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(RAPID) Viviane Reding, European Commissioner for Education and Culture, Westminster Media Forum, London, 22 April 2004.
(RPAID) Through a Communication C (2004) 1450, the Commission intends to clarify its interpretation of the about the proper interpretation of the rules on advertising in the Television without Frontiers (TVWF) Directive in relation to new advertising techniques, such as split screen, interactive advertising and virtual advertising. The Communication shows that new advertising techniques and new forms of advertising are compatible with the Directive, provided that their use respects the objectives of general interest pursued by the Directive, namely the viewers right to a clear separation between editorial content and commercial communication as well as the viewers right to protection against excessive advertising, as detailed in the Directive, and the right of the rights-holders to the respect of the integrity of their audiovisual works. In accordance with the case law of the European Court of Justice, it is based on the principle that a prohibition of and advertising technique or a form of advertising applies to the extent and to the extent only that it is clearly stated in the Directive. However, it is without prejudice of the Directive's faculty for the Member States to foresee stricter and/or more detailed rules for broadcasters under their jurisdiction.
(RAPID) The European Regulators Group (ERG), which brings together the national authorities responsible for electronic communication markets, have published a Common Position on how they apply remedies to address competition problems in the newly opened markets for electronic communications. The EU regulatory framework sets out a 'menu' of remedies that National Regulatory Authorities (NRAs) can apply to address specific problems that may arise in markets where there is one or more operators with significant market power. The 'menu' includes obligations to provide access, non-discrimination, transparency, cost accounting and price control. see also explanatory memorandum and Common Position on bitstream access.
(CNET News.com) Aiming to portray itself as the victim of overreaching regulators, Microsoft has released a position paper insisting that the European Union's antitrust sanctions amount to 'new law' that could hurt others in the technology industry. The seven-page paper is a cross between a treatise and a legal brief, citing both the potential damage of the ruling as well as alleged legal shortcomings of the decision. "The Commission is seeking to make new law that will have an adverse impact on intellectual property rights and the ability of dominant firms to innovate," Microsoft said. "This adverse impact will not be confined to the software industry or to Europe." The release of the paper comes just as the European Union is preparing to issue the full 300-page text of its ruling against Microsoft. The software maker has already seen the report, which is expected to be made public Thursday.
(CNET News.com) A record fine imposed on Microsoft in Europe last month arose from the longstanding nature of the software company's anticompetitive practices, according to a massive report from European regulators. The European Commission's 300-page document says the more than five-year duration of those practices pushed the fine to 497 million euros--now about $590 million--well above what Microsoft would have been charged simply on the basis of its business practices. 'The amount of the fine to be imposed on the basis of the gravity of the infringement should therefore be increased by 50% to take account of its duration. On that basis, the base amount of the fine is EUR 497,196,304,' the document says.
(BBC) A hospital consultant has been cleared of child porn charges, in what police say is the first failed prosecution under Operation Ore. Dr Paul Grout, 46, was cleared of four charges when a judge ordered the jury to find him not guilty. He was arrested at Hull Royal Infirmary in October 2002 after his credit card details came up during the inquiry into child pornography on the internet. He denied two charges of attempting to incite the distribution of indecent photographs of children and two charges of incitement to distribute indecent photographs of children. The Judge at Hull Crown Court ordered the jury to find the defendant not guilty. He said that, based on the evidence, it was not possible to exclude the possibility that someone else had used Dr Grout's credit card details by hacking into his computer. The court had already heard that no images of child pornography were ever found on any computers used by Dr Grout, or at his home.
(Internetnews.com) The International Centre for Missing & Exploited Children launched a new campaign against online child pornography backed with a $1 million contribution from philanthropist Sheila C. Johnson and Microsoft. Through Johnson's $500,000 donation and Microsoft's equal match, the money is earmarked for law enforcement technology training throughout the world. The first of these four-day sessions in fighting computer-facilitated crimes against children took place in France in December and a second was held in Brazil two months ago. The International Centre plans as many as 10 more sessions this year.
(Reporters sans frontières) An 18-year-old Tunisian Internet-user Abderrazak Bourguiba, was sentenced to 25 months in prison by the youth criminal court in Tunis on 16 April. Eight other members of the 'Zarzis Internet-users' group were sentenced to prison terms of up to 26 years on 6 April on terrorism charges for having downloaded files from the Internet that were judged subversive.
