Legal and regulatory issues

Competition

• EU - Commission receives improved commitments from Premier League on media rights  +/-

  (RAPID) The European Commission has received improved commitments from the English Football Association Premier League (FAPL) regarding the sale of the FAPL's media rights for the 2007 season onwards. The commitments provide for the FAPL to sell a number of packages of media rights, showcasing the League as a whole throughout each season. Live TV rights will be sold in six balanced packages with no one bidder being allowed to buy all six packages. Packages will be sold to the highest standalone bidder for each package, and bids other than simple standalone bids will be disregarded. The auction will be monitored by a Trustee, selected by the Commission, who will report to the Commission as to whether the commitments entered into by the FAPL have been followed.

Computer crime

• UK - Spammer jailed for £1.6m net scam  +/-

  (BBC) An internet spammer convicted of running a £1.6m e-mail scam from a bedroom in his father's house has been jailed for six years. Peter Francis-Macrae, of St Neots, Cambs, was found guilty of threatening to kill and blackmail. The 23-year-old was also convicted of threatening to destroy or damage property, concealing criminal property and fraudulent trading. He had offered thousands of e-mail and website names when he had no right. And when victims complained, he threatened to destroy their internet systems by sending millions of spam e-mails.

Content regulation

• CN - Huge new wave of blogging in China  +/-

  (New York Times) Chinese blogs have existed since early in the decade, but the form has exploded in recent months in a strong new wave of online activity that is challenging China's ever-vigilant online censors and giving flesh to the kind of free-spoken civil society whose emergence the government has long been determined to prevent, or at least tightly control.

• TN - Hungry for net freedom in Tunisia  +/-

  (BBC) Last week's UN-sponsored World Summit on the Information Society put the spotlight on the host country Tunisia. Human rights groups both inside and outside the country intensified their criticism of the Tunisian government's record regarding internet freedom. Some Tunisian dissidents, including blogger Mokhtar Yahyaoui, even staged a hunger strike in protest.

Copyright, trademarks and patents

• BE - Madonna in plagiarism case defeat  +/-

  (BBC) A Belgian songwriter has won a plagiarism case against Madonna over her 1998 hit single Frozen. Salvatore Acquaviva's claim that the song copied one of his recordings was upheld by a Belgian court. The judge ordered EMI, Sony and Warner Music to withdraw the song from sale in the country. the judge agreed that Madonna's single used four bars of the song Ma Vie Fout L'camp, which roughly translates as My Life's Getting Nowhere.

• BitTorrent signs pact with film studios  +/-

  (vnunet.com) File sharing service BitTorrent and Hollywood's major movie studios have reached an agreement in a bid to stop movie piracy using the peer-to-peer service. BitTorrent founder Bram Cohen has agreed to stop providing links on his website to copyrighted films, and hopes to be able to license movies and TV programmes that could be downloaded for a fee.

• EU - Music industry seeks access to private data to fight piracy  +/-

  (Guardian) The music and film industries are demanding that the European parliament extends the scope of proposed anti-terror laws to help them prosecute illegal downloaders. In an open letter to MEPs, companies including Sony BMG, Disney and EMI have asked to be given access to communications data - records of phone calls, emails and internet surfing - in order to take legal action against pirates and filesharers. Current proposals restrict use of such information to cases of terrorism and organised crime.

• EU und Content-Industrie wollen Kampf gegen illegale Kopien verstärken  +/-

  (Heise) Im Rahmen der Strategie "Film Online" erarbeitet die EU-Kommission gegenwärtig gemeinsam mit der Content-Industrie und großen Internet-Anbietern ein Maßnahmenpaket zur Eindämmung der so genannten Piraterie im Netz. Den offiziellen Startschuss für die Initiative gab die Kommissarin für die Informationsgesellschaft, Viviane Reding, bereits Mitte Mai beim Filmfestival in Cannes im Rahmen eines Treffens mit Medien- und Kulturpolitikern, Filmemachern und Branchengrößen.

Data Protection (privacy)

• EU - Annul passenger data decisions, says Advocate General  +/-

  (Out-law) European Commission and Council decisions that led to a controversial agreement permitting the transfer of air passenger data to the US should be annulled because they do not have an adequate legal basis, according to Advocate General Phillipe Léger.

