Freedom of speech
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US Supreme Court: liability for P2P software providers
The US Supreme Court has handed down a slashing verdict for the makers of peer to peer software. In the case of MGM versus Grokster and StreamCast the judges find the software producers liable for copyright infringements committed by users of the software. The court uses three arguments for this theory of extended liability. First […]
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EDRI contribution to WIPO prep-meeting Development Agenda
The Second Inter-sessional Intergovernmental Meeting on a Development Agenda took place in the WIPO Headquarters in Geneva from 20 to 22 June 2005. EDRI was represented this time by Ville Oksanen. He got two chances to address the meeting. EDRI stressed the importance of the creation of the independent WIPO Evaluation and Research Office as […]
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Swedish DPA reprimands anti-piracy group
The Swedish anti-piracy group Antipiratbyrån made the news with yet another embarrassing incident. The Swedish data protection authority has forbidden the organisation to collect the IP-addresses of internet users engaging in file sharing. In an incident reported earlier in EDRI-gram, the group convinced the police to raid the offices of Bahnhof, the oldest and largest […]
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German court protects privacy P2P users
The Higher Regional Court of Hamburg (Hanseatisches Oberlandesgericht) has squashed an earlier verdict forcing an ISP to hand over data about customers suspected of running an FTP-server with copyrighted music tracks. Being a mere access provider, the paragraphs in the Copyright Act that specify an information duty don’t apply, the court writes. Those provisions only […]
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ISOC Bulgaria criticises report US Trade Representative
EDRI-member ISOC Bulgaria has sent an angry letter in May 2005 to the US Trade Representative about grave errors in their recent Special 301 Report. The Bulgarian organisation defends the Bulgarian government for its attempts to solve the problems with the illegal usage of software, music and films. In the 5-page letter, also sent to […]
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Report about UNESCO conference St. Petersburg
From 17 to 19 May UNESCO organised a large conference in St. Petersburg, Russia, ‘Between two phases of the World Summit on the Information Society’. The 450 participants from all over the world were invited to the luxurious Konstantinovsky Palace. In her opening speech Françoise Rivière, the Assistant Director-General of UNESCO, described the context of […]
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WIPO seminar on ISP liability
On 18 April WIPO hosted a seminar in Geneva on copyright and ISP liability. Dominated by representatives of the entertainment industry and international government officials, the highly politicised seminar ended with the conclusion that more legislation was indeed necessary. The main issue however remained unsolved; whether this legislation should provide stronger protection for the fundamental […]
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Policing rights for entertainment industry Finland
The Finnish Electronic Frontier Foundation is raising alarm about a proposed last-minute change in the new Finnish copyright law that would grant the entertainment industry the right to obtain identifying information about alleged infringers from service providers. The legislative committee of the Finnish parliament produced a statement on 17 April 2005 in which they agreed […]
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New wave of lawsuits against European P2P users
The music industry has launched a new wave of lawsuits against individual P2P users in Europe. For the first time individual users were targeted in Finland, Ireland, Iceland and the Netherlands. These countries join Austria, Denmark, France, Germany, Italy and the UK, where litigation started last year. During a press conference in the Netherlands on […]
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ISP self-regulation proposal entertainment industry
The MPA (Motion Picture Association) and the IFPI (International Federation of the Phonographic Industry) are pushing for a new collaboration with internet service providers in Europe. The MPA has drafted a ‘possible ISP-Film Sector Voluntary Code of Conduct’, while the IFPI called for a similar code in relation to the music sector during a conference […]
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Bulgarian ISPs ordered to remove websites
On 24 March 2005 the Bulgarian Ministry of the Interior issued a radical order to Bulgaria’s largest internet providers. Within 7 days the ISPs “must remove all free hosting servers which offer works, audio records, entertaining or business software, images, pictures, books, graphical logos, etc.” and notify the department. Remarkably, the order isn’t limited to […]
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First P2P prosecution case in Sweden
In Sweden, for the first time an individual internet user is prosecuted for file-sharing. A young man from Västerås has shared the film ‘Hip Hip Hora’ via the Internet and is theoretically facing a maximum of 2 years prison sentence. But the public prosecutor doesn’t have a lot of confidence in the case. “As these […]
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