(Reuters) U.S. broadcasters have mounted their first major defense against an indecency crackdown, warning federal regulators that harsher policies were already chilling free speech across broadcast television and radio. A coalition of more than 20 broadcasters, artists' groups and media organizations filed a petition asking the Federal Communications Commission to reconsider a profanity ruling in the first concerted effort against what some commentators have called a new sexual McCarthyism.
(Globe and Mail) Music downloaders may have a short honeymoon from potential prosecution as Hélène Schérrèr, the new federal Heritage Minister has promised to punish music file sharers. Officials at Heritage Canada, in tandem with Industry Canada, will soon meet to draft legislation to amend a loophole in the Copyright Act that permits music downloading. In addition, the minister will push to have the federal government ratify two international treaties that protect the ownership of copyright materials. In a judgment last month, the Federal Court of Canada ruled that swapping songs on the Internet for personal use does not break the law.
(RAPID) The European Commission has adopted new rules for applying competition policy to the licensing of patents, know-how and software copyright. see also Commission finalises modernisation of the EU antitrust enforcement rules.
(RAPID) Community legislation on the collective management of rights, and particularly on the governance of collecting societies, would be highly desirable. This is one of the main conclusions arrived at in a Communication COM(2004) 261 by the European Commission following an in-depth analysis of the issues surrounding the management of copyright and related rights. Moreover, the Commission is immediately launching a further consultation exercise on what such legislation might consist of. The Commission asks all interested parties to submit any additional comments before 21 June 2004. The Communication also concludes that interoperability and acceptance by all stakeholders, including consumers, of Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems is a pre-condition for their emergence. Lastly, the Communication sets out several options for improving the situation regarding the development of Community-wide licensing for the exploitation of rights.
(CNET News.com) by Stefanie Olsen. Hollywood is poised to up the ante in its war against file swappers, with new technology that could make it easier to remove suspected pirates from campus networks. Movie studios, record labels and technology companies have been testing the system for months, according to sources familiar with the project. Known as the Automated Copyright Notice System (ACNS), the technology promises to make copyright enforcement easier on peer-to-peer networks, saving schools and Internet service providers (ISPs) time and money. ACNS allows them to automatically restrict or cut off Internet access for alleged infringers on notice from a record label or movie studio. For example, universities using ACNS could instantly send notices of copyright infringement to students by e-mail and restrict their network access until they have removed the file.
(Guardian) Once it was a plucky upstart, but now the multi-billion-dollar firm is charged with invading our privacy. 'Google's Email raises Privacy Fears,' declared the Indian Express, a headline echoed around this world after the company announced it is to offer a free email service called Gmail. On a technological level, Gmail (which will start as a pilot project) is far superior to similar services currently offered by the likes of Yahoo and Microsoft. The initial analysis was that Google had continued its tradition of besting the competition. And then people read the small print. There, the company revealed it would be employing technology that would search through the contents of its users' emails, thereby enabling it to place related adverts alongside those emails. If, for example, a user mentioned DVDs in the text of his or her email, then Google could attach an advert for a company selling cut-price DVDs. see also: Privacy International files complaint about Google's Gmail service (PI). Privacy International has filed a complaint asking the privacy and data protection commissions in France,Germany, the Netherlands, Greece, Italy, Spain, Czech Republic, Belgium, Denmark, Sweden, Ireland, Portugal, Poland, Austria,Australia and Canada along with the European Commission and the EU Commissioners internal Article 29 Data Protection Working Group to investigate the serious privacy problems that Google's Gmail service poses. US - Gmail under attack in California (CNET News.com) by Declan McCullagh. Blasting Gmail as a horrific intrusion into Internet users' privacy, a California state senator has introduced legislation to block Google's free email service. State Senator Liz Figueroa, a Democrat, said that it should be illegal for a company to scan the text of its customers' email correspondence and display relevant advertising - even if customers explicitly agree to the practice in exchange for a gigabyte of storage. The Fuss About Gmail and Privacy: Nine Reasons Why It's Bogus (Tim O'Reilly).