• EU - Ausschuss segnet Kompromiss zur TK-Vorratsdatenspeicherung ab  +/-

  (Heise) Der federführende Ausschuss für Bürgerrechte, Justiz und Inneres des EU-Parlaments hat sich für zahlreiche Änderungen an der heftig umstrittenen EU-Richtlinie zur Vorratsspeicherung von Telekommunikationsdaten stark gemacht. Laut dem mit großer Mehrheit verabschiedeten Votum der Fachpolitiker, das als Empfehlung für eine voraussichtlich schon im Dezember stattfindende 1. Lesung des Gesetzesvorschlags im Plenum gilt, sollen die Standort- und Telefonverbindungsdaten sowie die IP-Adressen beim Internet-Zugang künftig zwischen sechs und zwölf Monate lang archiviert werden. Angaben zum E-Mail-Verkehr oder zu MAC-Adressen von PC-Netzwerkkarten müssten nicht gespeichert werden, wenn die vom Ausschuss beschlossenen Korrekturen angenommen werden.

Digital content

• Special Issue: Global Flow of Information  +/-

  (IJCLP) The International Journal of Communications Law and Policy and the Yale Journal of Law and Technology are happy to present this section on Global Flow of Information. The selected papers may be considered as the best attempt to explore the emerging patterns of information flow, and their political, economic, social, and cultural consequences.

e-Government

• UK - Users flood 'Most Wanted' website  +/-

  (UK) An FBI-style website, aimed at tracking the UK's most wanted crime suspects, has received more than 350,000 hits on its first day. The site, launched by Crimestoppers, lists police appeals in the UK as well as pictures of wanted suspects. The Most Wanted site proved so popular on the morning of its launch, it received 21,000 hits in five minutes.

Information society and Internet policy

• EDRI-gram - Number 3.23, WSIS Special  +/-

  (EDRI) Items include: Urgent call for support for EDRI-gram; General disappointment in WSIS-host Tunisia; Tunisian government blocks citizens counter summit; Agreement on internet governance issue; Civil Society Tunis declaration; Panel meeting with EU delegation; RSF report: 15 enemies of the internet; Panel on freedom of expression; Panel on privacy and security; Panel on WIPO and intellectual property; P2P, filesharing and digital rights; Forum on ubiquitous computing; Unesco round table; Recommended reading: 3 books; Petition closed: 58.000 signatures; Agenda.

• The 15 enemies of the Internet and other countries to watch  +/-

  (Reporters sans frontières) Reporters Without Borders marks the World Summit on the Information Society by presenting 15 countries that are "enemies of the Internet" and pointing to a dozen others whose attitude to it is worrying. The 15 "enemies" are the countries that crack down hardest on the Internet, censoring independent news sites and opposition publications, monitoring the Web to stifle dissident voices, and harassing, intimidating and sometimes imprisoning Internet users and bloggers who deviate from the regime's official line. The "countries to watch" do not have much in common with the "enemies of the Internet". Yet many countries that have so far respected online freedom seem these days to want to control the Internet more. Their often laudable aims include fighting terrorism, paedophilia and Internet-based crime, but the measures sometimes threaten freedom of expression.

• WSIS - Analysis: Net control debate rumbles on  +/-

  (BBC) Internet professor Michael Geist explains why the arguments over who runs the internet are far from over. After two years of frequently acrimonious debate, delegates to the World Summit on the Information Society (WSIS) in Tunis reached a last minute agreement that, at first glance, appears to resolve the debate over the regulation of the internet's domain name system. The one significant change to the current framework is the creation of a new Internet Governance Forum. The forum, to be established by UN Secretary General Kofi Annan, will feature representatives from government, business, and civil society. It will first meet this spring in Greece with a mandate to address a broad range of internet issues including governance, spam, cyber crime, and privacy.

• WSIS - Controversy blights UN net summit  +/-

  (BBC) A crucial UN summit on expanding net access around the world has ended in Tunis marred by controversy over censorship and who runs the internet. The World Summit on the Information Society ended with talk about narrowing the technology gap between rich and poor nations but little in funding. It was overshadowed by a lingering resentment about who should oversee the management of the net. The summit was also marked by stark differences over freedom of speech.

