- AU- Australia shutters music piracy site +/-
(Reuters) Australian police have closed down an Internet music piracy site and arrested three students in an alleged copyright scam that cost the music industry at least $37 million.
- OSCE - Media Representative focuses on freedom of expression in the digital era +/-
(OSCE) The OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, Freimut Duve, has published a booklet titled From Quill to Cursor - Freedom of the Media in the Digital Era. Experts from UNESCO and the Council of Europe as well as journalists and internet service providers contributed their papers from a one-day workshop on freedom of the media and the Internet that was held in Vienna in November 2002.
- TN - Le gouvernement veut "nationaliser" les cybercafés tunisiens +/-
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(Transfert) Le gouvernement tunisien gèle l'octroi d'autorisations pour les cybercafés privés et annonce son intention de limiter l'accès à internet à des "centres de services publics" contrôlés par l'Etat. Les autorités rappellent qu'elles "procèdent à la révision approfondie et minutieuse (sic) des critères d'octroi des autorisations d'exploitation des centres publics d'internet".
- UK - Video game ad 'condoned violence' +/-
(BBC) A poster for a video game has been found by the UK's advertising watchdog to condone violence. The Advertising Standards Authority (ASA) ruled that a poster for Mortal Kombat: Deadly Alliance was irresponsible and likely to incite people, especially children, to violence.
- UK - Internet Banner and Pop-up Advertisements Survey 2002 +/-
(ASA) The Advertising Standards Authority has published findings from a survey into the compliance of Internet advertisements with the British Codes of Advertising and Sales Promotion.
- US - Group questions state site-blocking law +/-
(CNET News.com) The Center for Democracy and Technology (CDT) has appealed the Pennsylvania attorney general's recent decision not to disclose the list of Internet Protocol (IP) addresses to sites suspected of featuring child pornography. CDT is seeking the list because it suspects the government's campaign is overly broad and has forced Internet service providers (ISPs) to cordon off unoffending sites as well.
- US - Monster.com's resume purge draws fire +/-
(CNET News.com) Job-hunters at Monster.com who happened to go to school in Syria or Iran may be in for an unpleasant surprise. So might employers using the popular job-search site, which boasts more than 800,000 job postings, to advertise open positions in Sudan, Burma and five other countries. In a move the company claims is designed to comply with federal regulations, Monster.com will delete most references to those countries from job postings and resumes. A note that Monster.com sent to affected users says: "Your resume will be altered, removing all sanctioned countries from your resume."
- EU - Piracy Is Not A Victimless Crime +/-
(IFPI) Speech by Iain Grant, Head of Enforcement, IFPI. European Parliament, 23 April 2003. The economic damage done by piracy is enormous, but its impact goes beyond the financial losses to record companies. Its victims are: artists who are not paid for their creative work; economies starved of new investment; governments who lose hundreds of millions of tax revenue; and consumers who ultimately get less diversity and less choice.
- FR - Peer-to-peer : les utilisateurs bientôt suivis à la trace ? +/-
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(Forum des droits sur l'internet) Dans le cadre du projet de loi relatif à la protection des données personnelles, les sénateurs ont autorisé les personnes morales de droit privé à procéder à des traitements de données relatifs aux infractions et condamnations. Une première application pourrait viser les utilisateurs des réseaux peer-to-peer.
- Madonna swears at music pirates +/-
(BBC) Popstar Madonna is known as a woman who does not mince her words. She has used her forthright manner to try to stop online piracy of her latest album, American Life. File-sharing networks have been flooded with fake tracks, which contain no music but instead have Madonna saying; "What the f*** do you think you are doing?" But despite efforts to stop unauthorised copies appearing on the net before its release, the album was readily available for download on several MP3 websites last week.
- US - Suit Against Web Song-Swappers Rejected +/-
(Reuters) A federal court in Los Angeles denied a request to shut down Internet song-swapping services Grokster and Morpheus, handing a stunning setback to the record labels and movie studios that have sought to curb unauthorized downloading of their works. The judge said the two services should not be shut down because they cannot control what is traded over their system. Like a videocassette recorder, the software could be used for legitimate purposes as well as traffic in copyrighted songs and movies, he said.