(EUpolitix) MEPs have defied "huge pressure" from Brussels, national governments and the US to mount a legal challenge to a Trans-Atlantic anti-terror agreement. The European Parliament voted by 16 votes, 276 in favour, 260 against, to take a privacy rights battle over handovers of air passenger data to US security agencies to the EU courts. Washington has expressed "regret" over the latest opposition from MEPs but US officials indicate data transfers will continue with the backing of other EU institutions. see also Last ditch effort to iron out institutional clash over passenger data and MEPs oppose transfer of passenger data, EU airlines face US pressure (EurActiv.com). Report on the proposal for a Council decision on the conclusion of an Agreement between the European Community and the United States of America on the processing and transfer of PNR data by Air Carriers to the United States Department of Homeland Security, Bureau of Customs and Border Protection A5-0271/2004 and Motion on the draft Commission decision noting the adequate level of protection provided for personal data contained in the Passenger Name Records (PNRs) transferred to the US Bureau of Customs and Border Protection. Committee on Citizens' Freedoms and Rights, Justice and Home Affairs Rapporteur: Johanna L.A. Boogerd-Quaak.
(FCW) State Department Secretary Colin Powell and Homeland Security Department Secretary Tom Ridge urged Congressional lawmakers to extend the October deadline for accepting foreign passports embedded with biometrics from visa-waiver countries by another two years. The extension would give the 27 nations in the Visa Waiver Program (VWP) more time to produce passports with biometric identifiers, which the secretaries described as a technologically complex process.
(Droit et Nouvelles Technologies) par Thibault Verbiest. Le 8 avril dernier, le Sénat a adopté en deuxième lecture le projet de loi pour la confiance dans l´économie numérique (LEN). Il appartient maintenant à la commission mixte paritaire, composée de 14 députés et sénateurs, d´établir la version définitive du texte de loi. L´un des faits les plus marquants du vote sénatorial concerne certainement l´atténuation du régime de responsabilité des hébergeurs. L´Assemblée nationale avait, en seconde lecture, imposé aux hébergeurs une obligation de surveiller le contenu des sites qu'ils abritent en vue de lutter contre les contenus pédophiles, négationnistes et racistes. En accord avec Patrick Devedjian, ministre délégué à l´Industrie, un amendement a été adopté visant à supprimer cette obligation, jugée contraire à la directive communautaire 2000/31/CE relative au commerce électronique. Les hébergeurs seront en revanche obligés d'accepter un contrôle des sites a posteriori, sur saisine des autorités judiciaires. Le Sénat a également ajouté la possibilité pour l'autorité judiciaire de prescrire aux FAI en référé ou sur requête, « 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 ». En outre, en conformité avec la directive sur le commerce électronique qui encourage l'adoption de codes de conduite, le Sénat a introduit cette nouvelle disposition : « Le ministre en charge des communications électroniques encourage les personnes mentionnées au 2 à élaborer une charte de bonne conduite afin d'empêcher les infractions visées aux cinquième et huitième alinéas de l'article 24 de la loi du 29 juillet 1881 sur la liberté de la presse et à l'article 227.23 du code pénal.. » Les FAI n´ont pas traîner à réagir : début avril, l'association représentative des professionnels de l'accès Internet en France (l'AFA) a élaboré une nouvelle charte visant à mieux identifier les contenus illicites.
(ITU) A Preparatory Meeting for the Tunis phase of the Summit will take place in Hammamet, Tunisia, from 24-26 June 2004. An invitation letter will be sent out end of April and pre-registration will start in May 2004. More information regarding this meeting, including dates for registration, will be available soon. see also WSIS E-Flash.
(RAPID) Fresh impetus for the drive to roll out high-speed broadband connections, and boost the quality of the content and services they carry to businesses and citizens across Europe, should come from a Ministerial Conference held by the EU's Irish Presidency in Dundalk. Developing content and services to stimulate the take-up of broadband connections is viewed as vital to the take-up of information and communication technology, and hence to competitiveness and productivity growth, across the EU. A little over a year after the first EU-level discussions on broadband issues, Member States will compare progress in rolling out broadband networks at home. They will also discuss issues hampering the development of innovative content with CEOs spanning the broadband value chain across Europe."
(out-law.com) Spam is not illegal in US federal law. But from 19th May, any spam that contains sexually oriented material must include the warning "SEXUALLY-EXPLICIT: " in the subject line or US spammers face fines for violations of federal law. The CAN-SPAM Act, passed in 2003, outlaws fraudulent e-mail and requires marketers to include an unsubscribe option; but it continues to allow legitimate, albeit unsolicited, commercial e-mail. The Act also directed the Federal Trade Commission to adopt a rule requiring a mark or notice to be included in spam that contains sexually oriented material. The purpose of the notice is to inform recipients that a spam message contains sexually oriented material and to make it easier to filter out messages they do not wish to receive.
