QuickLinks - Liability, jurisdiction and applicable law

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Issue no. 363 - 25 June 2006

• US - MySpace sued for $30m after assault on 14-year-old (out-law)
  A Texas woman has filed a $30m lawsuit against MySpace.com after her 14-year-old daughter was sexually assaulted by someone she met through the site. The suit alleges that MySpace does not do enough to protect its under-age users, according to a report in the Austin American Statesman, and includes news reports of other sexual assaults that took place after people met on the MySpace network.

Issue no. 360 - 14 May 2006

• Chechen web site shut down in Sweden (EDRI)
  After many complaints from Russia, the Swedish authorities closed up on 5 May, Kavkazcenter.com, a Chechen separatist Web site that allegedly encouraged terrorism. The police arrived at PRQ Web hosting company in Stockholm with a search warrant and confiscated two servers.

Issue no. 359 - 9 May 2006

• DE - First-instance district court of Hamburg says forum operators are liable for comments (Heise)
  The first-instance district court of Hamburg has handed down its written statement on its widely reported ruling on liability for forums. The statements refers to web forums as an 'especially dangerous feature.' Those who operate such a source of trouble, the court argued, must be held especially liable. The judges in Hamburg have not followed previous interpretation that forum providers were only liable for illegal content that they had knowledge of and were not obligated to actively search for it. Judgment in German

• US - Can Schools Punish Students for Posting Offensive Content on MySpace and Similar Sites? (FindLaw)
  by Anita Ramasastry. The past few years have seen the growth of popular social networking websites for students. About four million teens have created some sort of blog. Unfortunately, however, such sites and blogs - despite all the good they've done for some students - have also created serious problems for other students, educators and even law enforcement. No wonder, then, that many schools have blocked students from accessing such sites while on campus.

Issue no. 357 - 26 March 2006

• DK - Deep linking is legal in Denmark (EDRI)
  The Maritime and Commercial Court in Copenhagen has decided that so-called deep linking is legal in Denmark. The decision is expected to have a major impact on many Danish online-services and search engines.

• UK - £10,000 damages awarded for internet libel (out-law.com)
  A former parliamentary candidate for the UK Independence Party has been awarded £10,000 in damages after winning a defamation case. Michael Keith Smith had sued over postings in an internet chat room.

• US - Government Not Entitled to Google Records, CDT Argues (CDT)
  (CDT) In the dispute over the federal government's demand that Google turn over millions of search terms to assist the government in its defense of an Internet censorship law, CDT filed a brief arguing that, in its search function, Google is covered by the Electronic Communications Privacy Act, which prohibits certain online service providers from disclosing customer records under the kind of subpoena the government is using in this case. see also Department of Justice brief, Law Professors' brief, Google brief.

• US - Revised Google search plan allowed (New York Times)
  After the Justice Department drastically reduced its request for information from Google, a federal judge has said that he intended to approve at least part of that request. The government is requesting a sample of 50,000 Web site addresses in Google's index, instead of the one million it had demanded. And it is asking for just 5,000 search queries, compared with its earlier demand for an entire week of queries.

Issue no. 356 - 27 February 2006

• EU ministers clash on media libel and defamation rules (EUobserver.com)
  EU justice ministers have agreed to halt far-reaching plans to establish common EU rules on cross-border disputes, following fears that parts of the law would violate freedom of expression. The proposed law aims to define which national law applies in disputes where individuals or companies from different countries are involved, including non-EU member states. According to the proposal tabled by the commission, the law in the country in which the alleged damage occurred would bear the law. But EU ministers had failed to agree on this principle being applied to national liability laws for the media, dealing with defamation of private citizens, public figures or religious icons in the press.

Issue no. 355 - 5 February 2006

• IE - Irish ISPs to give file-sharers' details (EDRI-gram)
  The Irish High Court has made an order requiring three ISPs to hand over the personal details of 49 alleged file-sharers. This decision follows a similar decision in July 2005, including an undertaking that the information would only be used for the purpose of litigation. The judge did, however, specify that the plaintiffs could, if they wished, also pass this information to the authorities for criminal prosecution, describing file sharing as 'a modern form of thieving'.