• WSIS - EU brokers deal at Tunis World Summit  +/-

  (RAPID) A worldwide political agreement providing for further internationalisation of Internet governance, and enhanced intergovernmental cooperation to this end, was brokered at the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunis. The compromise text agreed was based largely on EU proposals presented in the discussions since June. As a first important element of the agreement, a new international Internet Governance Forum (IGF) will be created to deliberate among governments, the private sector and civil society at large in a multi-stakeholder policy dialogue related to Internet Governance. A first meeting of this Forum will be convened by the Secretary-General of the United Nations by the second quarter of 2006 and take place in Greece. The texts agreed in Tunis also include language that will allow for enhanced cooperation among governments, on an equal footing, on public policy issues.

• WSIS - Facing The Facts on Internet Governance  +/-

  (Michael Geist) This week the regulation of the Internet takes centre stage at the World Summit on the Information Society in Tunisia. Initially intended to address the growing digital divide, the WSIS has instead been dominated by politicking over Internet governance concerns. A deep split has emerged, pitting the United States (which favours the current system) on one side and the European Union (which prefers a multilateral approach) on the other.

• WSIS - Tunis Agenda and Tunis Commitment  +/-

  (ITU) World Summit on the Information Society. Second Phase of the WSIS (16-18 November 2005, Tunis) Tunis Agenda for the Information Society. WSIS-05/TUNIS/DOC/6 (rev. 1). See also Geneva Declaration of Principles WSIS-03/GENEVA/DOC/0004. see also Tunis Commitment WSIS-05/TUNIS/DOC/7.

• WSIS - Tunis: Robert Ménard (RSF) refoulé à Tunis  +/-

  (France 2) Robert Ménard, secrétaire général de Reporters sans frontières, a été refoulé à l'aéroport de Tunis. Arrivé à bord d'un vol d'Air France, Robert Ménard s'est vu demander de rester à bord de l'appareil, avec lequel il a regagné la France en début d'après-midi. Le secrétaire général de RSF accuse depuis des années la Tunisie du président Ben Ali de violations répétées de la liberté d'expression. Dès l'atterissage, a précisé Robert Ménard à l'AFP, une annonce avait été faite au haut-parleur de bord lui demandant de rester à sa place. Pendant que les autres passagers débarquaient, "plusieurs Tunisiens en civil" lui ont indiqué qu'il "ne pouvait pas descendre car il n'était pas accrédité au SMSI". Le commandant de bord lui a ensuite confirmé qu'il ne pouvait pas quitter son siège.

• WSIS / EU - La société de l'information que nous voulons  +/-

  (RAPID) La société de l'information que nous voulons : le chemin est ouvert pour une approche multilatérale et transparente à la gouvernance d'Internet. Discours de Viviane Reding, Membre de la Commission européenne responsable de la Société de l'information et des médias, Sommet mondial sur la Société de l'information, Tunis, le 16 novembre 2005.

Protection of minors

• US - CDT Urges Focus on User Empowerment to Protect Kids Online  +/-

  (CDT) Leslie Harris, Centre for Democracy and Technology's Senior Consultant and incoming Executive Director, testified before a congressional panel about the need to focus on user empowerment in the ongoing effort to protect kids from viewing inappropriate material online. At a Senate subcommittee hearing titled 'Protecting Children and Families in the Age of Convergence,' Harris pointed to the findings of two panels charged by Congress with addressing the issue. Both found that filtering technologies and other user empowerment tools provide the most effective means to limit the types of content that children are exposed to online.

Racism and xenophobia

• DE - Düsseldorfer Bezirksregierung sieht sich erfolgreich im Kampf gegen Nazi-Websites  +/-

  (Heise) Die Düsseldorfer Bezirksregierung hat eine positive Bilanz ihres Kampfes gegen "Medienmissbrauch" gezogen. Besonders die Sperrung rechtsextremistischer "Hass-Seiten" sei in den vergangenen vier Jahren überaus erfolgreich gewesen, sagte Regierungspräsident Jürgen Büssow (SPD). Insgesamt habe die Behörde 76 Sperrungen solcher Seiten verfügt und sämtliche Klagen gewonnen. Zudem will Büssow gegen Phishing und private Sportwetten im Internet vorgehen.

