The Dutch Attorney-General for the Supreme Court, Verkade, has once more righted internetprovider XS4ALL and author Karin Spaink in their decade long defence against legal attacks by Scientology. In his opinion for the Supreme Court Verkade argues "Although copyright resides under Article 1 of the First Protocol of ECHR and can therefore be regarded as a human right, this does not exempt copyright from being balanced against the right to freedom of information." In this specific case, in which Spaink quoted several critical paragraphs from a statement made in court by a former member of the organisation, freedom of speech clearly prevails above the claimed copyrights of Scientology.

The case started in September 1995, when XS4ALL servers were formally seized by a bailiff, assisted by a representative from Scientology,

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,

On 3-4 February 2005, more than 60 academics, researchers and scientists, software developers, diplomats, librarians, consumers and representatives of disability and other public interest groups from north and south gathered in Geneva to discuss the WIPO Development Agenda and a draft Treaty on Access to Knowledge (A2K). The meeting was organised by the Consumer Project on Technology (CPTech), Third World Network (TWN) and the International Federation of Library Associations and Institutions (IFLA).

The aim of the meeting was to find common ground amongst the diverse range of interest groups who feel harmed by current intellectual property regimes, to discuss proposals for a draft treaty on access to knowledge and to start to build a global, social movement to advance the Access to Knowledge agenda.

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 Netherlands National Commission for Unesco has published Recommendations on human rights and Internet, following a conference held on 4 and 5 February 2005. The recommendation focusses on privacy, the right of freedom of expression and the right to communicate, including access to the vast cultural, educational and scientific heritage of mankind.

On privacy, the recommendation calls on States to "Acknowledge that privacy is an indispensable prerequisite to the right of freedom of expression and the right to communicate. Online as well as off-line, readers, listeners and viewers have a right to the same high level of privacy and anonymity. If online access to information is tracked and tied to detailed personal profiles, self-censorship is imminent and - more important still - the public debate and the rule of law are eroded."

Civil rights and consumer organisations in Switzerland have severely criticised a proposal to revise the Swiss copyright law. In October 2004 the Swiss Federal Institute of Intellectual Property opened a consultation about the revision of the Swiss copyright law and asked for comments until the end of January 2005. The revision mainly concerns the implementation of the WIPO Internet Treaties.

Civil rights organisations, political parties and special interest groups broadly criticise the proposed revision. In a joint position paper Wilhelm Tux and EDRI-member SIUG state that the revision points in the wrong direction and that the legal protection of technological measures (the ban on circumvention) overly favours copyright holders.

The revision also underestimates problematic developments that can occur with a broad application of digital rights management (DRM). SIUG and Wilhelm Tux call for an extension of the user-protection against abuse of technological measures, and more generally, for a revision of the copyright law that focusses on the real needs of an open information society.

The Arbitration Commission of the Romanian Copyright Office (ORDA) has published two remarkable decisions on the price for online music and ring-tones. Romanian internet users will have to pay a fixed annual fee for any music they wish to offer on their website (via streaming or for downloading) of approximately 80 euro (3 million Romanian Lei). If the website owner charges a fee for music to be downloaded, they will have to pay 10% of the fee to the collecting society, with a minimum of 8 eurocent per downloaded track, independent of the origin of the music.

The decisions followed after unsuccessful negotiations between the Romanian Musical Performing and Mechanical Rights Society, the Romanian Association of ISPs and the association of ring-tone providers. The decisions were published in the Official Monitor no. 58 of 18 January 2005. Even though the name of the first decision is 'methodology for using musical works on the Internet' the methodology refers only to web-pages. The copyright owner only has the right to opt-out. He can provide the collecting society with a list of musical works that cannot be used on the Internet.

The German national library (Deutsche Bibliothek) has negiotated a license with rightholders to legally circumvent copy protection mechanisms on CD-roms, videos, software and E-books. It seems this is the first library in Europe to have managed a voluntary agreement on the strict new anti-circumvention rules prescribed by the EU copyright directive of 2001 (2001/29/EC). Article 6 of the EUCD prohibits acts of circumvention, as well as the distribution of tools and technologies used for circumvention of access control or copy protection measures. Member States could choose between penal or civil sanctions for infringement. Germany has chosen penal sanctions, with large fines or a 3 year prison sentence for circumvention for a commercial purpose.

Article 6.4 of the EUCD calls on governments to take appropriate measures