Issue no. 354 - 31 January 2006

• Risks and rewards of net data (BBC)
  Efforts by the US government to gain access to records from the world's leading search engines highlights the issue of holding onto huge amounts of internet data, argues law professor Michael Geist. Companies retain data for lengthy periods, using sophisticated data mining technologies to analyse the information. The same data can be mined for purposes that extend far beyond the reasons for which it was initially provided.

• US - Court dismisses Yahoo's free-speech lawsuit (CNET News.com)
  A divided federal appeals court has ducked the question of whether a French court order censoring Nazi-related materials can apply to Yahoo's U.S.-based Web site. In a case that pits European restrictions on 'hate speech' against the values of free expression enshrined by the United States' First Amendment, a slender 6-5 majority of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed Yahoo's case involving the online display of Nazi-related books, posts and memorabilia.

• US - New Yahoo Decision Raises Old Questions (Michael Geist)
  The recent 9th Circuit Court of Appeals Yahoo decision involving the long-running battle over Internet jurisdiction. The majority and dissent present two competing views of the Internet and that that the courts remains as conflicted as ever as they seek to reconcile the challenges of law, borders and the Internet.

Issue no. 353 - 15 January 2006

• US - Court dismisses Yahoo's free-speech lawsuit (CNET News.com)
  A divided federal appeals court has ducked the question of whether a French court order censoring Nazi-related materials can apply to Yahoo's U.S.-based Web site. In a case that pits European restrictions on 'hate speech' against the values of free expression enshrined by the United States' First Amendment, a slender 6-5 majority of the 9th U.S. Circuit Court of Appeals dismissed Yahoo's case involving the online display of Nazi-related books, posts and memorabilia.

Issue no. 352 - 18 December 2005

• DE - Juristische Niederlage für Strafanzeigen-Maschinerie gegen P2P-Nutzer (heise online)
  Der Schweizer Dienstleister Logistep darf Internetprovider im Kampf gegen Urheberrechtsverstößen durch Tauschbörsen-Nutzer nicht mehr massenhaft zur Speicherung von Verbindungsdaten anhalten. Dies geht aus einem Urteil des Landgerichts Flensburg hervor, das sich auf die Haftungsregeln im Teledienstegesetz (TDG) beruft. Der erste juristische Erfolg gegen die Strafanzeigen-Automatik könnte sich aber schon bald als Pyrrhus-Sieg erweisen. Zum einen hat das EU-Parlament gerade eine heftig umstrittene Richtlinie abgesegnet, mit der Telekommunikationsanbieter verpflichtet werden, Verbindungs- und Standortdaten für einen Zeitraum zwischen mindestens sechs und 24 Monaten vorzuhalten und Sicherheitsbehörden zugänglich zu machen. Es ist zwar noch nicht heraus, ob die Ermittler auch bei der Verfolgung von Verstößen gegen das geistige Eigentumsrecht in den gigantischen Datenbergen schürfen dürfen. Doch zum anderen hat Bundesjustizministerin Brigitte Zypries gerade einen Gesetzesentwurf vorgestellt, wonach Verwerter bei einem "gewichtigen Eingriff" in ihre Rechte Auskunftsansprüche gegen Provider geltend machen können. Die künftig zu speichernden IP-Adressen und die dahinter steckenden Identitäten dürften daher von der Unterhaltungsindustrie rege nachgefragt werden.

Issue no. 345 - 25 September 2005

• CA - Washington Post cannot be sued in Ontario over stories (ou-law.com)
  The Court of Appeal for Ontario ruled that Ontario courts do not have jurisdiction to hear a $10 million damages claim by a Guinean national, resident in Ontario, over articles published by The Washington Post in 1997, but still available online. The court distinguished the circumstances from those of Joseph Gutnick whose claim in Australia over a US publication became a landmark for internet defamation.

• CN - Baidu to appeal ruling on music downloads (FT)
  Baidu.com, the leading Chinese internet search company, is to "vigorously appeal" a Beijing court's ruling requiring it to pay compensation to a unit of the music group EMI over downloads of pirated pop music. Baidu's China counsel said that the court ruling was based on a "misunderstanding of the search engine technology" used by the company in its "MP3" digital music search service.

