Legal and regulatory issues

Audiovisual

• EU - European films and the Information Society  +/-

  (RAPID) Viviane Reding, Member of the European Commission responsible for Information Society and Media, Informal Meeting of Ministers for Audiovisual, Europe Day, Cannes, 16 May 2005.

• EU - Opportunities and challenges for European films in the information society  +/-

  (RAPID) On 17 May, the Cannes International Film Festival will welcome the third Europe Day, whose topic is 'Europe's cinema and the Information Society'. The EU Culture and Audiovisual Ministers will discuss the effects of new means of distribution for audiovisual works, such as film online and video on demand, together with directors, economic operators - producers, channel owners, studio heads - and the new ones - telecoms businesses. After the morning discussion between politicians, artists and professionals, the afternoon of Europe Day 2005 will be dedicated to the inaugural meeting of the "Leadership Summit on film on-line". Under the presidency of the European Commissioner Viviane Reding, fifteen CEOs from the worlds of telecommunications, the Internet and audiovisual creation will open a dialogue with a view to reaching agreement at European level on the development conditions needed for film on-line in Europe.

Consumer protection

• FR - L'UFC-Que choisir et Devedjian mettent à l'index les pratiques des FAI  +/-

  (ZDNet France) L'association de consommateurs et le ministre délégué à l'Industrie souhaitent améliorer la relation entre clients et fournisseurs d´accès internet. La situation est grave: le nombre de litiges traités par l'UFC-Que Choisir a augmenté de 56% en 6 mois. Hotlines injoignables et inefficaces, clauses abusives dans les contrats, litiges clients en augmentation drastique: les fournisseurs d'accès internet sont montrés du doigt par l'UFC-Que choisir et le ministère des Finances et de l'Industrie.

Convergence of telecommunications, media and information technology

• EU - Commission expects most broadcasting to be digital by 2010  +/-

  (RAPID) The European Commission has urged EU Member States to accelerate the switchover from analogue to digital broadcasting. The Commission expects the transition to digital to be well advanced by 2010 and proposes a deadline of early 2012 for phasing out traditional analogue terrestrial broadcasting. The Commission also calls for a co-ordinated approach to making freed-up spectrum available across the EU. see also FAQ - Impact of Commission Communication on accelerating switchover on individual Member States.

Copyright, trademarks and patents

• EU / UK - No consensus on key definition for software patents  +/-

  (out-law.com) While software that makes a 'technical contribution' may be patentable, it seems that nobody can agree on what that means. Of 200 definitions put to the UK Patent Office, not one of them eliminated ambiguity and closely matched the status quo. This is according to a report from the Patent Office on a series of workshops held earlier this year to find an agreed definition of 'technical contribution,' a controversial term in thE beleaguered draft European Directive on the patentability of computer-implemented inventions.

• EU to fund global research on open source  +/-

  (CNET News.com) The European Union is putting 660,00 euros toward research into open-source software and standards across the world. The two-year FLOSSWorld project is Europe's first initiative to support international research and policy development on 'free/libre/open source software.' Previous FLOSS projects, starting as early as 2001, have concentrated on the use of open source in Europe alone. The FLOSSWorld coordinator is the Maastricht Economic Research Institute on Innovation and Technology at the University of Maastricht in the Netherlands. The grant will be shared by countries including Argentina, Brazil, Bulgaria, China, Croatia, India, Malaysia and South Africa.

• NL - Dutch academics declare research free-for-all  +/-

  (The Register) Scientists from all major Dutch universities officially launched a website where all their research material can be accessed for free. Interested parties can get hold of a total of 47,000 digital documents from 16 institutions. No other nation in the world offers such easy access to its complete academic research output in digital form, the researchers claim. Obviously, commercial publishers are not amused. The €2m Digital Academic Repositories (DARE) programme harvests all digital available material from local repositories, making it fully searchable.

• UK - Microsoft rubbishes school open source report  +/-

  (ZDNet UK) An eagerly-awaited report into the use of open source software in the UK education sector contains evidence that schools could significantly cut their IT spending by moving to non-proprietary software. The report concluded that the cost of a primary school computer running open source software was half that of one running proprietary software, while in secondary schools an open source PC was 20 percent cheaper. But Microsoft lost little time in attacking the study, which was commissioned and published by the British Educational Communications and Technology Association (Becta).

• US - Copyright questions over Google library plan  +/-

  (out-law.com) A group of academic publishers, the Association of American University Presses, have voiced copyright concerns about Google's new Print for Libraries plan, which hopes to digitally scan certain library collections so that books can be matched to internet search queries. To date, Google has relied on the doctrine of 'fair use' to justify its right to scan the published works; but the AAUP queries whether the doctrine could possibly apply to a programme of this magnitude.