(Guardian) by John Carr. Dealing with child pornography, child sex abusers, or with the victims of child sex abuse, is no place for amateurs. The newspapers were recently full of stories about Stephen King, who appeared as an "expert witness" in in court cases about child sex abuse. Following a routine police investigation into benefit fraud, he was found to be in possession of child pornography. This in turn led to the discovery that he had been sexually abusing three 10-year-old girls, for which he was sentenced to seven years' imprisonment. On another tack, Jim Wightman hit the headlines when he claimed to have invented software that could detect paedophile behaviour in online chat rooms. No one has ever seen a working version of his software. His website www.chatnannies.com has a section specially addressed to paedophiles. It tells them that "none of us can help what we are and are not attracted to sexually" and says that paedophiles are invited to speak to Chatnannies on a confidential basis. see also Concern at website that 'monitors paedophiles' and Nanniebots and Neverland.
(Sydney Mornin Herald) Internet service providers should be made to filter online content because sexual assaults perpetrated by children are increasing, an internet media and mental health conference in Brisbane will be told. Michael Flood, a research fellow at the Australia Institute, a public policy think-tank, says little has been done to protect children from exposure to violent and extreme pornography. Recent findings suggest exposure to such material - even accidental - may be linked to a rise in the numbers of children sexually abusing other children. Exposure could be prevented by requiring all Australian internet service providers (ISPs) to filter their content, he said, with adults able to opt out of filterings to receive explicit material.
(BBC) The net is being used by racist and extremist groups trying to recruit new members and spread their message. A report detailing 200 of the websites monitored by the Wiesenthal Center shows how sites have become key fund-raising and marketing outlets. Some sites feature games that let visitors 'shoot' illegal immigrants, Jews and black people, said the report. In 2004 websites seeking to recruit youngsters to join holy wars and become suicide bombers have surged, it said. Jewish human rights group The Simon Wiesenthal Center monitors 4,000 websites used by racist, 'terrorist' and other extremist organisations. It has been tracking such hate sites for about nine years. The latest report shows how important the net has become to extreme groups, including racists, 'terrorist' groups and homophobic organisations, and details the way that the groups use websites to spread their messages."
(RAPID) EU Communications Ministers agreed to step up efforts to make the Internet safer for children. At an informal meeting of Ministers in Dundalk, they agreed to press ahead with means for making use of the Internet safer for everyone, especially children, through the introduction of new filter technologies, safety programmes and expansion of whistleblower hotlines. Ministers will work towards an overall approach at its next meeting in June to the new blueprint produced by the EU Commission, which plans a four year €50 million safer Internet programme.
(CNET News.com) The number of 'phishing' e-mails circulating on the Web has increased from 279 to 215,643 over the past six months, according to e-mail security company MessageLabs. Phishing is an Internet scam in which unsuspecting users receive official-looking e-mails that attempt to fool them into disclosing online passwords, user names and other personal information. Victims are usually persuaded to click on a link that directs them to a doctored version of an organization's Web site.
(Press Association) Barclays customers were urged to be vigilant after details emerged of a fresh email scam designed to allow fraudsters to obtain users' account information. The message was the latest in a now familiar scam called 'phishing', in which millions of emails are sent out directing people to a website masquerading as part of their bank's own online home. But the sites are carbon copies of the original pages and, by entering names, account details and passwords, online customers allow the gangs behind them to go to the bank's real website and clean out their accounts.
(RAPID) After nine months of delay and two warnings, the Commission has decided to take six Member States - Belgium, Germany, Greece, France, Luxembourg and the Netherlands - to the European Court of Justice for failing to implement fully new rules on electronics communications. At the same time progress is being made; since the Commission's first warning last autumn, Spain and Portugal have adopted the necessary national measures and so they are not included in today's decisions. The Netherlands voted its new legislation yesterday and France may finalise its national measures in the very near future.
(USIP) The great virtues of the Internet - ease of access, lack of regulation, vast potential audiences, and fast flow of information, among others - have been turned to the advantage of groups committed to terrorizing societies to achieve their goals. Today, all active terrorist groups have established their presence on the Internet. Our scan of the Internet in 2003-4 revealed hundreds of websites serving terrorists and their supporters.
(CNET News.com) More and more people are using their cell phones to create online photo journals, also called mobile Web logs, or 'moblogs,' for short. Cell phone makers and carriers are paying close attention to this trend, looking for ways to cash in.