Issue no. 344 - 18 September 2005

• DE - Heise legt Verfassungsbeschwerde gegen Link-Verbot ein (Heise)
  Der Heise Zeitschriften Verlag wird gegen ein Urteil des Oberlandesgerichts (OLG) München Verfassungsbeschwerde einlegen. Am 28. Juli 2005 hat das OLG entschieden, dass der zum Verlag gehörende News-Dienst heise online keinen Link zum Software-Hersteller Slysoft setzen darf. Durch dieses Verbot werde die in Artikel 5 des Grundgesetzes garantierte Freiheit der Presse ihrer Ansicht nach unzulässig eingeschränkt, erklärte die Verlagsleitung.

Issue no. 343 - 4 September 2005

• DE - Appeal court outlaws links to websites offering circumvention technology (immateriblog.de)
  A Munich court of appeal upheld a lower court ruling, demanding that German IT news service Heise Online remove a link to Slysoft.com, an Antigua based company selling software enabling users to make copies of copy-protected CDs and DVDs. Legal experts criticised the decision as endangering press freedom. Six major labels in January served a writ to Heise, preventing it from publishing links to Slysoft. In April, a lower court in Munich held that Heise was allowed to report on Slysoft's software but not to link to the company's web page, even though the link was referring to the homepage only, not the download page. By providing a link to the company's homepage, the court said, Heise intentionally provided 'assistance in the fulfilment of unlawful acts' and is therefore liable as 'an aider and abettor'. The case is based on article 95a of the German authors rights code which outlaws the manufacture, import, sale, renting, and promotion with regard to sale or renting of applications to circumvent copy protection measures. Also prohibited is the possession of these applications when they are used for commercial purposes, and to perform services in order to circumvent or promote circumvention.

• FR - Responsabilité de l'intermédiaire de paiement (Legalis.net)
  Pour la première fois, la responsabilité de l'intermédiaire de paiement a été mise en cause dans une affaire concernant l´accès à un site internet à contenu pornographique, par un mineur. Dans un jugement du 7 juin 2005, les juges de la 17e chambre correctionnelle du tribunal de grande instance de Paris ont rejeté cette demande en affirmant que cet intermédiaire n'était qu'un « simple prestataire de service de la société » et n'est pas responsable de l'accès par des mineurs à un site pornographique

• US - Will the adware industry beat Spitzer? (CNet News.com)
  by Eric Goldman. New York Attorney General Elliott Spitzer's recent enforcement action against adware vendor Intermix Media has opened up a new front in the battle against this type of software. Spitzer has repeatedly threatened advertisers who run ads with adware vendors. What legal doctrine holds advertisers liable for advertising via adware? We have yet to hear a coherent theory from Spitzer - or anyone else - explaining how this liability arises. Advertiser liability for adware vendors' actions would represent a novel and unprecedented application of current law.

Issue no. 342 - 31 July 2005

• UK - Parliament to discuss child porn regulations (ZDNet UK)
  A Labour MP has proposed a bill to force ISPs to declare whether they have taken steps to prevent access to paedophilic Web sites. Margaret Moran, the Labour MP for Luton South, has introduced the bill under the 'Ten Minute Rule', which allows a brief discussion on the issue, but is unlikely to lead to an immediate change in the law.

Issue no. 341 - 9 July 2005

• E-commerce Regulations: DTI consults on liability for search engines (out-law.com)
  The UK government is seeking views on whether the protection given to ISPs under the Electronic Commerce Directive should be extended to cover providers of hyperlinks and location tools - such as search engines and directories - and content aggregation services.

• DE - Verwaltungsgericht Düsseldorf bestätigt Sperrungsverfügung in NRW (heise)
  Der Staat darf von Internet-Zugangsanbietern die Sperrung von rechtsextremen, ausländischen Internet-Angeboten verlangen. Das hat das Verwaltungsgericht Düsseldorf entschieden. Die Düsseldorfer Bezirksregierung hatte den Zugangsanbietern Sperrungsverfügungen für Nazi-Websites zugestellt, die im Ausland ins Internet gestellt werden. Die Zugangsanbieter hatten dagegen Klage eingereicht. Das Gericht entschied nun, dass die Verfügungen durch die Staatsverträge zu Mediendiensten und Jugendschutz gedeckt seien.