• US - TV download sites hit by lawsuits  +/-

  (BBC) The movie industry has turned its legal campaign against net piracy to TV file-sharing sites. Six BitTorrent sites hosting links to others with illegal copies of TV shows have been targeted in lawsuits by the Motion Picture Association of America. It is a shift in focus for the MPAA. Since it started legal action against file-sharers in December, its targets have been film indexing sites.

Data Protection (privacy)

• US calls for increased and earlier passenger data transfers  +/-

  (out-law.com) US Secretary of Homeland Security Michael Chertoff has told the EU to improve upon a controversial agreement that permits air passenger data transfers to the US, by providing more information and sending it sooner. At present an agreed amount of data is transferred to the US within 15 minutes of a US-bound plane taking off; but this sometimes results in planes being turned back, as has happened twice over the past month. Chertoff indicated that he would prefer the data to be transferred an hour before the plane departed.

Digital content

• EU - Improving and extending the use of ICT to make the most of Europe's cultural and audiovisual heritage  +/-

  (RAPID) The European Commission is to boost its policy of preserving and exploiting Europe's written and audiovisual heritage. At a time when the internet and the digital technologies available on many technical platforms are an everyday part of the life of European citizens, tapping the potential of our written text, image and sound archives is of major importance in economic terms as much as in cultural terms. The Commission plans to issue a communication by July outlining the stakes involved and identifying the obstacles to using written and audiovisual archives in the European Union. The communication will be accompanied by a proposal for a Recommendation aimed at enlisting all the public players concerned and facilitating public-private partnerships in the task of digitising our heritage.

Human Rights

• CoE - Human rights and the rule of law in the information society  +/-

  (Press Release) The Council of Europe's Committee of Ministers has adopted a declaration on human rights and the rule of law in the information society of mobile phones, the internet and computer communication. The declaration updates the principles of the European Convention on Human Rights for the cyber-age. The declaration covers issues such as state and private censorship, protection of private information such as content and traffic data, education to help people assess quality information, media ethics, the use of information technology for democracy and freedom of assembly in cyberspace.

Information society and Internet policy

• WSIS - Working Group on Internet Governance Questionnaire Posted for Comment  +/-

  (ITU) The Working Group on Internet Governance (WGIG) is discussing how to improve current Internet governance arrangements in order to bring them more in line with the WSIS principles. In the light of these discussions, this questionnaire has been developed to allow for a structured feed-back.

Junk mail (spam)

• UK - Spam blacklist targets Telewest  +/-

  (BBC) Almost one million net addresses owned by UK cable firm Telewest have been blacklisted by an anti-spam group. The Spam Prevention Early Warning System blacklisted the addresses because many of the machines using them have been hijacked by spammers. The army of remotely-controllable machines have probably been recruited by viruses and worms.

• US - Lonely housewives spam halted by court  +/-

  (FTC) An operation that spammed millions of consumers with graphic sexual descriptions to drive traffic to their Web sites to "date lonely housewives" has been halted by the court at the request of the Federal Trade Commission. A U.S. District Court Judge has ordered a temporary halt to the spamming and has frozen the assets of the outfit, pending a hearing on the FTC's request for a preliminary and permanent injunction for violations of federal law. The FTC alleges that the spam contains short messages or a picture and a hyperlink promoting the "lonely wives" service. The agency charges that the spam violates nearly every provision of the CAN-SPAM Act. It contains misleading headers and deceptive subject lines. It does not contain a link to allow consumers to opt out of receiving future spam, does not contain a valid postal address, and does not contain the disclosure, required by law, that it is sexually explicit. It also includes sexual materials in the initially viewable area of the e-mail, in violation of the FTC's Adult Labeling Rule.

Liability, jurisdiction and applicable law

• 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.

Racism and xenophobia

• EU - Austria failed to implement race anti-discrimination Directive  +/-

  (RAPID) The European Court of Justice (ECJ) has ruled that Austria had breached EU law by failing to transpose fully a European Directive prohibiting discrimination on the grounds of race or ethnic origin (Directive 2000/43/EC). The deadline for EU Member States to transpose this Directive was 19 July 2003 - except for the 10 new Member States, who had to ensure that their legislation complied with the Directives by their accession to the EU on 1 May 2004.

Rating and filtering

• US - Long-awaited filter reviews  +/-

  (Net Family News) Consumer Reports latest review tests filters and finds 1) Filtering software has gotten better but is still flawed, 2) the 11 products tested are 'very good or excellent' at blocking porn 3) 'they blocked more than porn but not effectively' (not great at blocking hate and violence sites or those that aided weapons-making or advocated illegal drug use), and 4) they over-blocked. CR's top 3 picks were SafeBrowse 'for most people,' AOL's Parental Controls 'for Mac users or families with young children,' and Microsoft's Parental Controls 'if you use MSN or want protection built into your Internet service.' Here's the page with at-a-glance ratings of the 11 products reviewed.