Rating and filtering

• AT -"Positivprädikatisierung" für Computerspiele in Österreich  +/-

  (Heise) "Gute" Computer- und Konsolenspiele sollen in Österreich künftig mit einem Pickerl (Aufkleber) der Bundesstelle für die Positivprädikatisierung (BuPP) versehen werden. Diese Gutachter-Kommission wurde im August von Familienministerin Ursula Haubner, Schwester des BZÖ-Chefs Jörg Haider, ins Leben gerufen, um unter den rund 15.000 jährlich erscheinenden Titeln die "guten" zu finden. Nun liegt die erste Liste mit 29 empfohlenen Spielen vor. Haubner hofft auf einen Lenkungseffekt hin zu "empfehlenswerten, unbedenklichen und nicht gewaltdominierten Computerspielen".

• FR - Le contrôle parental sera inclus dans les abonnements internet début 2006  +/-

  (ZDNet France) Les FAI se sont engagés à fournir dans leurs kits un logiciel de contrôle parental, que les abonnés pourront activer, s'ils le souhaitent, dès l'installation de leur connexion. Sans augmenter le prix de leur abonnement, garantit le ministre de la Famille. voir aussi Contrôle parental sur Internet : Relevé de conclusions (Ministère de la Famille et de l'Enfance) et Protection de l´enfance sur Internet : des engagements concrets et opérationnels (AFA - Association française des fournisseurs d'accès et des services Internet).

• TN - Internet Filtering in Tunisia in 2005  +/-

  (OpenNet Initiative) A country study documents Tunisia's attempts to control Internet information, including the filtering of Web sites, blogs, and anonymizer services. Drawing on open sources and a detailed year-long technical investigation, ONI research describes Tunisia's aggressive targeting and blocking of on-line content, including political opposition Web sites, human rights groups, and sites that provide access to privacy-enhancing technologies.

Safer Internet awareness

• UK - Home Office issues net child protection guidelines  +/-

  (Register) The Home Office has announced new guidelines for ISPs to help protect kids from the dark side of the internet. The main points suggest that providers should: Offer users a way of reporting material that is illegal or potentially harmful to children; Offer content filtering on search engines Manually review and approve websites included in search services aimed at children; Consider whether they need human or automatic moderation for chatrooms; Ensure where necessary staff who come into contact with children have had relevant Criminal Records Bureau checks. see Good practice guidance for the moderation of interactive services for children, Promoting Internet Safety Through Public Awareness Campaigns: Guidance for Using Real Life Examples Involving Children or Young People, Good practice guidance for search service providers and advice to the public on how to search safely (Home Office Task Force on Child Protection on the Internet).

Self-regulation / codes of conduct

• DE - Selbstkontrolle für Internet-Jugendschutz will Verantwortung demonstrieren  +/-

  (Heise) Die Kommission für Jugendmedienschutz (KJM) hat die Bewerbung der Freiwilligen Selbstkontrolle Multimedia-Diensteanbieter (FSM) als Institution zur Bekämpfung illegaler und jugendgefährdender Inhalte offiziell angenommen. Mit der Anerkennung der Bemühungen der Wirtschaft endet ein 22-monatiger Prüfungsprozess mit langwierigen Gesprächen zwischen beiden Seiten.

Market & Technology

Market

• How Google Tamed Ads on the Wild, Wild Web  +/-

  (New York Times) Five years ago, Web advertisers were engaged in an ever-escalating competition to grab our attention. Today, Web advertisers by and large have put down their weapons and sworn off violence. Thank you, Google. Without intending to do so, the company set in motion multilateral disarmament by telling its first advertisers in 2000: text only, please. No banner ads, no images, no animation.

• The Xbox factor  +/-

  (Economist) Microsoft's release of its Xbox 360 video-games console begins a new phase in the battle to remove Sony's PlayStation from the top spot. If it succeeds, the software giant may be tempted to make more incursions into the competitive market for home-entertainment hardware. Rivals beware.

Portals, browsers and search engines

• Egalitarian engines  +/-

  (Economist) The belief that search engines make popular websites ever more popular, at the expense of other pages, is now being challenged by research. A controversial new paper has recently appeared on arXiv, an online collection of physics and related papers. In it, Santo Fortunato and his colleagues at Indiana University in America and Bielefeld University in Germany claim that search engines actually have an egalitarian effect that increases traffic to less popular sites. The paper has now come under attack. Matthew Hindman, a political scientist at Arizona State University, says that the data used in the research are pretty shoddy.