• US - Adult site sues Amazon over sexy images (CNET News.com)
  Adult magazine publisher Perfect 10 is suing Amazon.com, alleging that the e-tailer's search engine is violating copyright law by displaying thousands of images from its Web site without permission.

Issue no. 340 - 23 June 2005

• DE - Not guilty in hyperlink case (Heise)
  An appeals court has ruled that Stuttgart media designer Alvar Freude is not guilty of aiding and abetting in incitement to hatred and violence against minority groups. The judges ruled without reservation that Freude's reporting about the Nazi web sites, which caused the district government of Dusseldorf to file charges, constitutes documentation of historical events. In his online documentation, Freude had provided links to neo-Nazi web sites and the homepage of Tasteless, which the district government had incriminated.

• FR - Le juge des référés impose le blocage d'un site négationniste (legalis.net)
  Dans son ordonnance de référé du 13 juin 2005, le vice-président du TGI de Paris a fait injonction à huit fournisseurs d'accès à l'internet (FAI) "de mettre en œuvre toutes mesures propres à interrompre l'accès à partir du territoire français au contenu du service de communication en ligne hébergé actuellement à l'adresse www.vho.org/aaargh" (un site négationniste). Ces professionnels doivent justifier des dispositifs mis en place, dans un délai très court de dix jours, mais sans astreinte, à compter du prononcé de la décision. Le juge s'est appuyé sur la nouvelle procédure prévue par l'article 6-I-8 de la LCEN, qui l'autorise à prescrire, en référé "toutes mesures propres à prévenir un dommage ou à faire cesser un dommage occasionné par le contenu d'un service de communication au public en ligne".

Issue no. 339 - 29 May 2005

• US - Yahoo sued over child porn site (Reuters)
  A minor and his parents have filed a $10 million lawsuit against Yahoo and a man who once operated a Yahoo Groups site where members traded child pornography. Pornographic photos of the plaintiff were taken and posted to the Candyman site by a neighbor. The plaintiffs allege that Yahoo was aware of the activity on the site and that it took no action to block or remove the pornographic images of Doe and other children. Attorneys familiar with cases involving online service providers said the Communications Decency Act generally shielded Web sites from responsibility for material posted by users.

Issue no. 338 - 7 May 2005

• FR - Les hébergeurs américains sommés de bloquer un site (ZDNet France)
  Le tribunal de grande instance de Paris ordonne aux hébergeurs du site révisionniste AAARGH de couper son accès et de fournir les éléments d'identification de ses auteurs. S´ils refusent de collaborer, le juge examinera la possibilité de recourir au filtrage par les FAI français. Dans une seconde ordonnance de référé, le TGI demande aux hébergeurs américains du site révisionniste AAARGH, d'en empêcher l'accès depuis le territoire français.

• WIPO seminar on ISP liability (EDRI-gram)
  On 18 April WIPO hosted a seminar in Geneva on copyright and ISP liability. Dominated by representatives of the entertainment industry and international government officials, the highly politicised seminar ended with the conclusion that more legislation was indeed necessary. The main issue however remained unsolved; whether this legislation should provide stronger protection for the fundamental rights and freedoms of all internet users, or whether this legislation should further facilitate the entertainment industry in hunting down individual internet users.

Issue no. 337 - 13 April 2005

• BG - Bulgarian ISPs ordered to remove websites (EDRI-gram)
  The Bulgarian Ministry of the Interior has issued a radical order to Bulgaria's largest internet providers. Within 7 days the ISPs 'must remove all free hosting servers which offer works, audio records, entertaining or business software, images, pictures, books, graphical logos, etc.' and notify the department. Remarkably, the order isn't limited to copyright infringement, but bluntly seems to ban all content on free hosting servers. ISPs in Bulgaria are not forbidden to offer free hosting though, but can only provide free servers larger than 100 MB to identified customers. 'More than 100 MB of webspace should be given only to customers with a signed user contract, accompanied with a copy of their ID card or relevant valid document for identification.'

