From 21 June to 23 June, Yale Law School hosted the first international "Access to Knowledge" (A2K) conference. Following two workshops on the same theme held in 2005 in Geneva and London, the aim of this conference was to "come up with a new analytic framework for analysing the possibly distortive effects of public policies relying exclusively on intellectual property rights” and to "support the adoption and development of alternative ways to foster greater access to knowledge in the digitally connected environment."

The Conference saw the participation of a large number of speakers and observers from numerous countries, distributed among a packed set of panels, ranging from larger, conceptual discussions on how political actions and academic discourses around A2K should be framed, to the

On April 6, the Swiss copyright office launched a discussion on the proposal for the revision of the copyright law in Switzerland at its media event in Berne. The Swiss copyright office presented a pocket guide as well as a website and commented on the most important changes. The primary goal of the copyright revision is the ratification of the two WIPO Internet Treaties.

A crucial point is the legal status conferred to technical copyright protection measures, such as Digital Rights Management (DRM), and ensuring prohibition of their circumvention. However, in contrast with copyright laws passed in other countries, circumvention would be allowed for uses authorized in general by copyright law (personal copies, fair use). File downloading will remain legal, because users cannot be required to decide

The EU report drafted by economists from Toulouse University and the Free University of Brussels on the economic and technical evolution of scientific publishing in Europe, published on 31 March 2006, recommends public access to scientific research funded by the European taxpayer.

The report proposes the development of a European policy that would allow researchers receiving EU funding to place copies of articles published in subscription journals on web-based archives that can be accessed by everyone for free. It also expressed the need to “specify standards that will insure that the archives are accessible, interoperable, and have cross-searching facilities. In addition, set up a general European archive for researchers with access to a subject-based or institutional archive.”

About 2000 new legal actions are taken in 10 countries by the International Federation of Phonographic Industry (IFPI) against file-sharers amounting now to a total number of 5500 cases outside US.

IFPI persists in its actions against uploaders, stating it targets persistent file-sharers, who typically upload thousands of music files. "The campaign started in major music markets where sales were falling sharply; now these legal actions have spread to smaller markets." said John Kennedy, the chairman and chief executive of IFPI.

In UK only, where the music industry states a loss of over £1.1bn over the last three years, there are 153 ongoing cases. The first cases have occurred in Portugal as well where the IFPI states sales of tradition al music formats have fallen by 40% in the last four years.

Civil society groups from around the world met in Brussels 20/21 March to discuss the politics and ideology of intellectual property. Speakers included representatives from WIPO and the EU, former US Patent Commissioner Bruce Lehman, consumer and development campaigners and noted IP academics Peter Drahos and Susan Sell.

The conference tried to step back from immediate IP controversies and take a look at the rhetoric and politicking behind the framing of IP debates and legislation. Jamie Love set the tone for the meeting by looking at the loaded terms used by proponents and critics of stronger IP rights, contrasting positive language such as "innovation", "value" and "wealth creation" with negative descriptions such as "monopoly", "privilege" and "exploitation".

The practical politics of the recent software patent debate were laid

Both in The Netherlands and in Spain the Creative Commons license was judged in court. In both cases the validity of this alternative copyright license was upheld.

In the Netherlands, the first court case about the validity of the Creative Commons license produced clear victory for the user of the license. On 9 March 2006 the district court of Amsterdam ruled in summary proceedings that the weekly gossip magazine 'Weekend' could not republish pictures that were published under a specific non-commercial CC license. The family pictures were made by Adam Curry, famous in internet circles for promoting podcasting.

The European Commission sent a letter to Microsoft on 10 March 2006 stating Microsoft was still not compliant with the EC Treaty rules on abuse of dominant position.

In March 2004, The Commission ordered Microsoft to disclose complete and accurate interface documentation, which would allow non-Microsoft workgroup servers to achieve full interoperability with Windows PCs and servers. The Commission issued a decision on 10 November 2005 that warned Microsoft to comply by 15 December 2005 with its obligations to: (i) supply complete and accurate interoperability information; and (ii) make that information available on reasonable terms or face a daily fine of up to €2 million. The Commission then sent a Statement of Objections to Microsoft on 22 December 2005.

The letter sent on 10 March 2006 includes a report from Neil Barrett,

With its succession of coups de theatre, the pathetic show of the French EUCD transposition (DADVSI draft law) is going on. After the surprising adoption, on Christmas Eve, of an amendment legalising the exchange of music and video files on the Internet as private copies, compensated by a monthly fee ('global license') collected by ISPs on customers who engage in a certain amount of downloading and uploading, the French National Assembly started a renewed debate on 7 March 2006, based on a deeply modified draft text submitted by the government.

This new version includes two major modifications. The first modification is that the French government has now introduced many exceptions to the author right and related rights, which were already included in the EU Copyright Directive. This is a very welcomed progress since initial versions of the