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Deutsch: Frankreich: Die zweite Version des Drei-Treffer-Gesetzes ist durchgese...

In a disappointing decision in comparison with its initial assessment on the first three strikes law (called HADOPI 1), on 22 October 2009, The French Constitutional Court validated the three strikes law with only one minor change.

The so-called Hadopi 2 law that was recently passed through both French chambers was referred to the Constitutional Council by the opponents of the law in the hope that the Court will once again find the text as unconstitutional as it did in June 2009.

This time, the Court failed to acknowledge the infringement of several liberties rights such as the right to due pro

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Deutsch: Pläne für ein britisches Drei-Treffer-Gesetz

Europe seems to take no notice of the strong opposition against measures to cut down Internet access.

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Deutsch: Microsoft versucht, die EU-Auflagen zu erfüllen

After having long criticised and penalised Microsoft for its anti-competitive practices, the European Union seems to be now at the point of trying to close up the battle with the company after Microsoft has made a new offer to give its customers access to a wider range of web browsers through its Windows operating system and to share information with its competitors.

"The commission will formally market test proposals made by Microsoft to address concerns regarding the tying of Internet Explorer to the Windows PC operating system," said the EU's competition commissioner Neelie Kroes who also expressed the idea that a at a p

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Deutsch: Copyright in der digitalen Umgebung

During the 1st European Innovation Summit that was held on 12 - 16 October 2009 at the European Parliament in Brussels, a workshop on the future of Intellectual Property Rights (IPRs) in Europe included a panel to debate the subject of the IPRs in the new digital environment.

In the introduction it was asserted that national copyright laws are no longer adapted to the digital environment, that old business models have failed to produce results, that DRMs have been rejected by the consumers and that the issue now at stake is how to adapt to new business models.

Professor Hugenholtz (IvIR, University of Amsterdam) said that licensing had

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Deutsch: Buma/Stemra führt Steuern für die Einbindung von Audio und Video ein

Dutch collecting society Buma/Stemra announced that it will impose a levy on Internet users for embedding audio- and videomaterial on their website, starting 1 January 2010. The levy starts at EUR 130 for the first six embedded links per website per year. The rules could affect small bloggers and users of social network-sites such as Facebook.

As the rules were legally questionable and did not sufficiently take into account the interests of internet users and Dutch musicians, Buma's announcement immediately led to protests in the blogosphere and on Twitter.

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Deutsch: EDRis offener Brief an das Europäische Parlament über Zusatz 138

EDRi sent the following open letter to all the members of the European Parliament (EP) on 19 October 2009 asking for a continuos support for the citizens' rights by not giving up on Amendment 138 in the Telecoms Package.

To the Members of the European Parliament,

European Digital Rights is an association of 29 privacy and civil rights organisations based in 18 European countries and active across the European Union.

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Deutsch: ENDitorial: Zusatz 138 – EP soll zwischen Demokratie und Niederlage ...

The opening meeting of the informal conciliation discussions between the Council and European Parliament (EP) has taken place. This process was largely brought about by the Parliament's overwhelming rejection of a "compromise" proposal with regard to the famous "amendment 138" text in May of this year.

The Council of Ministers' current proposal is for the Parliament to unconditionally overturn its current position and accept the text that it previously rejected.

As a result, the debate has become wider than "simply" the wording of one paragraph of a piece of telecoms legislation.

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Deutsch: Britische Musikindustrie ist bei der Verbindungstrennung für p2p-User...

UK Secretary of State Lord Mandelson's proposal to use technical measures to cut off connections of illegal file-sharers met different reactions within UK music industry.

A coalition including the Featured Artists Coalition (FAC), the British Academy of Songwriters, Composers and Authors (BASCA) and the Music Producers Guild (MPG) has recently expressed its opinion that the suspension of connections of allegedly illegal file-sharers was a "grossly disproportionate" measure.