• FR- Vente d'objets nazis: Yahoo! relaxé (Libération)
  La cour d'appel de Paris a confirmé la relaxe de l'Américain Timothy Koogle, 51 ans, ancien patron du portail américain, poursuivi par l'Amicale des déportés d'Auschwitz et des camps de Haute-Silésie, le Consistoire israélite de France et le Mrap pour «apologie de crime et pour port ou exhibition d'uniforme, d'insigne ou d'emblème d'une personne coupable de crime contre l'humanité». Les associations réclamaient 1 euro symbolique de dommages-intérêts. Le 11 février 2003, Koogle avait été relaxé par le tribunal correctionnel de Paris.

• Rapporteur EU parliament: more liability for ISPs (EDRI-gram)
  Rapporteur Marielle De Sarnez (French, Liberal) of the European Parliament Committee on Culture and Education has released her opinion on the proposal of the European Commission to create a new Recommendation on the Protection of Minors and Human Dignity. The report deals with two issues; more liability for ISPs and the introduction of a legal right to reply.

Issue no. 335 - 20 March 2005

• NL - Dutch ISPs agree to file-sharing crackdown (Associated Press)
  Five major Dutch Internet providers agreed to cooperate in a crackdown on illegal file sharing, saying they will send warnings to clients suspected of swapping copyrighted music, film and software files. The providers said they will forward letters from the Brain Institute, which represents the entertainment industry in the Netherlands, warning clients that sharing copyrighted material is against the law. The decision was a compromise, because the providers refused to reveal customers' names or addresses directly to the Brain Institute.

Issue no. 333 - 2 March 2005

• AU - ISPs face new child porn reporting obligations (ZDNet Australia)
  Internet service providers and content hosts will be required to report online child porn to the Australian Federal Police (AFP) from 1 March under amendments to the Criminal Code Act 1995. The Minister for Justice and Customs has written to all major ISPs to advise them of their new obligations. An ISP or Internet Content Host (ICH) will face penalties if they are made aware that their service can be used to access material they have reasonable grounds to believe is child pornography or child abuse material and they do not refer details of that material to the AFP within a reasonable time of becoming aware of the material's existence. It will also be a federal offence under the new provisions - carrying a penalty of 10 years' imprisonment - for a person to use a carriage service such as the Internet to access, transmit or make available child porn or child abuse material. supplementing existing state and territory laws.

• AU - New obligation for ISPs and ICHs to report child pornography and child abuse material (Attorney-General's Department)
  Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and Internet Content Hosts (ICHs) will have an obligation to report material they have reasonable grounds to believe is child pornography or child abuse material to the Australian Federal Police (AFP), when amendments to the Criminal Code Act 1995 (Criminal Code) commence on 1 March 2005. See the full text of these amendments Crimes Legislation Amendment (Telecommunications Offences and Other Measures) Act (No 2) 2004.

Issue no. 330 - 30 January 2005

• US - Family, child advocacy and law enforcement groups say file-sharing is not just about copyright (MissingKids)
  A diverse coalition of family, child advocacy and law enforcement groups has asked the Supreme Court to overturn a Ninth Circuit decision that refused to hold peer-to-peer file-sharing companies accountable for copyright infringement on their networks. Kids First Coalition, the National Fraternal Order of Police, the National Center for Missing and Exploited Children, the Christian Coalition, Concerned Women for America, Enough is Enough, Morality in Media, The National Law Center for Children and Families and We Care America share a commitment to the effective enforcement of the law, in particular prohibitions against child pornography, obscenity, and other predatory behavior against the Nation's children. They are concerned that the decision will spawn a proliferation of anonymous, decentralized, unfiltered, and untraceable peer-to-peer networks that facilitate crimes against children and that frustrate law enforcement efforts to detect and investigate these crimes. Metro-Goldwyn-Mayer Studios, Inc. et al v. Grokster, Ltd. et al.

