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(Pressemeldung) Mehr Selbstkontrolle, Eigenverantwortung und Medienpraxis. Der Senat hat eine weitgehende und grundlegende Novellierung des hamburgischen Medienrechts beschlossen. Die gesetzlichen Rahmenbedingungen gerade am Medienstandort Hamburg werden für die privaten Rundfunkveranstalter endlich auf die praktischen und rechtlichen Erfordernisse des für die Bundesrepublik typischen dualen Rundfunksystems zurückgeführt. Eigenverantwortung und Selbstkontrolle der privaten Sender sollen an die Stelle veralteter Vorschriften treten.
(RAPID) The Cannes Film Festival and the European Commission are joining forces to organise for the first time this year a European Day, which will bring together Ministers of Culture and cinema professionals from the 15 existing Member States and from the new Member States to discuss ways and means of promoting European cinema and intensifying relations with other world cinemas. European Day on 15 May will close with the award of the fourth edition of the EU's MEDIA Prize, set up to reward film distribution within the spirit of the MEDIA programme. Fifteen films with MEDIA support are in the running this year at Cannes.
(EurActiv.com) Based on a document from the Presidency, the Council held an exchange of views on the Commission's plans to review the Television Without Frontiers Directive on 6 May. During their latest review of the Commission's Television Without Frontiers (TWF) Directive, the ministers of culture of the 15 current and 10 new EU Member States discussed the key issues of: access to events of major importance (i.e., that such events should be broadcast free and cannot be tied to exclusive pay television rights); television advertising and the need to adapt associated regulations to new technologies; ways to make television coverage of major events accessible to all viewers (i.e., exclusive rights holders would be obliged to provide "brief extracts"). By the end of 2003, the Commission will publish a Communication on future audiovisual policy. The Commission will stage another public hearing on the TWF Directive on 23-25 June 2003 The focus of the hearing will be the promotion of cultural diversity and of competitiveness of the European programme industry; the protection of minors and public order; the right to reply; and the application of the relevant regulations. Minutes of 2503rd Council meeting - EDUCATION, YOUTH AND CULTURE - Brussels, 5 and 6 May 2003
(Aftenposten) Swedish police believe the child porn case uncovered by Kripos, Norway's National Bureau of Crime Investigation, can be one of the biggest in Internet history. Over 40 young girls may have been victimized. "In recent years there have been many child porn cases involving the Internet, but this has dimensions that make it unique. We believe that over 40 young girls may have been abused and photographed. There are many indications that this is the most significant case of this type in the world," said Per-Olov Forslund, head of Sweden's national police squad in charge of fighting child pornography. see also Raid hits child porn producers (Aftenposten). Police in Sweden and Norway launched a combined action on what they believe could be a pedophile network that has produced and distributed child pornography around the world. Dozens of Swedish children may have been abused. Two arrests were made as police descended in Fredrikstad, Norway and Swedish capital Stockholm. Computer hard disks were confiscated and will be examined for pornographic images.
(CCRC) Founded in 2001, the Computer Crime Research Center (CCRC) is an independent institute dedicated to the research of cyber-crime, cyber-terrorism and other issues in computer crime. The CCRC is a non-profit organization comprised of professionals dedicated to education in the field of cyber-crime and cyber-terrorism prevention and investigation. CCRC members include Ukrainian and international researchers. Research is carried out within the framework of the joint US-Ukrainian scientific-research program of the Computer Crime Research Center at the Humanitarian University (ZIGMU), Zaporozhye, Ukraine and the Transnational Crime and Corruption Center (TraCCC) at the American University, Washington, DC, USA. Website in Russian and English.
(The Guardian) The rock star Pete Townshend was yesterday cautioned by police and placed on the sex offenders register for five years following his admission that he accessed child pornography on the internet. Townshend, 57, received the caution at Kingston police station in south-west London for "accessing a website containing child abuse images".
(New York University Law Review) by Orin S. Kerr, George Washington University Law School. In the last twenty-five years, the federal government and all fifty states have enacted new criminal laws that prohibit unauthorized access to computers. These new laws attempt to draw a line between criminality and free conduct in cyberspace. No one knows what it means to "access" a computer, however, nor when access becomes "unauthorized." This Article presents a comprehensive inquiry into the meaning of unauthorized access statutes. Full text.
(Press Release) More than sixty percent of the world's cybercrime originates in the US, with hacking and fraud at the top of the offences, the ICC's annual Cybercrime Review has found. The review, produced by ICC's Cybercrime Unit provides detailed analysis of the major cybercrime events from January 2002 through to March 2003.
