The European Commission wants to create 1 European internet rights clearing house for internet content providers. An in-depth study into the current collective management of copyrights shows that a company that wishes to start an online music business has to seek clearance with 25 national copyright management organisations and has to sell no less than 4.75 million copies of a single song to just recover the cost of the necessary licenses.

The Commission quotes an example from Edima, the organisation representing online music providers. "The direct cost of negotiating one single licence amounts to 9.500 euro (which comprises 20 internal man hours, external legal advice and travel expenses). As mechanical rights and public performance rights in most Member States require separate clearance, the overall cost of the two requisite licences per Member State would amount to almost 19.000 euro. As clearance is required in all 25 EU territories, the cost of obtaining the necessary 50 copyright licenses would amount to 475.000 euro. On the basis that a profit of 0.10 euro can be achieved per download, the online music provider would have to sell 4.75 million downloads merely to recover the cost associated with obtaining the requisite copyright licenses." (p47-48)

The Second Inter-sessional Intergovernmental Meeting on a Development Agenda took place in the WIPO Headquarters in Geneva from 20 to 22 June 2005. EDRI was represented this time by Ville Oksanen. He got two chances to address the meeting. EDRI stressed the importance of the creation of the independent WIPO Evaluation and Research Office as described in item Five based on the proposal by the Friends of the Development.

Oksanen said: "We strongly believe that all decision making should be based on the best scientific knowledge available. Only a totally independent unit, which uses the best practices of the science, can produce results which can be trusted by all stakeholders."

The meeting itself was a dissappointment. Instead of substantial discussion, the developed countries did their best to sidetrack the

The US Supreme Court has handed down a slashing verdict for the makers of peer to peer software. In the case of MGM versus Grokster and StreamCast the judges find the software producers liable for copyright infringements committed by users of the software. The court uses three arguments for this theory of extended liability.

First of all, the CEOs clearly "marketed themselves as Napster alternatives" and "took active steps to encourage infringement". Secondly, they didn't make any effort to prevent the sharing of copyrighted files. And thirdly, they gain a profit from selling advertising space. "Since the extent of the software's use determines the gain to the distributors, the commercial sense of their enterprise turn on high-volume use, which the record shows is infringing."

According to an article in the Sunday Times, the UK government is considering an extension of the copyright term for recordings. James Purnell, the minister for broadcasting, creative industries and tourism, suggested to extend the term from the current 50 years to the more generous US figure of 90 years. According to him record companies need this to make more money, so they can nurture more new talent. His press release says: "The music industry is a risky business and finding talent and artists is expensive. There is a view that long-term earners are needed so that the record companies can plough money back into unearthing new talent." Presumably he wants Europe to agree a term extension, whether directly or after a unilateral UK move creates a case for 'harmonisation'.

But many IP experts have seriously criticised the reasoning. Songs are protected by a lot of rights. For example, it's just not true that the Beatles songs start to come off copyright in 2013. The main rights appear to be publishing (owned by Michael Jackson for most of the Beatles songs), songwriter royalties (still owned by Lennon's estate and McCartney) and performance (owned by EMI). It's only this last right that starts to run out after 50 years: the others will last until 70 years after Sir Paul McCartney dies.

On 12 and 13 May 2005 the Trans Atlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD) organised a successful conference in London to make progress on a draft international treaty on Access to Knowledge (A2K). It was the third meeting of a very diverse expert group of academics, educators, representatives of libraries, consumer organisations and people from the open source movement. During the conference all the detailed provisions laid out in each of the sections of the draft treaty were debated in separate sessions. Thanks to strong pressure from the chairs, urging speakers to be pointed in their assessments and short in their speech, the analysis was completed on time and recorded in every detail.

This global coalition took shape in September 2004, when TACD organised a session in Geneva to discuss reform of the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO). The meeting laid down a challenge to WIPO to reform rules relating to intellectual property (IP), such as copyright and patents. The joint goal is providing wider access to knowledge, especially for poorer consumers in developing countries and restoring a balance in IP-rules to uphold the traditional rights of users.

The Higher Regional Court of Hamburg (Hanseatisches Oberlandesgericht) has squashed an earlier verdict forcing an ISP to hand over data about customers suspected of running an FTP-server with copyrighted music tracks. Being a mere access provider, the paragraphs in the Copyright Act that specify an information duty don't apply, the court writes. Those provisions only see to parties that are involved in the multiplication or distribution of pirated physical items. Moreover, the argument of complicity in the act doesn't apply either, the court states, because the ISP has no active role or obligation to monitor all traffic preventively. Finally, the music industry also fails in its appeal to general liability provisions for providers in the Tele Services Act (TDG). The obligation to remove and block information once its illegality or unlawfulness has been established does not imply an obligation to divulge information.

On 13 May 2005 the Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers adopted a declaration on human rights and Internet that was prepared by a special committee of academic experts and government representatives. According to the press release, "the declaration is the first international attempt to draw up a framework on the issue and breaks ground by up-dating the principles of the European Convention on Human Rights for the cyber-age."

Indeed the declaration contains a very reassuring confirmation of the fact that "all rights enshrined in the Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (ECHR) remain fully valid in the Information Age and should continue to be protected regardless of new technological developments" and a firm statement that "Both the content and traffic data of electronic communications fall under the scope of Article 8 of the ECHR and should not be submitted to restrictions other than those provided for in that provision."

From 17 to 19 May UNESCO organised a large conference in St. Petersburg, Russia, 'Between two phases of the World Summit on the Information Society'. The 450 participants from all over the world were invited to the luxurious Konstantinovsky Palace.

In her opening speech Françoise Rivière, the Assistant Director-General of UNESCO, described the context of St. Petersburg conference and the special involvement of UNESCO Paris head quarters with a session on cultural diversity.

Opening speech by Françoise Rivière

This session was the 4th of a series of thematic meetings held in 2005 in the Information for All programme. In February Paris head quarters hosted a conference on freedom of expression (see EDRI-gram 3.3), early in May the capital of Mali (Bamako) hosted a conference on multi linguism in cyberspace and on 10 May Paris head quarters debated about the use of ICT for capacity building. The Bamako conference produced as main result a clear recognition that the debate about the level of IT development must be changed and in stead of just counting internet usage equal attention should be given to lesser used languages, education and literacy programs. The third meeting in Paris was dedicated to effective use of new methods for learning, focussing on groups such as refugees, the visually impaired, rural areas and the urban poor.