Issue no. 328 - 4 January 2005

• IN - Delhi schoolboy sparks global porn row (Guardian)
  To the Indian schoolboy, it must have seemed like an ingenious if indelicate use of new technology. But when the 17-year-old used his mobile phone camera to record his girlfriend giving him oral sex he could have had little idea of the far-reaching global consequences. His act had provoked a scandal that was dominating every Indian newspaper, the chief executive of a major company had been jailed, and a major diplomatic row was brewing between India and America, with Condoleezza Rice reported to be at the fore. The trouble started a few days after the teenager made the recording, when someone tried to sell a video clip of him and his 16-year-old girlfriend on the Indian online auction site Baazee.com. The firm is a subsidiary of the US auction giant eBay. On Friday detectives arrested Baazee.com's chief executive, Avnish Bajaj, a US citizen and Harvard graduate. On Saturday a court bundled him off to jail for a week. Yesterday the police arrested the 17-year-old boy as well.

Issue no. 326 - 5 December 2004

• BE - Provider Tiscali in Belgium forced to disconnect P2P-users (EDRI)
  A Brussels court of first instance has ruled on 30 November 2004 that internet provider Tiscali should disconnect customers if they violate copyrights, and block the access for all customers to websites offering file-sharing programs. The case was instituted by the Belgian Society of Authors, Composers and Publishers (SABAM) with an appeal to consideration 59 of the European Copyright directive (2001/29/EC). The Court apparently followed this line of reasoning, but ordered technical research into the possibility of blocking access. The verdict is not public yet. It is completely unclear how Tiscali should detect possible unlawful behaviour from their customers. The verdict seems to contradict the provider liability provisions in the e-Commerce directive (2000/31/EC).

Issue no. 325 - 28 November 2004

• US - Google sued for copyright infringement by linking (RedHerring)
  Perfect 10, a publisher of an adult entertainment web site and magazine, has filed a lawsuit against Google, alleging that the search engine giant provided Internet users with at least 800,000 unauthorized links to images of Perfect 10's nude models, stealing membership fees and advertising revenue from the Los Angeles publisher. The lawsuit is one of the first of its kind against Google.

Issue no. 324 - 21 November 2004

• FR - Court rules in favour of ISP in Armenian genocide dispute (Reporters sans frontières)
  The central Paris court on 15 November 2004 handed down a first explicit decision on the Law on confidence in the digital economy (LEN), that judges an Internet hosting provider's responsibility for content - and found in favour of the provider. The case concerning the 1915 Armenian genocide and pitting the Armenian National Committee (CDCA) against the Turkish consul in France and Wanadoo, demonstrated the difficulty of applying the concept 'manifestly illegal' content, as introduced by the LEN law. The CDCA had laid a complaint against Turkish consul in Paris, Aydin Sezgin, and against Wanadoo in connection with articles contesting the Armenian genocide on the consulate's website.

• NL - Dutch government cracks down on 'radical' websites (Digital Media Europe)
  Following the murder of controversial Dutch film maker Theo van Gogh by a suspected religious extremist, the Dutch minister of home affairs and minister of justice have announced proposals to crack down on radical websites and their authors. To get a better handle on the situation, the government is proposing analysing controversial information posted on the internet, giving itself the power to order ISPs to shut down radical websites if necessary, and to set up online content monitoring groups.

• US - Jury awards $434,000 to woman who met husband online (AP)
  A federal jury awarded a woman $434,000 in damages after she sued an Internet matchmaking service that introduced her to her abusive husband.

• US - Privacy, Piracy and Due Process in Peer-to-Peer File Swapping Suits (FindLaw)
  by Anita Ramasastry. Since 2003, the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA) has been suing peer-to-peer (P2P) file swappers and downloaders. The RIAA alleges, in its suits, that P2P file swapping and downloading, when it involves pirated files, violates copyright law - and, at times, also the Digital Music Copyright Act (DMCA). RIAA typically files a "John Doe" lawsuit based on an Internet Protocol (IP) address connected to P2P trading via Kazaa, Grokster, Limewire, or another, similar system. The suit is often filed in the jurisdiction where the relevant Internet Service Provider (ISP) is located. Once the suit is filed, the RIAA subpoenas the ISP to force it to disclose the real name of the "John Doe" associated with the IP address. That person, however, is not necessarily the file trader - it may instead be a relative, college roommate, or landlord. And neither that person - nor the file trader, if he or she is a different person - is given prior notice and a chance to fight the subpoena. In a Pennsylvania civil copyright infringement action, Elektra Entertainment Group et al v. Does 1-6, the court held that before revealing the "John Does'" information, Penn must first alert the John Does; explain what has happen; and explain how they may contest the charges against them. The court also provided a model notice attached to its order for Penn to use.

