Russia’s new internet blacklist agency is busy naming “illegal” sites ISPs must block. But the government says search engines should not be blocked for pointing to those sites with excerpts of illegal content. Read more »
Google exists because, by and large, it is allowed to excerpt web pages without being held liable as a publisher. Now moves in Germany and Australia threaten both of those core facts. Read more »
Hadopi, the French body created by former President Nicolas Sarkozy to enforce copyright laws online, has rarely been popular for its three strikes disconnection policy. Now, after hints that the new government may cut its funding, the group’s leader has told politicians to stop meddling. Read more »
The company doesn’t think it’s a great idea for search engines to have to pay to reproduce headlines and story summaries in their results. But that’s nothing on the crazy earlier draft of this proposed law. Read more »
A 38-year-old Englishman becomes the first to be jailed for linking to illegally-hosted movies and TV shows. The method of his prosecution troubles piracy campaigners but delights entertainment owners. Read more »
France’s Hadopi piracy agency has warned hundreds of thousands accused of piracy. But it’s become frowned upon by the country’s new government. First step in reform is to cut the agency’s budget. Read more »
Twitter’s decision to suspend the account of a British journalist raises a host of questions about the company’s behavior, but one of the important ones is to what extent Twitter’s filtering and curation features could make it legally liable for the content flowing through the network. Read more at GigaOM »
The man who has been given the job of reworking France’s controversial anti-piracy legislation says cutting off the internet connection of filesharers is probably wrong. But don’t expect him to go easy on those of accused of illegal downloads. Read more »
When is a book not a book? When it comes to European tax law. The continent is acting against two countries that reduced e-book tax to physical rates, in a sorry and technocratic action. Read more »
The European Parliament has delivered a stunning defeat to the controversial anti-piracy treaty ACTA, voting it down by 478 votes to 39. But although campaigners are claiming victory and the proposals are on the canvas, they’re not quite knocked out yet. Read more »
Under new proposals from the British media regulator Ofcom, internet providers will start sending warning letters to those accused of illegal filesharing in 18 months — and will be forced to handed people’s data over to copyright holders after three successive hits. Read more »
Google is waving its victory in front of French culture makers, after emerging winner from a copyright infringement case brought by France’s largest TV network. Read more »
The lawmaker leading Europe’s digital agenda initiatives is hoping France can liberalise its digital copyright regime, after it introduced a policy to warn and disconnect illegal content downloaders. Read more »
The UK parliamentary committee’s report into whether it was misled over phone hacking makes conclusions including: “Rupert Murdoch is not a fit person to exercise the stewardship of a major international company.” Read more »
The UK becomes the thirteenth country to compel ISP-level blocking of The Pirate Bay, after record labels won a court case. Read more »
The UK’s communications regulator has kicked off a week in which News Corp will again be hauled over the coals, by opening an inquiry in to email hacking at its Sky News channel. Read more »
The music industry is battling to stop piracy through Russia’s largest social network so that it can turn the country from a digital backwater in to a top music market. vKontakte, which is often called a Facebook copycat for its similar features and design, includes built-in […] Read more »