(ACM Queue) Search is a small but intensely competitive segment of the industry, dominated for the past few years by Google. But Google's position as king of the hill is not insurmountable. Three years ago, former Infoseek developer Matt Wells decided to go solo and build his own search engine, Gigablast. In this article, Infoseek founder Steve Kirsch interviews his former employee about the process and challenges of creating a modern, scalable search engine.
(CNET News.com) by Declan McCullagh. Google's SafeSearch filter technology incorrectly blocks many innocuous Web sites based solely on strings of letters such as 'sex,' 'girls' or 'porn' embedded in their domain names. The indiscriminate nature of the tool is bad news for affected businesses. Google is the most widely used search engine, and failure to appear in its listings can have a direct impact on sales for some companies, particularly smaller enterprises with limited marketing budgets.
(AP) People wanting to automatically mute foul language or skip violence in films have a new option - a DVD player from RCA that filters content deemed objectionable. Thomson, which owns the RCA brand, will sell the players in some Wal-Mart and Kmart stores as well as on Wal-Mart's Web site starting this month even as the filtering software they employ faces a legal challenge from Hollywood. The filtering software is from ClearPlay, which had offered it previously for watching DVDs on computers and began talking to RCA last year about a standalone player.
(BBC) More than 70% of people would reveal their computer password in exchange for a bar of chocolate, a survey has found. It also showed that 34% of respondents volunteered their password when asked without even needing to be bribed.
(EurActiv.com) A study carried out by computer multinational IBM and business journal The Economist found that Scandinavian countries and the UK are the world's most Internet-friendly nations. Denmark topped the list, ahead of the UK, Sweden, Norway, Finland and the US which fell to sixth position from third last year. Speaking to Reuters, Peter Korsten from IBM said Denmark had a very active policy to reduce the administrative burden on companies using e-government services, which explains why it now ranks ahead of last year's top-ranking nation, Sweden.
(Washington Post) Internet music piracy has no negative effect on legitimate music sales, according to a study by two university researchers, Felix Oberholzer-Gee of Harvard Business School and Koleman Strumpf of University of North Carolina, which contradicts the music industry's assertion that the illegal downloading of music online is taking a big bite out of its bottom line. Songs that were heavily downloaded showed no measurable drop in sales, the researchers found after tracking sales of 680 albums over the course of 17 weeks in the second half of 2002. Matching that data with activity on the OpenNap file-sharing network, they concluded that file sharing actually increases CD sales for hot albums that sell more than 600,000 copies. For every 150 downloads of a song from those albums, sales increase by a copy, the researchers found.
(BCC) Most music fans are refusing to change their downloading habits despite a campaign to stop illegal song-swapping, a music website survey suggests. More than 1,000 readers of NME.com took part in the website's poll, with nearly 75% saying they would continue to use free download services on the internet. That is despite the UK music industry threatening to pursue persistent illegal song-swappers in court.
(Press Association) Around one in five companies has experienced problems with employees misusing the internet, according to a survey. Over the last year, research found, nearly two-thirds of large companies were affected, reporting an average of one incident a week. The two biggest areas of misuse were excessive personal emails and access to inappropriate websites. The results were revealed in the initial findings of the 2004 Department of Trade and Industry biennial information security breaches survey.
(CNET News.com) Marketers are not complying fully with a new law designed to stop spam, a Jupiter Research survey has found. Although a majority of the companies tracked provide ways for recipients to opt out of e-mail mailing lists, as required by the federal Can-Spam Act, nearly a fourth of them continued to send e-mail messages to recipients who had submitted requests to unsubscribe.
(BBC) By the year 2010, file-sharers could be swapping news rather than music, eliminating censorship of any kind. This is the view of the man who helped kickstart the concept of peer-to-peer (P2P) file-sharing, Cambridge University's Professor Ross Anderson. In his vision, people around the world would post stories via anonymous P2P services like those used to swap songs. They would cover issues currently ignored by the major news services, said Prof Anderson.
(UNESCO) This site endeavours to provide access to national copyright and related rights legislation of UNESCO Member States. The collection currently comprises about 100 laws and is constantly being updated and completed. To access the law, you need first to click on the geographical zone you are interested in, then click on the country name. Please be advised that most Member States have provided us with official translations of their copyright and related rights legislation in only one of the official languages of UNESCO.
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