Issue no. 323 - 24 October 2004

• FR - Le génocide arménien et la responsabilité des hébergeurs (Juriscom.net)
  Le 11 octobre 2004 s'ouvrait l´audience devant le TGI de Paris mettant en cause, d´une part, le Consul Général de Turquie pour « propagande négationniste » diffusée sur son site Internet et, d´autre part, l'hébergeur Wanadoo pour n´avoir pas suspendu ou supprimé ce texte, malgré la mise en demeure du Comité de défense de la cause arménienne (CDCA).

• UK - Boxing promoter's right to sue over US web comments upheld (out-law.com)
  The Court of Appeal has upheld a High Court decision which gave permission to boxing promoter Don King to sue heavyweight champion Lennox Lewis and others over comments reported on US boxing web sites. Lewis v. King.

• US - Chilling Effects of 'Cease and Desist' Letters (Free Expression Policy Project)
  A Preliminary Report by Tricia Beckles and Marjorie Heins. As part of FEPP's research into how well fair use is actually protecting artists, journalists, webbloggers, and others, we have been examining an extensive database of cease and desist letters put together by the Chilling Effects Clearinghouse (www.chillingeffects.org). We analyzed 131 cease and desist letters deposited with Chilling Effects during the first five months of 2004 and chose seven typical ones for this preliminary report. Many of the letters are actually not sent to the alleged wrongdoers, but to Internet Service Providers or search engines like Google. Under §512 of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (the "DMCA"), ISPs must remove Web sites or other online material once they receive a "take-down" letter from a copyright owner saying that the material is copyright-protected. ISPs can be liable for copyright infringement simply for hosting this material, unless they comply "expeditiously" with these take-down letters.1

• US - Diebold Coughs Up Cash in Copyright Case (EFF)
  The Electronic Frontier Foundation capped its historic victory in a copyright abuse case against electronic voting machine manufacturer Diebold. The corporation agreed to pay $125,000 in damages and fees after a California district court found that Diebold had knowingly misrepresented that online commentators, including Indymedia and two college students, had infringed the company's copyrights. Diebold is the first company to be held liable for violating section 512(f) of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA), which makes it unlawful to use DMCA takedown threats when the copyright holder knows that infringement has not actually occurred. The section also stipulates that anyone who issues such frivolous threats must pay damages, including costs and attorneys' fees, to those harmed by the misrepresentations.

Issue no. 321 - 10 October 2004

• DE - German fined for publishing neo-Nazi web links (Register)
  by Monika Ermert. Linking to neo-Nazi websites in Germany can cost you dear. The founder of a German online protest forum - against web censorship was sentenced by the district court in Stuttgart today for linking to two neo-Nazi sites and a bad-taste website hosted in the US. Alvar Freude is not an advocate of neo-Nazi content but thinks of himself as a fighter for a free internet and freedom of information. But links to the websites of neo-Nazis Gary Lauck and Dan Block and the legendarily nasty rotten.com landed him with a fine of €300.

• DE - Prozess gegen Netzaktivisten wegen Hyperlinks (Heise)
  In Stuttgart beginnt am 7. Oktober der Prozess gegen den Netzkünstler und Online-Aktivisten Alvar Freude. Die Staatsanwaltschaft wirft Freude vor, durch Hyperlinks in einer Dokumentation über die umstrittenen Sperrverfügungen der Bezirksregierung Düsseldorf sowie in der Zensur-Satire FreedomFone "vorsätzlich Beihilfe zur Verbreitung nationalsozialistischer Propagandamittel" geleistet zu haben.

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