(Press Release) Virgin Wine Online has amended or deleted terms and conditions regarding delivery and cancellation rights, and terms that limited Virgin Wine Online's liability. following concerns raised by the Office of Fair Trading (OFT) .
(Washington Post) Federal authorities have arrested 130 online scammers and seized more than $17 million in assets as part of a continuing assault on Internet crime. The sweep is part of "Operation E-Con," an ongoing investigation involving 89,000 victims and losses of more than $176 million. The crimes included multimillion-dollar swindles, online auction scams, identity theft, business-opportunity frauds, and intellectual property theft and piracy.
(ABA) A national survey has found that the level of concern about the portrayal of violence on free-to-air television has decreased over the past decade, but that violence remains the main concern of viewers. In 2002, 14 per cent of adults spontaneously mentioned violence as a concern compared to 25 per cent in 1989 when a similar survey was conducted. The Australian Broadcasting Authority today released the results of the study it commissioned on community attitudes towards the portrayal of violence on free-to-air television.
(Guardian) Lord Puttnam warned the government that it was "facing a black hole at the centre of the regulatory universe" unless it made special provisions for the funding of new media and telecoms super-regulator Ofcom. The Labour peer, who chaired the joint scrutiny committee looking into the communications bill, issued the warning as the House of Lords continued to debate amendments to the legislation. The peers have been granted an extra two days to debate changes to the bill, which is moving at a snail's pace through the House of Lords.
(Press release) The International Chamber of Commerce's 2003 Intellectual Property Roadmap provides an overview for businesses and government officials of the newest developments in IP rights and protection. Compiled by the more than 240 IP experts who make up the ICC's Commission on Intellectual Property, this year's roadmap analyses such emerging IP issues as information products, indigenous rights and biotechnology and genetic rights.
(Law and Contemporary Problems) Volume 66 Winter/Spring 2003 Numbers 1 & 2. Papers from a Conference organized at Duke University School of Law in November 2001. see Foreword: The Opposite Of Property? by James Boyle.
(MSNBC) The music industry’s antipiracy efforts took an embarrassing turn when the Recording Industry Association of America acknowledged it has erroneously sent dozens of copyright infringement notices.
(CNET News.com) At a leading music company, I came closer to understanding the real problem that the labels have with P2P services. They do not necessarily see a threat in teens downloading free music and then not buying the tracks. Instead, they are worried about the possible breakdown of their current hegemony over music creation and distribution. Until they find an Internet strategy that leaves them comfortable, they will stymie any technological advancement.
(Reuters) Universal Music Group is seeking to join a $17 billion suit brought by music publishers against Bertelsmann, alleging it aided the once-popular Napster Internet music service in piracy.
(RAPID) The 1995 Data Protection Directive has broadly achieved its aim of ensuring strong protection for privacy while making it easier for personal data to be moved around the EU, according to a European Commission report on the transposition of Directive 95/46/EC. However, late implementation by Member States and differences in the ways the Directive is applied at national level have prevented Europe's economy from getting the full benefit of the Directive. The report proposes a work plan to reduce those differences, based on co-operation among Member States and between Member States and the Commission, followed by a review in 2005 of whether amendments to the Directive are necessary.
(Heise) Die Verwendung der Webadresse tauchschule-dortmund.de ist unzulässig. Laut Urteil des Oberlandesgerichts Hamm (OLG) liegt in der Benutzung eine wettbewerbsrechtliche Irreführung der Verbraucher. Damit gab das Gericht in zweiter Instanz der Klage der gleichfalls in Dortmund ansässigen Tauchschule Schneider statt, die vom derzeitigen Domain-Inhaber und Konkurrenten Bernd Wolsing die Unterlassung verlangt hatte.
(BBC) Easyart, the online seller of artwork, has won its fight to hang onto its domain name in the face of the threat of legal action from Stelios Haji-Ioannou's Easygroup. Easygroup, the company behind the Easyjet budget airline and Easycar motor rental service, had accused Easyart of "passing off" - riding on its coat-tails with a similar domain name.
