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 of European telecom network operators (ETNO).

The industry demands that providers "remove references and links to sites or services that do not respect the copyrights of rights holders". Providers should also collectively adopt new terms and conditions, to 'require subscribers to consent in advance to the disclosure of their identity in response to a reasonable complaint of intellectual property infringement by an established right holder defence organisation or by

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 cases do not involve criminals, but instead quite ordinary people who share their files, any prison sentence would certainly be suspended,” Uppsala prosecutor Katrin Rudström told the newspaper Aftonbladet. Most likely, the case will result in a fine. In that case, the Swedish right-holders will have a hard time starting mass court cases against Swedish file-sharers, because they cannot demand identifying information in case of offences that can be settled with financial penalties.

Search engine Google has lost an appeal on 10 March 2005 against a French court order to change its advertisement practices. The case about the advertisement practice was instigated by the travel companies Luteciel SARL and Viaticum SA. Competitors bought the search terms 'bourse des vols' and 'bourse des voyages' (flight exchange and trip exchange) so that their advertisements would show next to the search results. The two companies successfully claimed they had exclusive trademark rights on these terms, and accused Google of something akin to counterfeiting. Google was ordered to pay 75.000 euro in damages and legal costs in first instance. In February 2005 Google lost a similar case against the French luxury goods company Moët Hennessy - Louis Vuitton. Another search engine,

The Italian government has closed an agreement with 50 organisations from the music, video, publishing and IT industry to fight copyright infringements by organising public 'sensibilisation' campaigns.

The agreement was launched on 3 March 2005 during the well-known Sanremo pop music festival. Prepared by three ministers (of Technological Innovation, Culture and Communications) the agreement was signed amongst others by RAI (the state-owned TV and radio broadcasting corporation), Microsoft, BSA, Philips, Mediaset (the largest private TV broadcasting corporation in Italy), Sony, Tiscali, Telecom Italia, AIIP (the Italian association of Internet Providers) as well as by two consumer organisations (Adiconsum and UNC).

The agreement contains 5 actions points.

1. Promote the production of new digital content for different platforms and digitise existing content;

The music industry has suffered a severe setback by two verdicts by courts in Munich and Vienna. Both courts ruled that internet service providers did not have to hand-over data about customers. In the Munich case, the Higher Regional Court squashed an earlier verdict that obliged providers to hand-over data about users suspected of operating illegal FTP servers. In July the music label BMG was granted the right to demand information from an access provider, but the execution was suspended during the appeal procedure. BMG even demanded information from the provider on the number of tracks and albums of individual bands or artists downloaded from the server named in the complaint. The Munich appelate court said they had serious doubts "whether the defendant threatened with the injunction is an

The European Commission has published the contributions to the public consultation on the copyright and related right directives. 126 contributions are available, ranging from all kinds of right-holders to civil society. Most contributions are available in English, some in French and German. The contributions from the right-holders provide interesting insight in the arguments used to convince the Commission to extend the term of related rights from 50 to 95 years, claiming Europe should harmonise with the United States. The MPA contribution (United States Motion Picture Association) is especially worth close-reading, insisting Europe should introduce mandatory data retention for law enforcement purposes (where the United States themselves have no such obligation). "There is, thus, a need for harmonized, proportionate data retention rules that apply to all relevant service providers, together with additional measures to streamline the process for ensuring access to data on a cross-border basis. It is also essential that the adoption of new data retention rules does not undermine the rights of access to data provided in the Enforcement Directive."

The Unesco is working on a draft convention on cultural diversity, the Convention on the Protection of the Diversity of Cultural Contents and Artistic Expressions. The draft contains many references to copyright, intellectual property rights and access to information. On 15 November 2004 the campaign for Communication Rights in the Information Society (CRIS) has presented a critical paper to the Unesco delegates, endorsed by many EDRI-members and other civil rights organisations.

The Unesco convention was originally designed to ensure that culture, in the age of globalized culture industries, is not reduced to a commodity. Its aim is to allow each country to implement cultural, media, and communications policies that foster cultural diversity. However, some governments have proposed dangerous revisions that would transform the

Just before the Commission hearing on DRM, EDRI member FIPR (Foundation for Information Policy Research) organised a 2 day workshop on the future of EU legislation on copyright in Cambridge.

In his opening remarks, FIPR chairman Ross Anderson pointed to the 'big, greedy' industry interests dominating the discussion about so-called Intellectual Property Rights at present and called for a similarly 'big, greedy counterforce' which, he said, was already emerging from an ad-hoc alliance of industries concerned about copyright extremism, of user and consumer advocates.

Teresa Hackett summed up the issues in the Commission review. She pointed to the obvious contradiction between the Commission's claims that the review was just about 'finetuning for consistency' and the origins of the review at the 2002 Santiago de Compostela revision conference, where Commission representatives had openly talked about a 'Super Directive' on copyright and related rights they wished to have. The inherent danger was, she said, that the 2001/29/EC Directive (known as the EUCD), which the Commission is proud of, but which is indeed a badly and inconsistently drafted law, would be used as a blueprint for revising also neighbouring Directives such as the ones on Software or on Rental Rights. As for the Database Directive, she said it should be repealed, because it never had any justification and allowed rightsholders to get, using some simple tricks, eternal copyright on databases.