adopted by the EP Legal Affairs committee
(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar) The European Parliament’s Legal Affairs committee has adopted on 20 March 2007 the draft IPRED directive following the opinions presented by MEP Nicola Zingaretti, with some important amendments though. The good news is that the very controversial definition of “commercial scale infringement”, that previously included the IPRs […]
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Russian court dismisses piracy case as "trivial"
(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar) A Russian court has dismissed a penal case against a Russian teacher, Alexander Ponosov, that bought computers for its school with unauthorized Microsoft programs. The case become well-known when the former Soviet president Gorbachev made a public appeal to Bill Gates, asking to intervene in this case. […]
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Italian Supreme court decision on file-sharing case – nothing new
(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar) There has been wide reporting, in Italy and internationally, that an Italian court “ruled not-for-profit file-sharing legal”. That statement is grossly overstated, if not completely wrong. The “dismal” state of Italian copyright legislation remains, unfortunately, unchanged. One might argue that the media hype, per se, is an […]
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