(AP) It could soon be easier to buy adult videos at your local sex shop than through the Internet. PayPal, a subsidiary of eBay that processes payments anywhere in cyberspace, will stop taking payments for most adult-themed merchandise over the next five weeks. Other electronic payment services, including Yahoo! and Visa USA, have also tightened restrictions on sexually explicit items
(Australian IT) The federal Government has allocated a total of $2 million over the next four years to regulate internet content and 190x phone services in this year's Budget. The government agency charged with monitoring internet censorship laws, NetAlert, had its future secured with the new federal Budget. NetAlert was created in 2000 to monitor complaints about internet content and raise awareness of federal internet censorship laws introduced that year. Earlier this year it claimed it would not be able to continue operating without a This year's federal Budget allocated $500,000 per year for the next three years for the agency. The money comes from existing funds budgeted for the Australian Broadcasting Authority, NetAlert's parent agency.
(FMC) The Federal Communications Commission has virtually no evidence of citizen backing for their controversial media ownership plan, according to an analysis of comments filed in the FCC. The Future of Music Coalition today released a survey of the comments available for public review in the Broadcast Ownership rulemaking. Citizen response to these proposed rule changes is overwhelmingly negative. As of May 8, 2003, 9065 citizens unaffiliated to a corporation, organization or association opposed changing existing media ownership rules that would pave the way for further consolidation, while only 11 unaffiliated citizens supported changing the rules.
(Heise) Bundesjustizministerin Brigitte Zypries hat die Kritik des Bundesdatenschutzbeauftragten Joachim Jacob an der steigenden Zahl von Telefonüberwachungen zurückgewiesen. Die Telefonüberwachung habe sich als "unverzichtbares und effizientes Mittel" zur Strafverfolgung erwiesen, sagte Zypries bei der Präsentation eines Forschungsberichtes über Praxis und Nutzen der Überwachungsmethode. Jacob hatte in der vergangenen Woche kritisiert, es gebe keine Begründung für die wachsende Zahl der Überwachungen. siehe Pressemitteilung des Bundesjustizministeriums. Siehe auch Gutachten zur „Rechtwirklichkeit und Effizienz der Überwachung der Telekommunikation nach den §§ 100a, 100b StPO und anderer verdeckter Ermittlungsmaßnahmen" des Max-Planck-Instituts für ausländisches und internationales Strafrecht in Freiburg. siehe auch BMWA veröffentlicht Studie zur Überwachung der Telekommunikation in G7-Staaten (Pressemitteilung). Die WIK-Consult hat die Ergebnisse einer vom Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Arbeit in Auftrag gegebenen Studie zum Thema "Rechtlicher Rahmen für das Angebot von Telekommunikations-Diensten (TK-Diensten) und den Betrieb von TK-Anlagen in den G7-Staaten in Bezug auf die Sicherstellung der Überwachbarkeit der Telekommunikation" vorgestellt. Kurzfassung (PDF, 180 KB) Langfassung (PDF, 424 KB). siehe auch Telefonüberwachung kommt immer mehr in Schwung.
(BBC) Police and other officials in the UK are making around a million requests for access to data held by net and telephone companies each year, according to figures compiled from the government, legal experts and the internet industry. The findings were announced at a public debate into government proposals to widen powers for internet snooping held in London. But a Home Office spokesman disputed the figures, estimating that the number of requests were half that suggested. The requests include telephone billing data, e-mail logs and customer details, which privacy experts estimate could amount to a billion individual items of data, ranging from credit card numbers to numbers dialled. see also UK - Whistle blown over extent of UK data seizures (ZDNet UK).
(CNET News.com) Federal and state law enforcement agencies pledged to take an aggressive new approach to fighting spam: identifying "open relay" mail servers that serve as conduits for massive quantities of junk e-mail. The agencies - in tandem with officials from Australia, Canada and Japan - have sent letters to operators of over 1,000 e-mail servers around the globe warning that an open relay "creates problems for consumers worldwide, for law enforcement and for your organization."
(Reuters) The man known as the "Buffalo Spammer," who has allegedly sent 825 million unwanted e-mails, has been arrested and arraigned, New York Attorney General Eliot Spitzer said. Carmack was charged with: stealing the identity of two residents to open Internet access accounts with EarthLink Inc. ; falsifying the business records of EarthLink; forging the headers of e-mail sent from the EarthLink accounts; and possessing a software program designed to create the forged e-mails.
(AP) Regulators filed fraud charges against a 20-year-old Kentucky man who allegedly scammed money from would-be investors by creating a Web site for a fictitious federal agency. The Securities and Exchange Commission lawsuit, filed in U.S. District court in Tennessee, charged K.C. Smith with raising $102,554 through bogus Web sites and about 9 million unsolicited e-mail messages. Smith even used the SEC's own seal to convince investors the scheme was legitimate, according to the lawsuit.
