The EU Court of First Instance has entirely dismissed Microsoft's objections to a set of sanctions against the software giant by the EU Commission. The Court rules that the Commission's decision does not "cause serious and irreparable damage" to Microsoft. Microsoft requested an interim measure from the Court that would hold up the Commission's decision until the case has been reviewed by a higher Court in a lengthy procedure. Now that the Court of First Instance has rejected Microsoft's request the software giant will have to implement the Commission's decision in short time.

In March 2004 Microsoft got a record fine of 497 million euro after a five-year investigation by the Competition Commissioner into Microsoft's business practice. The Commission ordered Microsoft to offer a version of

The Council of Europe is working on a new declaration or recommendation on human rights and internet. An ad-hoc committee of experts on the information society has been meeting for the first time in November 2004, and will have a second meeting in Strasbourg on 3 and 4 February 2005. The Council does not provide any information about the proceedings or specific members of the committee, but has recently published the terms of reference. The aim of the committee is to provide "a draft political statement on the principles and guidelines for ensuring respect for freedom of expression and opinion, for human rights and for the rule of law in the Information Society, with a view to its use as a Committee of Ministers' contribution to the Third Summit of Heads of State and Government of the Council of Europe (16-17 May 2005) and the 2005 Tunis

The European Commission has published the contributions to the public consultation on the copyright and related right directives. 126 contributions are available, ranging from all kinds of right-holders to civil society. Most contributions are available in English, some in French and German. The contributions from the right-holders provide interesting insight in the arguments used to convince the Commission to extend the term of related rights from 50 to 95 years, claiming Europe should harmonise with the United States. The MPA contribution (United States Motion Picture Association) is especially worth close-reading, insisting Europe should introduce mandatory data retention for law enforcement purposes (where the United States themselves have no such obligation). "There is, thus, a need for harmonized, proportionate data retention rules that apply to all relevant service providers, together with additional measures to streamline the process for ensuring access to data on a cross-border basis. It is also essential that the adoption of new data retention rules does not undermine the rights of access to data provided in the Enforcement Directive."

The EU's Court of First Instance will decide between 18 and 20 December whether to suspend the Commission's sanctions against Microsoft. In March 2004 Microsoft got a record fine of 497 million euro after a five-year investigation by the Competition Commissioner into Microsoft's business practice. The Commission also ordered Microsoft to offer a version of Windows without a bundled media player and to share more technical information with server rivals. Microsoft paid the fine but the cash is being kept in an escrow account until Microsoft's appeal has been settled.

According to the Commission's March 2004 ruling Microsoft's illegal conduct has enabled it to acquire a dominant position in the market for work group server operating systems and has significantly weakened competition on the media player market. The dominant position has grave consequences for consumers: "The ongoing abuses act as a brake on innovation and harm the competitive process and consumers, who ultimately end up with less choice and facing higher prices".

The European Court of Justice has decided to diminish the legal protection of so called 'spin-off' databases under the Database Directive 1996/9/EC. In order to claim 'sui generis' database protection, a substantial investment must be made "in seeking, collecting, verifying and presenting existing materials". The resources used to create the materials which make up the database can _not_ be counted as substantial investment. In other words; if a database is a logical spin-off of your main activity, the data cannot be protected against use by third parties. These verdicts juxtapose the opinion of the Advocate General, issued on 8 June 2004.

The parties involved in the 4 cases are the British Horseracing Board (BRB) versus William Hill and Fixtures Marketing Ltd (football fixture

The Unesco is working on a draft convention on cultural diversity, the Convention on the Protection of the Diversity of Cultural Contents and Artistic Expressions. The draft contains many references to copyright, intellectual property rights and access to information. On 15 November 2004 the campaign for Communication Rights in the Information Society (CRIS) has presented a critical paper to the Unesco delegates, endorsed by many EDRI-members and other civil rights organisations.

The Unesco convention was originally designed to ensure that culture, in the age of globalized culture industries, is not reduced to a commodity. Its aim is to allow each country to implement cultural, media, and communications policies that foster cultural diversity. However, some governments have proposed dangerous revisions that would transform the

In answer to a consultation from the European Commission on the review of copyright law EDRI, EDRI-member FIPR and the Vereniging Open-source Nederland have argued for higher standards of user rights. The response was endorsed by twenty organisations. In stead of deleting such provisions from older directives such as 91/250 on Software, 92/100 on Rental and Lending Rights, 93/83 on Satellites and Cable, 93/98 on Terms of Protection, and 96/09 on Databases, the Commission should broaden the protection of user rights in the most recent directive, 2001/29/EC, known as EUCD.

This Directive is regarded by the EU Commission as the gold standard in the field of copyright and related rights. But this Directive is not as unproblematic as the EU Commission says, according to the response. There is a serious risk this Directive will be used to level down user rights that were granted in previous directives.

Joint response by European Digital Rights, the Foundation for Information Policy Research and Vereniging Open-source Nederland to the EU Commission consultation on the review of the EU acquis communautaire in the field of copyright and related rights, endorsed by 19 more organisations.