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The European Commission’s Directorate General for Trade has issued a working paper that comments on the “Opinion of European Academics on Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement”, released in January 2011. In that Opinion, the academics highlight several specific aspects of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), namely those related to the compatibility of its provisions with EU law and to safeguarding a balance between the interests of different parties. The signatories wrap up their statement by inviting the European institutions and the national legislators and governments to carefully...

On 14 April 2011, ECJ Advocate General Cruz Villalón delivered his opinion on case C-70/10, involving a reference for a preliminary ruling from the Cour d’ appel de Bruxelles in Scarlet Extended SA v Société Belge des auteurs, compositeurs et éditeurs (SABAM). The referred question concerns whether or not EU law permits member states to authorise national courts to issue injunctions against Internet Service Providers (ISPs) obliging them to introduce, for all their customers, in abstracto and as a preventive measure, at the cost of the ISP and for an unlimited period of time, a filtering system...

On 9 March 2011 the Court of Appeals of the district of The Hague (Court of Appeals) issued a judgment in a case regarding the question of whether breaking into an encrypted router and using the Wi-Fi connection is a criminal offence under Article 138ab of the Dutch Criminal Code. The decision of the Court of Appeals relates to the case of a high school student who posted a threat on the Internet message board 4chan.org in which he declared his intention to begin a shooting spree at his high school, the Maerlant College in The Hague. He posted this threat using a Wi-Fi connection he had hacked...

On 2 March 2011, the German cabinet adopted and published the government’s draft amendment to the Telekommunikationsgesetz (Telecommunications Act - TKG). The main purpose of the proposal is the implementation of the changes to the EU’s regulatory framework for electronic communications adopted at the end of 2009. Under the conditions established by the Directive, the implementation must be completed by May. As early as September 2010, the ministry responsible, the Bundesministerium für Wirtschaft und Technologie (Federal Ministry for the Economy and Technology) forwarded the ministerial draft...

On 25 March 2011, the Verwaltungsgericht des Saarlandes ((Saarland Administrative Court) ruled that broadcasters must normally be allowed to film public city council meetings and may only be prohibited from doing so in exceptional circumstances. The mayor of the City of Saarbrücken had turned down an application by the private broadcaster Funkhaus Saar GmbH to film the city council’s public meetings exclusively for reporting purposes (see IRIS 2010-10/23). She gave as her reason for the ban her fear that the city council’s ability to function properly could be adversely affected if its meetings...