Self-regulation / codes of conduct

• DE - AOL verpasst sich einen "Sicherheitsrat"  +/- Translate

  (Heise) AOL Deutschland macht Ernst mit der viel beschworenen "Co-Regulierung" des Internet, in deren Rahmen Unternehmen und die Politik gemeinsam kindersichere und familienfreundliche Inseln im Datenuniversum schaffen wollen. Der Internetprovider hat sich dafür einen "Sicherheitsbeirat" ins Haus geholt, der die Einhaltung der Selbstverpflichtung des Unternehmens kontrollieren und Vorschläge zur besseren Gestaltung des Dienstes machen soll.

Universal service

• EU - Communication on the Review of the Scope of Universal Service  +/-

  (RAPID) There is no need to introduce new legal requirements for mobile and high-speed internet services under the EU's universal service rules at the moment, says the European Commission in a Communication. The Communication finds that consumers already have widespread affordable access to mobile communications, so universal service obligations would not benefit the consumer. And so far only a small - although fast-growing - minority has a high-speed (broadband) internet connection, so subjecting broadband to universal service obligations would result in unfair financial transfers between consumers. However, in the future, as services traditionally carried by telephone networks become more and more internet-based, the focus of universal service may evolve towards providing an affordable broadband access link for all. see also Review of the Scope of Universal Service in Electronic Communications: Frequently Asked Questions

Market & Technology

Digital content

• OECD - Online computer and video game industry  +/-

  (OECD) The OECD has released a report on the online computer and video game industry. Among the issues identified by the report are: Development costs, particularly for online games, have increased rapidly. Finance is seen as an important barrier to development as R&D support and tax breaks do not necessarily go to game development. Domination of the games console market by three hardware suppliers and growing market power of large games publishers is a potential threat to competition and together with increasing development costs to the future of independent developers. Lack of international micro-payment systems is limiting growth of pay-per-play and mass-market development. Shortages of programmers and developers remain a barrier to growth. Fewer women work in the games industry than any other media industry. Available evidence on the relationship between gaming and violence does not seem to support a definite direct causal connection but indicates that more research needs to be done in this area. A separate report on the mobile content industry (click to view study), including games and music on mobile phones, is also available. These studies are part of the OECD Project on Digital Broadband Content. In early June, the OECD will release studies on digital music and scientific publishing.

Statistics

• EU - Internet usage in the EU 25  +/-

  (OfcomWatch) A report released by Eurostat (the Statistical Office of the European Communities) has just presented the results of surveys of internet usage in the 25 EU Member States as well as Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey, Norway and Iceland (the report also covers broadband connections, e-commerce and e-government). The reference period was the first quarter of 2004. Press Release.

• OECD Broadband Statistics, December 2004  +/-

  (OECD) Broadband markets continued their rapid growth in the OECD during 2004. While all OECD countries have seen an increase in broadband subscriptions, growth has been particularly rapid in parts of Europe. The expansion of broadband networks in 2004 has brought with it a host of new services in many OECD countries, including voice over IP and video over broadband.

Forthcoming events

• 2005-06-07 LU, Luxembourg - European HDTV Conference  +/-

  (Europa) Ms Reding, the European Commissioner for Information Society and Media will give the keynote speech at the European HDTV Conference on 7 June 2005 in Luxembourg. The conference is organised by the Luxembourg Presidency of the European Union with the support of the European Commission. The one-day high-level conference will take place in a newly HD-equipped cinema.The aim of the event is to bring together the public and private sector to promote European initiatives in HDTV. The conference will gather 100 top-level government officials from 25 European countries and up to 300 senior executives from the commercial sector to discuss stakes in the HDTV sector in Europe. The attractiveness of HDTV is expected to support the digital switchover, for which the Commission announced its strong commitment on 24 May 2005.

Who's who

• EU - New appointments to the INHOPE Executive  +/-

  (INHOPE) Inhope - the Association of Internet Hotline Providers - has elected Ms. Ana Luiza Rotta from the Spanish Protegeles hotline to the position of President. Mr. Frank Glen from the UK, Internet Watch Foundation was elected as Vice-President, Ms. Barbara Haindl from the Austrian Stopline hotline as Treasurer and Ms. Suvi Kuikka from the Finnish Northern hotline as executive member without Portfolio.

• UK - Ofcom appoints chairman of new broadcast training body  +/-

  (Press Release) Ofcom has appointed Ralph Tabberer, Chief Executive of the Teacher Training Agency, as the first chairman of the Broadcasting Training and Skills Regulator (BTSR ). Under Section 27 of the Communications Act 2003, Ofcom is required to promote training and development across the broadcasting industry. BTSR is a new body which is being established in a joint initiative between Ofcom, UK television and radio broadcasters, and Skillset (the Sector Skills Council for the Audio Visual Industries) to create a co-regulatory system for training and development.

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