(disLEXia) Unnoticed by the international scene ISPs in Switzerland fought a blocking order by a court adressing the blocking of three web sites. The court argued that the sites contained deliberate insults and asked for DNS-Tampering and blocking at proxy level. Some providers complied but ISPs appealed and the court lifted the blocking order..
(Heise) Das Landgericht Köln hat in einem Urteil zur Frage der Meinungsfreiheit in Internetforen und der Haftung des Betreibers für Forumseinträge Stellung genommen.
(Reuters) NeuStar plans in September to launch a "child-friendly" Internet zone free of violence, pornography and other adult material. The ".kids.us" Internet domain will be open to U.S. residents and businesses on Sept. 4, while registered trademark holders will be able to reserve their marks during a special preregistration period from June 17 to Aug. 15. Last fall Congress directed NeuStar to set up the domain after previous attempts to shield children from inappropriate material online failed to survive court challenges. Web sites within the ".kids.us" domain will be screened to ensure that they do not carry foul language, pornography, graphic violence and other material inappropriate for children 13 and younger. Nor will these sites include certain interactive features, such as chat rooms and instant messaging, or links to Web sites outside the domain.
(Journal of Adolescence) by Janis Wolak, Kimberley J. Mitchell, and David Finkelhor, University of New Hampshire.
(Kyodo News) The House of Representatives passed a bill to regulate Internet personals sites with the aim of stopping child prostitution and other crimes. If enacted into law, the legislation will ban users from posting messages on sites to approach people under 18 for sex with or without an offer of money. Violators, regardless of age and sex, will be subject to a fine of up to 1 million yen.
(Observer) Safeguards are now being drawn up by the mobile phone industry to cover high-tech handsets which allow users to get online from their mobiles, rather than having to log on to a computer. Parents will soon be offered phones with 'blocking' devices to prevent children stumbling across explicit websites and unsuitable online 'chatrooms'. In the meantime families should think carefully about buying advanced models for teenagers, said Jack Wraith, chair of the Mobile Industry Crime Action Forum.
(Reuters) Fighting to head off tighter regulation of violent video games, the trade group that represents game publishers said new research showed most parents view their children's game playing as positive and nearly all monitor what they buy. Parents say they are with their children when games are purchased nearly 90 percent of the time, according to the survey conducted on behalf of the Interactive Digital Software Association. In addition, 60 percent of parents say they play video games with their kids at least once a month, and two-thirds of parents believe games have a positive effect on their children's lives, the IDSA said.
(Press Release) The Canadian Internet Registration Authority (CIRA) has learned that an organization named CiraWatch posted an article alleging that CIRA’s validation process for domain name registrations discriminated against certain ethnic communities. CIRA has responded to the article's allegations by serving the operator of the www.cirawatch.com website with a notice pursuant to Section 5 of the Libel and Slander Act, R.S.O. 1990, c.L-12. CIRA has a zero tolerance policy with respect to any form of racial discrimination.
(National Post) QWest , a large U.S. Internet service provider, has pulled the plug on Ernst Zundel's controversial Web site after the Canadian Human Rights Commission warned the site contained hate literature. The site, however, re-emerged on another U.S. host server. Mr. Zundel is in detention in Canada pending a Federal Court review of the government's declaration that he is a threat to national security, an order requiring removal to his native Germany.
(PCMLP) Support for Cooperation and Coordination Projects in Europe. Stimulating the development of trustmarks for websites and enhancing trust in e-business and internet is a noble goal, but not an easy one. Trustmarks for websites to be successful need to have a strong basis, a strong, well recognised brand and a financially sustainable business model. In other words: a successful trustmark requires a lot of money and support. Without good marketing and a strong brand trustmarks will not be recognised and have little effect in practice. A paper written for the IAPCODE project funded by the Safer Internet Action Plan, administered by the European Commission.
(Washington Post) The administration is asking Congress to continue its five-year-old moratorium on Internet taxes. The moratorium prevents state and local governments from placing new taxes on Internet access. It also says that states and localities cannot place new taxes on goods or services bought online if they're not taxed offline. The moratorium does not prohibit states from collecting online sales taxes, a popular misconception. States can collect sales taxes on Internet purchases if the merchant has a business location in the state and the customer is also located there.
