Copyright

Propaganda 101, retraction action and Saudi suitors + this day in history w/7/7 and our song of the day by Public Service Broadcasting on your Morning Monarchy for July 7, 2017.

Techdirt: First And Only Snippet Tax Deal In Spain Is With Big Supporter Of Snippet Tax In Germany »

A long-running legal battle between Dutch ISPs and the local anti-piracy organization BREIN over blocking The Pirate Bay has concluded with a ruling in favor of BREIN. The Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) said yesterday The Pirate Bay could be blocked because:
“Making available and managing an online platform for sharing copyright-protected works, such as ‘The Pirate Bay’, may constitute an infringement of copyright”

• What role the rights granted by the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union plays: in particular, what is the relationship between copyright protection (Article 17(2)) and freedom of the arts (Article 13)?
• (C)can copyright protection be trumped by the need to safeguard freedom of the press and freedom of information? Or can fundamental rights be even directly invoked to prevent enforcement of copyright?

Today the European Parliaments committee for the internal market (IMCO) has voted on the new EU copyright package.
The »censorship machine« (demanding that net platforms and ISP:s should filter all user uploaded content) fell. This is a victory for a free and open Internet.
(But still, the proposal is not quite dead. It can be re-tabled for the main vote in plenary.)
However, the »link tax« (license fees for linking to mainstream media content) still stands.

A particularly interesting discussion has been unfolding over the past months in the Romanian Parliament, where, on 15 March, the IT&C Committee of the Chamber of Deputies organised a debate on the proposed Directive, in order to collect the views of different stakeholders. After the event, the Committee produced an opinion addressed to the European Affairs Committee of the Chamber of Deputies, which is the group responsible for drafting the final report of the Parliament on the package proposal.

When people think of Peru, they imagine archeological sites like Machu Picchu and delicious food, but few outsiders know that in Lima, the nation’s capital, is the largest film library in Latin America. The collection is housed inside a truly unlikely place: a shopping center. But not just any shopping center. Polvos Azules, a 30-year-old market, started when immigrants from rural regions of the country came to Lima and became street sellers in order to survive.

Next Thursday, June 8, the European Parliaments Internal Market and Consumer Protection Committee (IMCO) will have its main vote on the EU Copyright Package.
Here a proposal will be hammered out for the parliament’s final plenary vote later this summer. So it’s a very important event. And there are dark clouds on the horizon.
Key points are the EU Censorship Machine (forcing internet platforms to control and, in relevant cases, censor content uploaded by its users) and the Link-tax (a license fee for linking to media news articles).

Denmark’s ISPs are collectively putting their foot down and will no longer surrender identifying subscriber information to the copyright industry’s lawyer armies. This follows a ruling in neighboring Norway, where the Supreme Court ruled that ISP Telenor is under no obligation to surrender subscriber identities, observing that the infraction of the copyright distribution monopoly is not nearly a serious enough issue to breach telecommunications privacy.

Sky Deutschland has won a copyright infringement case against the operator of live streaming site Stream4u.tv, as well as the provider of the hardware that was used to decrypt a Sky signal. The District Court of Hamburg, Germany, ruled that they must pay €18,000 in damages.

Torrentfreak: Hardware Provider is Liable For Live Streaming Piracy, Court Rules »