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Introduction

Following the initial discussions in the European Parliament and the overwhelmingly negative workshop that was held on 1 March, ACTA is close to dead in Europe. What are the strategies for bringing it back to life and how will this impact on other similar initiatives? How can activists ensure that our great success so far can be maintained?

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Deutsch: Roadmap der Kommission für die Überprüfung der Urheberrechtsrichtli...

The European Commission recently published a "roadmap" to the review of the Directive on Intellectual Property Enforcement (2004/48/EC). As it is becoming traditional, the Commission neatly mixes up all kinds of infringements, from dangerous fake medicines to illegal downloads and seeks a "one size fits all" solution.

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Deutsch: ENDitorial: Urheberrechts-Kombinatorik

Although the creation of the single market has been the primary focus of the European Union for decades, it often seems that for every step forward it takes two back. In that respect it's often rather interesting to look at the mathematics as they play out in the different directives that come out of Brussels.

The EU Copyright Directive outlines 21 different optional exceptions or limitations to the right of reproduction of copyrighted works.

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Deutsch: Deutscher Politiker tappt in eigene 2-Strikes-Falle

Siegfried Kauder, Chairman of the Legal Committee of the German Parliament, who has recently announced a plan to introduce a two strike model for persistent allegedly illegal downloaders, was found himself to infringe copyright.

The system proposed by Kauder includes two warnings to Internet users considered to repeatedly download copyrighted works without permission after which, the respective users might lose their Internet access.

Soon after having announced its plan, Kauder was found to infringe copyright by posting on his

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Deutsch: Belgien: Google verliert Klage wegen Urheberrechtsverletzung

Google lost its appeal in front of the Belgian appeals court which upheld an earlier ruling, having found the company guilty of infringing the copyright of newspapers, in the case introduced in 2006 by Copiepresse.

In 2006, Copiepress, an agency acting for newspapers, sued Google for allegedly infringing the copyright of newspapers when linking, on its Google News service, to content from newspaper websites or copies of sections of stories.

A Belgian judge ruled that Google had to remove all the content referring to Belgian newspaper storie

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Deutsch: EuGH: Generalanwältin will Beschränkungen bei Abgaben auf Privatkopi...

Verica Trstenjak, Advocate General at the EU Court of Justice, believes the levy on private copies imposed on digital equipment, devices and media should be limited to cases "where it may be presumed that they are to be used for private copying".

The European Directive on copyright and related rights in the information society gives reproduction rights for audio, visual and audio-visual material to authors, performers and producers, but lets the Member States allow private copying, provided there is a 'fair compensation' for rightholders.

Spain has decided to allow the reproduction for private

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Deutsch: Frei wie in freie Kultur

Free Culture Forum (FCF), organized by the Spanish NGO Exgae together with Networked Politics and the Free Knowledge Institute turned Barcelona in the capital of free culture for 3 days.

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Deutsch: Finnischer Antrag zur CSS-Entscheidung beim Europäischen Gerichtshof ...

Finnish Activist Mikko Rauhala has lodged an application to the European Court of Human Rights versus the Finnish state, regarding his right to freedom of expression.

The appeal is a follow up to the lengthy court process against Mr. Rauhala in Finland. The process started when Mr. Rauhala started a discussion board on the Internet, on which people could talk about the DVD copy protection method Content Scrambling System (CSS). Mr. Rauhala's motivation for this act was to criticize the implementation of the EU Copyright Directive in Finland which came into force in 2006.