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Deutsch: Italien plant One-Strike-Gesetz gegen Copyright-Verstöße

A group of the Italian parliamentarians has recently introduced a draft law which could basically block the freedom of expression and access to information in Italy.

The draft law, which includes two articles, stipulates that an Internet user may be banned to access the Internet based on a simple notification from "any interested person" about an alleged copyright infringement.

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Deutsch: Britische Regierung fordert von Suchmaschinen Unterstützung im Kampf ...

During his speech at the Royal Television Society's Cambridge Convention on 14 September 2011, UK Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt called on search engines and ISPs to bar links to websites which, allegedly, distributed material unlawfully, on companies to stop advertising with the respective websites and on financial institutions to block transactions related to such websites.

Hunt announced at the beginning of 2011 that the Governmen

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Deutsch: Copyright-Industrie setzt Verfügung gegen BT zur Sperre von Websites ...

In a dangerous precedent, on 28 July 2011, an UK High Court judge ruled that British Telecom (BT), the UK largest ISP, had to prevent its customers from accessing Newzbin 2, a website searching Usenet and providing links to lots of films, books and music - most of which infringe copyright.

The case was brought to court by six major film studios, including Warner Brothers, Disney and Fox.

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Deutsch: Schöne Aussichten für britische Netzsperren nach amerikanischem Vorb...

During his speech at the Intellect Consumer Electronics conference on 5 July 2011, UK culture minister Ed Vaizey announced that a movement in the States for a voluntary filtering by ISPs would probably bring up changes in UK as well.

"A voluntary agreement may come out of the US and if that does happen it could be a game-changer," said the minister who added: "If people are streaming live football without permission we should look at ways we can stop them.

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Deutsch: Britische Rechteinhaber fordern Netzsperren

According to some leaked reports, copyright holders seem to have proposed during a roundtable with UK Government representatives, ISPs and others on 15 June 2011, plans that could lead to the blocking of websites that allegedly host copyright infringing material.

Apparently, the Rightsholder Group' plans include a voluntary website blocking scheme that would involve "expedited court procedures" letting an "expert body" decide if websites that host copyright-infringing material should be blocked, meaning that lobby groups might decide on website

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Deutsch: Konsultationsverfahren zum EU-Urheberrecht

Last week, the European Commission organised an open consultation on "Directive 2004/48/EC on the enforcement of intellectual property rights: Challenges posed by the digital environment".

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Deutsch: Datenschutzbehörde prüft irisches "Three-Strikes"-System

The Irish Data Protection Commissioner is investigating the Eircom / music industry three strikes system, a report in the Sunday Times has revealed. According to the story by Mark Tighe, predictions that Eircom would end up falsely accusing innocent users have now proved correct, with over 300 users wrongfully being sent a "first strike" letter accusing them of sharing music.

Eircom have admitted to the mistakes, stating that "this was due to a software failure caused when the clocks went back last October".

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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