The Italian parliament has caused controversy by two new legislative acts. A newly adopted law against child abuse gives overly broad powers to the police, while a proposed new law on the protection of intellectual property gives too much leeway to organisations for collective rights management.

On 23 January 2006 the Italian Parliament approved a modification of Law 269/1998, in order to fight child pornography, The modified provisions give a very broad power to the police. The text of the act includes a series of vague terms and descriptions which may lead to subjective interpretation.

Art.14bis of the law introduces the National Centre that should check "incriminated" sites and individuals.

Under the law, the internet providers become investigators who are obliged to control and announce to the National Centre any company or individual who

A first session of the Provisional Committee on Proposals Related to a WIPO Development Agenda took place on 20-24 February 2006 in Geneva to discuss about proposals for a development agenda.

EDRI was present during the meeting in its new role as officially acknowledged observer. The WIPO Development Agenda is a far-reaching proposal that was initiated by the governments of Argentina and Brazil and adopted by the General Assembly in October 2004. The Development Agenda calls for fundamental changes to address the special concerns of developing countries, but also in general to give more weight to public and consumer interests.

The meeting had a slow start as Member States spent Monday morning negotiating the appointment of the Chairperson. Discussions followed on substantive issues contained in the proposals over the next days and NGOs

According to information published by the newspaper Les Echos a working document of the Ministry of Culture on the draft copyright law excludes the DVD from the private copy exception.

Representatives of the industry such as SEV (The Audio Edition Union) consider such an approach will only acknowledge a reality. As Jean-Yves Mirski, general delegate of SEV put it « for the DVD sold in the commerce equipped with anti-copying systems, the notion of the private copy (which is not a right but an exception) is not applied."

On the other hand consumers associations such as UFC-Que Choisir think the draft law also threatens the private copy of CDs and the legal downloading of files. Mr. Dourgnon from UFC Que Choisir says the new law will create confusion between the notion of the private copy and the exclusive copyright

The European Commission has decided to open formal proceedings against the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC) and its individual national members and has sent them a Statement of Objections, as a first step in antitrust investigations

The Commission objects to parts of the contracts closed amongst national authors and composers societies. Bilaterally the societies close agreements on internet, satellite and cable transmissions.

The Commission is concerned that the royalty collectors are trying, by various methods, to ensure that each of them maintain exclusive access to broadcast royalties in the countries they operate. This might infringe on the prohibition of restrictive business practices in the EC Treaty.

The occurrence of a network between the collecting societies by means of

Two French companies, Warner Music France and the FNAC, were condemned on 10 January by the Paris District Court to pay fines and damages of 5.000 and 59,50 euros respectively, to the consumer protection association UFC - Que Choisir and to a consumer complaining for not having been able to read a Phil Collins CD on a Macintosh computer. The CD had a copy proof system that prevented the duplication but which also made it impossible to read the CD on certain devices.

The Paris court estimated that the respective CD "was affected by a hidden flaw which made it useless for the purpose it had been created", that is "to be read on all types of readers". The court considered the two companies had failed in meeting their obligation to provide information. As a result, Warner Music is forbidden to use a copy-proof system; failing to comply will

The OECD held a two day conference ( 30-31 Juanuary 2006) in Rome on "The Future of Digital Economy - Digital Content Creation, Distribution and Access" with over 350 participants from companies, lobby groups, NGOs and governments. These stakeholders debated the issue and discussed how government policy should respond to the change in content production, delivery and use.

The discussion focussed less on the infrastructure and more on the debate about the production of "digital content", as broadband access today is more widespread and so it was considered more important to talk about possible new emerging business models for digital content creation and how governments could contribute to a supportive environment for broadband content.

The topic of Digital Rights Management (DRM) and the protection of

In November 2005 BEUC (the coalition of all consumers' organisations in Europe) has launched a Campaign on Consumers' Digital Rights. The campaign is meant to show consumers what their digital rights are. BEUC is supported by Zusana Roithova, Member of the European Parliament, Czech Republic.

The campaign highlights the complex threats for consumers in today's digital world. Data retention, covering commercial and non-commercial infringements under the same "piracy" umbrella, the general criminalisation of consumers and last but not least, DRM (Digital Rights Management).

Within this campaign a dedicated website was created at http://www.consumersdigitalrights.org/ , available in English, French and German. The website includes a compilation of musical tracks from 14 artists

The Directive on the legal protection of Databases was adopted in February 1996. The Directive created a new exclusive 'sui generis' right for database producers, valid for 15 years, to protect their investment of time, money and effort, irrespective of whether the database is in itself innovative ("non-original" databases).

The European Commission published on 12 December 2005 an evaluation of the protection EU law gives to databases. The evaluation focuses on whether the introduction of this right led to an increase in the European database industry. It also looks at whether the scope of the right targets those areas where Europe needs to encourage innovation.

The directive was strongly criticised for being a useless invention of the European Community, especially created to stimulate the database