Freedom of speech
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Panel meeting with EU delegation
On the closing day of the Summit, Viviane Reding, European Commissioner for Information Society and Media and Catherine Trautmann, Member of the European Parliament co-hosted a Workshop on “Human Rights and the Information Society”. Trautmann (Social Democrats) also was the special rapporteur on the WSIS for the European Parliament. Her report was adopted in plenary […]
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P2P, filesharing and digital rights
IPJustice organised another panel on P2P, filesharing and digital rights on 17 November 2005, with Robin Gross as moderator. The first speaker was the Canadian law professor Michael Geist, also editor of the excellent daily newsletter BNA’s Internet Law News. He started by telling that a few months ago IFPI had sued 2.200 people in […]
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French minister: copyright above privacy
After the French data protection authority CNIL published a strong rejection of the systematic collection of IP-addresses by the music and film industry, the French minister of Culture, Renaud Donnedieu de Vabres, said he would look at the current implementation of the Copyright Directive to override these privacy-hurdles. The proposal for implementation will be discussed […]
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Swedish DPA: music industry may collect IP addresses
According to the Swedish e-zine The Local, the Swedish Data Inspection Board now allows the Swedish anti-piracy group Antipiratbyrån and the record industry group IFPI to collect the IP addresses of file-sharers. In an earlier ruling EDRI-gram reported about, the Swedish Data Protection Authority said APB and IFPI broke privacy laws, because they were collecting […]
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FIPR campaign against new copyright directive
EDRI-member FIPR (the Foundation for Information Policy Research) has published a strong analysis of the proposed new EU intellectual property enforcement directive. According to FIPR, the proposed new directive is pushed by the UK Presidency, but will undermine basic freedoms. It will force all EU member states to criminalise incitement to infringe patents or copyrights. […]
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Report on WIPO general assemblies
Apart from important budget/audit matters, there were three substantive issues discussed at the 2005 WIPO General Assemblies. The last few days were spent in closed “informal” sessions to hammer out agreements. All agreements were formally adopted by WIPO member states on 5 October 2005. With the report EDRI was also adopted as accredited observer to […]
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Spanish game programmer acquitted
Only twenty minutes were needed in the Spanish court of Seville in order to acquit the Spanish game programmer who was facing up to one year in prison for making a video-game that made fun of religious practices (see EDRI-Gram 3.19). After showing repent, and stating that his intention was not really to offend anyone, […]
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First Norwegian verdict on hyperlinks
On 27 January 2005 the Norwegian Supreme Court ruled on old case; the existence of the website napster.no, which Norwegian internet users could use in 2001 to find music files (not more than 170 in practice) on the Napster file-sharing system. The owner of the site is found guilty of accessory copyright infringement, for having […]
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New intellectual property legislation in Ireland
On 1 August 2005 the Irish Minister for Trade and Commerce, Mr. Michael Ahern, announced a package of new IP legislation to be presented to parliament before the end of the year. Ireland needs to bring the public lending right and the artists’ resale right into conformity with EU legislation and will simultaneously implement the […]
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New IPR law proposed in Spain
The Spanish government has issued a press release announcing a new draft Intellectual Property law. The law aims to adopt the existing copyright and intellectual property rights to the context of IT and implement the European Copyright Directive (2001/29/EC). The main changes are: 1. The right to “interactive disposition” which regulates the way authors offer […]
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Two opposing court verdicts on file-sharers
While the Irish High Court set a precedent on 9 July by ordering two ISPs to hand-over the name and address data of 17 file-sharers, a few days later a Dutch judge forbade the hand-over of contact details of 41 customers. In both cases the music industry used the services of the US-based company MediaSentry. […]
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New Commission directive proposal on IPR
On 12 July 2005 the European Commission launched a new proposal for a directive and framework decision on the penal enforcement of intellectual property rights. The Commission proposes to penalise any infringements. According to Franco Frattini, the Commissioner for Justice, “the new measures proposed by the Commission form the criminal law front to the fight […]
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