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Deutsch: Hadopi für eine Privatisierung der Rechtsdurchsetzung

The French anti-piracy authority Hadopi has produced a new report on how to fight illegal streaming and downloading of copyrighted material.

This is probably an attempt of ensuring its future as, since its installation in 2009, the authority has not yet proven its efficiency with the so-called three-strikes system, in terms of revenues to the culture industry, and has already cost France tens of millions of euros.

“Some Internet sites, streaming services and direct download sites are specialized in the massive exploitati

The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) continues its offensive against torrent websites that are accused of copyright infringement.

Based on the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act from 1998, the group obtained in 2012, from the High Court, the blocking of Newzbin2 and The Pirate Bay through several big UK ISPs and in October 2012, asked again six ISPs (BT, Sky, Virgin Media, O2, EE and TalkTalk) to begin blocking three more leading BitTorrent sites, Fenopy, H33t and Kickass Torrents.

The ISPs have agreed to block these sites, but only on the basis of a court order.

The Swedish Court of Appeal has referred to ECJ (European Court of Justice) a case involving the question of whether publishing a hyperlink to content can be considered a communication to the public and, implicitly, a breach of the creator’s copyright (in case the hyperlink is published without the author’s consent), under the European law.

The case in question is that of Svensson, a Swedish journalist who wrote an article published by a Swedish newspaper both in print and on the newspaper’s website and who claimed that Retriever Sverige AB, a subscription service providing links to articles that can be found online, had made links to his article available to the public, without his permission, and, therefore, for this he should be compensated.

But Retriever refused

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Deutsch: EDRi Leitfaden zur Konsultation zum Urheberrecht

This is just a quick warning that you have until 30 March 2013 if you want to answer to the public consultation on the Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED). The directive has been in force since 2004 and requires all Member States to apply remedies and penalties against those engaged in "commercial" infractions of intellectual property law.

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Deutsch: Chisugate: Copyright-Erpressung in Finnland

In the spring of 2012, in Finland, the father of a young girl received what amounted to a blackmail letter from a copyright lawyer. The letter demanded the payment of 600 Euros as damages for having distributed copyright-protected music recordings. The letter also demanded that the father sign a non-disclosure agreement regarding the matter.

The father contacted the lawyer and denied having distributed any copyrighted material.

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Deutsch: Europäische Domainnamen unter Druck

On 26 November 2012, 132 or 133 domain names were seized by the U.S. Immigration and Customs Enforcement's Homeland Security Investigations (ICE) in collaboration with the Europol and national law enforcement authorities.

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Deutsch: Bringt uns die Datenschutz-Verordnung unabsichtlich "Three Strike...

The European Commission proposed a new framework for protection of personal data in the EU earlier this year. While it has been the subject of probably more lobbying than any other piece of legislation in this history of modern politics anywhere in the world, there has not been a similar upsurge in interest from citizens' groups across Europe.

While EDRi has been working hard on the Regulation and Directive proposed by the Commission, the texts are long, complex and difficult to understand.

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Deutsch: „The Pirate Bay“ bleibt in Finnland weiterhin gesperrt

The Pirate Bay (TPB) remains blocked in Finland as the Finnish Supreme Court has rejected ISP Elisa’s request to hear its appeal in the case filed by the Copyright Information and Anti-Piracy Center (CIAPC) in May 2011.

In the respective case, in October 2011, the Helsinki District Court ordered Elisa to block the domain names and IP-addresses of TPB, thus forcing the ISP to censor the torrent site, under the threat of 100 000 Euro/day fines for non-compliance.