IPR
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European and Canadian civil society groups call for rejection of CETA
Today, on 28 November 2016, European Digital Rights (EDRi) co-signed a statement together with over 450 civil society organisations. In the statement, civil society from both Europe and Canada express concerns about the Comprehensive Economic and Trade Agreement (CETA) and therefore call for its rejection. CETA should be renegotiated, but for that to happen, there […]
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Follow the money – following some positive paths
In the EDRi-gram on 19 October, we reported on the draft “guiding principles” for a “follow the money approach” for online intellectual property right (IPR) infringements. The “guiding principles” were finalised in a meeting on 22 October. Having been very critical of the draft – and still fundamentally opposed in principle to privatised law enforcement […]
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“Follow the money” on copyright infringements
The European Commission is pushing forward energetically on privatised law enforcement projects for all manner of internet activities. This is the approach to terrorism, hate speech, copyright enforcement… whatever the question, the answer is that internet companies can solve the problem.
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Following the money – easy to say, hard to do
On 21 June, the European Commission organised an event about its “follow the money” approach to combating counterfeit goods. In the event, the first of a series of memoranda of understanding between the Commission and private sector actors was presented. The Commission has gone at great lengths to involve all stakeholders, including civil society, in […]
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ENDitorial: From copywrong to copyright?
“I’ve got two 12-year-old criminals in my kitchen and that can’t be right” (Jonathan Worth, professional photographer) The first round of debates surrounding the copyright reform in the European Parliament are reaching their last stages. Pavel Svoboda’s report on Intellectual Property Right (IPR) enforcement was published on 19 May. The report contains a mixture of […]
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Legal Affairs Committee: ISDS and IPR must be excluded from TTIP
The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) resolution in the European Parliament is coming to a conclusion. 16 April 2015 was the deadline for European Parliament committees to submit their opinions to the leading committee, the International Trade committee (INTA). EDRi-gram previously reported about the positive vote of the Civil Liberties Justice and Home Affairs […]
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Copyright exceptions and limitations – back to the future
The noise around the non-legislative report of the European Parliament on the Copyright in the Information Society Directive (also known as the InfoSoc Directive and Directive 2001/29/EC) in Brussels is deafening. With one Committee still to table its amendments, the total number of amendment has already reached 759. Part of the reason for this is […]
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Preparations for a comprehensive copyright reform in the EU Parliament: Document pool
In the field of EU copyright policy, there are two European Parliament own-initiative reports (which will become a non-binding non-legal resolution) which EDRi is following closely. Firstly, there is the report on the implementation of the so-called “InfoSoc Directive” by Julia Reda. This report analyses a Directive which contains core elements of EU copyright law, including […]
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UN report on copyright – is the EU really a beacon of human rights?
Copyright has seen a spectacular rise in importance, both politically and legally, in recent decades. The digitisation of cultural and scientific goods has led many rights holders to see strengthened copyright protection as the only means of ensuring the survival of the cultural industry. To a large extent the rights holders’ quest for more legal […]
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European Parliament failing to support copyright reform
Everyone is talking about EU copyright reform. However, in the European Parliament, everyone is having the same discussions on enforcement that they were having ten years ago – and talking about stopping any reform. The Draft Report “Towards a renewed consensus on the enforcement of Intellectual Property Rights: An EU Action Plan” (2014/2151(INI)) presented by […]
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Germany gets warning about warning letters
Ever since the adoption of the Intellectual Property Enforcement Directive (IPRED) in 2004, and its ensuing transposition into national laws, warning letters based on alleged copyright infringements have become big business for the German content-industry, anti-piracy firms and their affiliated lawyers. From the perspective of hundreds of thousands of internet users, however, they are a nuisance […]
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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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