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The French Government has presented a bill entitled “Creation and the Internet” as a solution to the threat to creation posed by unlawful downloading. Proposing the setting up of a system of “graduated response” which is intended to be dissuasive rather than repressive, the bill has given rise to considerable debate both in France and in Europe. Amendment 138 adopted by the European Parliament catalysed the fears expressed by the bill’s detractors (see IRIS 2008-10: 4). “Graduated response” refers to the method for warning and sanction that the new High Authority for the Broadcasting of Works and...

The Cologne Landgericht (Regional Court – LG), in a decision of 2 September 2008, and the Düsseldorf LG, in a decision of 12 September 2008, are the first German courts to reach decisions on the new right to copyright information enshrined in section 101(9) of the Urheberrechtsgesetz (Copyright Act, – UrhG). This right has existed since 1 September 2008 and implements Directive 2004/48/EC on the enforcement of intellectual property rights. The applicant for an injunction in both cases was a company that possesses rights in sound recordings. Some of these recordings were illegally distributed over...

On 29 September 2008 the European Commission published a communication addressing future networks and the Internet. According to the report, broadband and Internet services have been adopted en masse by Europeans, thereby impacting European society and economy significantly. Internet use continues to grow and change in Europe and is speculated to continue to flourish, its changes predicted to result in new opportunities for European businesses and citizens. The pervasiveness of broadband in Europe has shifted the way in which users engage with the Internet. The Internet is increasingly participative...

The Greek Ethinko Symvoulio Radiotileorasis (National Council for Radio and Television – ESR) recently issued three important decisions regarding the issues of protection of minors, privacy and protection of a person’s personality. The first decision refers to the well-known series “Prison Break”. The series was broadcast by the Greek channel “ANTENNA” and was rated by the special committee of the channel as second category – available for minors with parental consent. According to this rating, the series could not be transmitted during the “children’s zone” (i.e. before the watershed). On a daily...

In its decision of 28 February 2008, the Garante per la Protezione dei Dati Personali (the Italian Data Protection Authority) outlawed the use by private companies of a software designed to monitor, for the purpose of identifying and suing them, the activities of peer-to-peer (P2P) users that share copyrighted files on the Internet. The decision of the Garante was adopted in the broader context of the controversial “Peppermint case”. The genesis of the case dates back to 2007, when the German record label Peppermint Jam Records GmbH (Peppermint) and the Polish videogame developer...