Statistics

• EU - The digital divide in Europe  +/-

  (RAPID) 85% of students used the internet in 2004. In the EU25, 85% of students (aged 16 or more in school or university) used the internet during the first quarter of 2004, as did 60% of employees, 40% of the unemployed and 13% of the retired, compared to an EU25 average of 47% for individuals aged from 16 to 74. During the past decade, Information and Communications Technologies (ICTs) have become widely available to the general public, in both accessibility and cost. However, gaps remain in the use of ICT amongst the EU population depending on factors such as their age, employment status and educational level, and the degree of urbanisation of the area where they live. This information comes from a report released by Eurostat, the Statistical Office of the European Communities, which takes a closer look at the magnitude of the digital divide and some possible explanations for its existence.

• Search becomes No. 2 Web activity  +/-

  (CNET News.com) Using a search engine is now the No. 2 activity for Web users, research has found. The report also found that reading the news is now the third most popular Web activity. According to the Pew Internet & American Life Project, the number of U.S. Web users taking advantage of search engines has risen sharply since mid-2004 - from 30 percent of the U.S. Web population in July 2004 to its current level of 41 percent, which translates to some 59 million Americans.

Technology

• The Internet of Things  +/-

  (ITU) The Internet of Things is the seventh in the series of 'ITU Internet Reports' by the International Telecommunication Union. The report takes a look at the next step in 'always on' communications, in which new technologies like RFID and smart computing promise a world of networked and interconnected devices that provide relevant content and information whatever the location of the user. Everything from tires to toothbrushes will be in communications range, heralding the dawn of a new era, one in which today's Internet (of data and people) gives way to tomorrow's Internet of Things.

• The Rootkit of All Evil  +/-

  (New York Times) Sony BMG can take two lessons from its recent wayward attempt to fend off digital piracy: One, in a world of technology-astute bloggers, it's not easy to get away with secretly infecting your customers' computers with potentially malicious code. And two, as many a politician has learned, explaining your own screw-up badly is often worse than the screw-up itself. Or as Wired News put it, The Cover-Up Is the Crime. See also Real Story of the Rogue Rootkit (Wired) by Bruce Schneier. Sony BMG Music Entertainment distributed a copy-protection scheme with music CDs that secretly installed a rootkit on computers. This software tool is run without your knowledge or consent - if it's loaded on your computer with a CD, a hacker can gain and maintain access to your system and you wouldn't know it. The Sony code modifies Windows so you can't tell it's there, a process called "cloaking" in the hacker world. It acts as spyware, surreptitiously sending information about you to Sony. And it can't be removed; trying to get rid of it damages Windows.

Forthcoming events

• 2006-01-30 IT, Rome - OECD Conference on the Future Digital Economy  +/-

  (OECD) Conference on the Future Digital Economy: Digital Content Creation, Distribution and Access. Istituto San Michele, Rome, Italy. 30-31 January 2006. Digital content is increasingly important across all media and publishing industries and is becoming pervasive in sectors not previously considered to be content producers or users (for example, business services) and in the public sector (public sector information such as weather information, public sector content such as archives, and cultural content), education and health. Rapid changes in the value chains for content development, production, delivery and use and the creation of new commercial business models to exploit these opportunities are posing new policy challenges for governments to provide the market and business environment that supports development of new digital content goods and services, promotes competition and benefits users.

• 2006-04-21 US, New Haven CT - Access to Knowledge (A2K)  +/-

  (IJCLP) The Yale Law School Information Society Project (ISP) and the International Journal of Communications Law & Policy (IJCLP) announce their third interdisciplinary writing competition and a call for papers in conjunction with the Access to Knowledge (A2K) Conference taking place on April 21-23, 2006 at Yale Law School. We invite students, scholars, policy makers, activists and practitioners to submit papers for the writing competition and/or for publication by the IJCLP. Key issues to be considered include, among others: the economics of A2K in a digital environment; A2K indexes and measurement techniques; the limitations to A2K; digital libraries and archives; government investment in information production; government procurement policies; open source software; the WIPO Broadcast Treaty; access to education and scientific knowledge; universal service in telecommunications; the digital divide; digital rights management; open access journals. Submissions for the writing competition must be received by noon EST, February 15th, 2006.

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