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Google has just obtained a significant victory against the German publisher Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft (WBG), having asked an injunction in a German court to stop the giant from scanning books in its Books Library project.

WBG dropped their case on 28 June after the judge told them they had poor chances in winning. Although backed by the German publishers associations, the publisher failed to bring arguments in support of its action and the court ruled that there was no copyright violation resulting from the development of Google's project.

Google has undertaken to digitize library books and place the contents on its search engine working within this process with six US libraries and one

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The most controversial DADVSI Law, now colloquially known also as "iTunes Law", was finally adopted in the French Parliament with a compromise allowing Apple to continue operating as before.

The law was adopted by the Parliament under emergency regime, which ended with a mixed commission, normally made of 7 senators and 7 deputies, from both the majority and the opposition. But the opposition left the commission, after 55 more amendments were brought to it by the rapporteurs at the very final step

The most controversial provision was that of interoperability. In a previous draft, the law imposed measures to allow interoperability, obliging thus Apple to give up its DRM system that made "iTunes" products strictly related

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Swedish company Tankafritt offers insurance against file sharing law suits damages and intends to expand to other Scandinavian countries.

Magnus Brath, the owner of the company, found it in reaction to the recent copyright infringement cases in Sweden. He also thinks he could develop his business in countries like Norway and Denmark where there are similar laws on file-sharing.

His company is a small one operating on membership basis. For about 15 euro/year the members are covered in case RIAA (Recording Industry Association of America) asks for damages for copyright infringement..

According to Slyck.com, the probability of being sued by RIAA is 1:1,840, a ration that is lower than that of dying from external causes which is

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The Dutch Parliament stated on 28 June 2006 that the European Commission has no competence to propose a new directive that is focusing on criminalizing intellectual property offences. The statement refers to a new draft directive - Directive on criminal measures aimed at ensuring the enforcement of intellectual property rights, 2005/0127 - revived by the European Commission at the beginning of May 2006.

The Parliament also said that the Commission should present concrete evidence why such a directive is needed, considering that the European body should show why the measures are essential for the good functioning of the single market. Also it considers that the directive might harmonise some

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TACD (Trans-Atlantic Consumer Dialogues) organized a conference under the title "New Relationships Between Creative Communities and Consumers" in Paris on 19-20 June 2006. Participants represented a wide range of interests, including both artists' and consumers' organizations, but also WIPO and the European Commission.

Several panels explored problems and possibilities in creators' and users' rights in fields as various as gene research, drug development, software production, entertainment industry, documentary films and scholarly publishing. The breadth of discussion and ideas presented was impressive.

One recurring theme was that creators and users of intellectual works are

Hearing on future EU patent policy The European Commission will hold a public hearing on future EU patent policy on 12 July 2006. This is the second step of the public consultation launched in January 2006 with the aim of collecting stakeholders' views on the patent system in Europe and seeking views on what measures could be taken in the near future to improve this system.
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/06/796&...

Commission consultation on copyright levies The questionnaire on "Copyright levies in a converging world" is submitted for public consultation to ensure that later Commission proposals are technically viable, practically workable and based on a bottom-up approach. Stakeholders and Member States already provided valuable input in the

A new public campaign has been launched in Italy: its goal is to change Italy's copyright law to ensure that end-users have a full-fledged right to create a private copy of works they legally acquired.

The campaign, promoted by Scarichiamoli!, an Italian informal group of activists whose main goal is permitting the free circulation of knowledge, is aimed at revising Italian Legislative Decree 68/2003, that implements the European Directive 2001/29/CE on the harmonization of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society.

In particular, the suggested revision would change art.9 of the Decree by making sure that a private copy of a legally acquired work can always be made, even bypassing technical protection measures (TPMs), irrespective of whether such a copy is digital or analogue.

Following a complaint made by the Norwegian Consumer Council in January this year, Bjorn Erik Thon, the Norwegian Consumer Ombudsman has ruled that the Apple iTunes service breaks section 9a of the Norwegian Marketing Control Act.

The Consumer Ombudsman considers as unreasonable that the agreement the consumer must accept is regulated by the foreign law and that iTunes disclaims any liability for a possible damage the software may cause.

He also thinks that just like Apple requires an iPod for songs via iTunes, other companies producing music, book or film could restrict their products to specific players as well and believes that this could be an infringement of rights.

"You will have a difficult situation for the consumer ... the consumer has to have four or five gadgets to have the availability of the content that he