Freedom of speech
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IPRED Directive Implementation in Italy
(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar) By Legislative Decree no.140 of 16 March 2006, with more than one month before the deadline, Italy implemented Directive 2004/48/EC on the enforcement of intellectual property rights (IPRED) by amending law no.633/1941, which has already been the subject of so many modifications since its inception that several […]
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Swedish torrent website Pirate Bay returns back home
At the end of May, the Swedish Police raided the location where the PirateBay.org website was located and shut down the site seizing several servers. However, after less than 1 month, the site, which is considered the world’s biggest BitTorrent tracker being visited by 10 million to 15 million daily users, resumes its activity from […]
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Court rules Dutch mp3 search engine unlawful
The Dutch Court of Appeals in Amsterdam has ruled that search engine zoekmp3.nl is unlawful. This search engine provided links to mp3-files on the World Wide Web. The court chose not to answer the question whether linking itself to unauthorised mp3-files is an infringement of copyright law. The lower court had found that this was […]
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EU moves to criminalise IP offences
The European Commission has revived a proposal to criminalise infringement of all intellectual property rights “on a commercial scale” after a European Court of Justice ruling that the Commission may include criminal offences in their Directives. The proposal would also criminalise the “attempting, aiding or abetting and inciting” of infringement, and introduce multi-year jail sentences, […]
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Legal actions against file-sharers in Europe
About 2000 new legal actions are taken in 10 countries by the International Federation of Phonographic Industry (IFPI) against file-sharers amounting now to a total number of 5500 cases outside US. IFPI persists in its actions against uploaders, stating it targets persistent file-sharers, who typically upload thousands of music files. “The campaign started in major […]
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What's so special about French EUCD transposition?
With its succession of coups de theatre, the pathetic show of the French EUCD transposition (DADVSI draft law) is going on. After the surprising adoption, on Christmas Eve, of an amendment legalising the exchange of music and video files on the Internet as private copies, compensated by a monthly fee (‘global license’) collected by ISPs […]
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New Italian IT legislation limits civil rights
The Italian parliament has caused controversy by two new legislative acts. A newly adopted law against child abuse gives overly broad powers to the police, while a proposed new law on the protection of intellectual property gives too much leeway to organisations for collective rights management. On 23 January 2006 the Italian Parliament approved a […]
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DVD circumvention device released in Ireland
SlySoft, a company registered in Ireland, has released software that allows users to convert their own DVDs to formats they can watch on mobile phones, Playstation Portables, video iPods and similar devices. This is one of the first examples seen in the wild of a “circumvention device” which bypasses the copy restriction technology contained in […]
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Irish ISPs to give File-sharers details
On Tuesday 24 January the Irish High Court made an order requiring three ISPs to hand over the personal details of 49 alleged file-sharers. This decision follows a similar decision in July 2005, and was made by the same judge (Kelly J.) in essentially identical terms, including an undertaking that the information would only be […]
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P2P Italian server administrator condemned for copyright infringement
As a result of the modification of the copyright law in Italy through Urbani Law, an administrator of an OpenNap server, « Soniknap5 » was condemned for illegal sharing of music files. The Italian Urbani law modified in March 2005, stipulates administrative penalties for those downloading copyrighted files from the Internet but penal sanctions for […]
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Final push for single EP vote on data retention
Behind closed doors, representatives of the Council of Ministers of Justice (JHA Council), representatives from the Commission and the leaders in the European Parliament of the social-democrat and christian-democrat groups have agreed to introduce an unprecedented law (directive) on mandatory data retention in the EU. The groups have agreed to introduce mandatory retention for fixed […]
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Launch of Digital Rights Ireland
Digital Rights Ireland will formally launch at a press conference in the Conference Room in Pearse Street Library, at 11-am on Tuesday 6 December. The group has been formed to defend civil, human and legal rights in a digital age. Digital Rights Ireland will be discussing its mission, and current developments in relation to Data […]
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