(BBC) T-Online, Germany's biggest internet service provider, is back in profit, helped by an increase in the number of broadband customers
(Guardian) Record companies targeting teenagers with new music download services may be forced to think again. Latest figures revealed that there were as many music fans in their middle ages downloading music as there are those under 24, The research, by Vivendi Universal-owned legal download service MP3.com, shows that 24% of its users are over 45, while a further quarter are aged 25 to 43 and 23% aged between 18 and 24. Separate new research from Forrester also provides some rare cheer for the record industry, predicting that online downloads will be worth £900m by 2007, 13% of the European market, as broadband connections become more widespread and consumers become used to buying tracks online.
(BBC) Italian gangsters have come up with the idea of using third-generation (3G) video phones to manipulate the vote in forthcoming regional elections. Mafia groups have traditionally tried to influence elections in Italy to hold some sway over successful candidates. In the past they have used a combination of the carrot and stick, offering bribes or threatening violence. The 3G phones would be used by a voter in the polling booth to send back images proving they had cast their ballot as instructed.
(Reuters) T-Mobile International, Europe's second largest mobile phone operator, has shelved plans to introduce a smart phone powered by Microsoft software. T-Mobile announced in February plans to introduce the phone with Microsoft's Smartphone software this summer in a move analysts saw as a blow to mobile handset industry leader Nokia. But industry sources said the phone software still has "fundamental problems'' leading to high failure rates.
(BBC) Research has found that mobile phones are becoming essential to the management of our private and emotional lives. The three-year study found that many people would be unable to live their lives without their phone. The study, jointly carried out by the Henley Management Centre and Teleconomy, looked into the sentimental attachment that people have to their phones. see also y do tngrs luv 2 txt msg? (Kluwer) by Grinter, R. E. and M. Eldridge. Proceedings of the Seventh European Conference on Computer-Supported Cooperative Work ECSCW '01.
(CNET News.com) Nokia and MasterCard launched a trial of a new breed of mobile phone technology this month that lets people use their Nokia phones as credit cards. Nokia is distributing 500 new phones equipped with the special payment technology as well as 1,500 free phone covers that can snap onto current models in Irving, Texas, a suburb of Dallas and the home of Nokia's U.S. headquarters.
(kuro5hin.org) by Seth Finkelstein. Every once in a while, in order to remind myself of the quality of information typically reported, I trace down the source of a particularly ridiculous story. The "Klingon Language Interpreter" myth, which is spawning now, provides an amusing case study of the process of pack journalism.
(EMF) Brussels, 16-17 June 2003. The EMF's annual conference - co-organised for the second year in a row with the European Multimedia Associations' Convention (EMMAC) - is a major networking event. It is the prime European meeting point for digital media companies & associations, digital content owners & aggregators as well as technology & network suppliers, their clients & users, public institutions involved in Information Society policy making, Western Europeans and Central Europeans. The conference's opening session will focus on the opportunities of EU enlargement for the digital media industries. It will then highlight eight of the most promising segments/issues of Europe's eEconomy: -Electronic payments and the legal framework for a single payment area -mCommerce -Video On Demand and Pay Per View for PC and TV distribution -Content development for multi-platform distribution -Obtaining licences and rights’ clearances -Distributing protected contents -Value Added Services for ISPs in the European B-2-C market-place -Integration of value-added products & services into B-2-B ISP-portfolios. Draft programme.
(RAPID) The European Commission plans to hold, jointly with the Council of Europe, a "European Day of Civil Justice" once a year throughout Europe. The events planned in the Member States include guided tours, open days, local conferences and meetings with members of the legal professions and events for children. The date planned for the launch of the "European Day of Civil Justice" is 24 October. The Commission intends to organise a discussion forum on the Internet to give the public direct answers to any question relating to Community policy on the creation of a European area of civil justice, and also to find out what their expectations are.
(EDHEC) Nice (France), les 6 et 7 novembre 2003. L'organisation de ce colloque a pour ambition d'enrichir le débat relatif aux enjeux juridiques liés à l'essor du commerce électronique. Quatre grandes sessions constituent les principaux axes de réflexion de ce colloque. Chaque session se déroule sur une demi-journée comprenant plusieurs interventions.
(Economist) So far, information technology has thrived on exponentials. Now it has to get back to earth. Given the current recession in IT, the idea of a parallel digital universe where the laws of economic gravity do not apply has been quietly abandoned. The sector is going through deep structural changes which suggest that it is growing up or even, horrors, maturing. see Paradise lost, Modifying Moore's law, Moving up the stack, Techniques, not technology, At your service The fortune of the commons, Cold killer application, Regulating rebels, Déjà vu all over again.
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