EDRI-gram newsletter - Number 4.8, 26 April 2006

[EDRI-gram newsletter]

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            EDRI-gram

 biweekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe

    Number 4.8, 26 April 2006

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Contents
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1. EU report recommends open access to publicly funded scientific research
2. European Data Protection Supervisor presents annual report
3. Debate on the revision of Swiss copyright law
4. Hamburg court rules against forum providers
5. Access to Knowledge in the digital world
6. German music industry wants new powers
7. OECD focuses on global cooperation in tackling spam
8. EU pays for surveillance and control technologies
9. Agenda
10. About

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1. EU report recommends open access to publicly funded scientific research
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The EU report drafted by economists from Toulouse University and the Free
University of Brussels on the economic and technical evolution of scientific
publishing in Europe, published on 31 March 2006, recommends public access
to scientific research funded by the European taxpayer.

The report proposes the development of a European policy that would allow
researchers receiving EU funding to place copies of articles published in
subscription journals on web-based archives that can be accessed by everyone
for free. It also expressed the need to bspecify standards that will insure
that the archives are [accessible], interoperable, and have cross-searching
facilities. In addition, set up a general European archive for researchers
with access to a subject-based or institutional archive.b

Among many other recommendations, the report suggests the development of
electronic publications through the elimination of the bunfavorable tax
treatment of electronic publicationsb by reducing the VAT rate or by
introducing a tax refund. It is considered that the bhigher rate applied to
electronic delivery of information in Europe strongly affects European
research institutions, especially when compared to other countries where
electronic services are exempt from tax.b The authors also believe that
public funding and public-private partnerships should be formed to create
journal digital archives in areas such as social sciences and humanities
when there is little commercial interest.

This is a serious blow for traditional publishers of scientific journals who
are worried that subscriptions will drop. According to the report, the price
of scientific journals increased 300% more than the inflation rate during
the last 10 years, which put a limitation to the dissemination of knowledge
and scientific progress.

Janez Potocnik, European Science and Research Commissioner stated: bIt is
in
all our interests to find a model for scientific publication that serves
research excellence. We are ready to work with readers, authors, publishers,
and funding bodies to develop such a model.b

The European Commission waits for reactions and comments to the report as
well as other contributions related to scientific publications until June
2006.

Study of the economic and technical evolution of the scientific publication
markets in Europe (31.03.2006)
http://europa.eu.int/comm/research/science-society/pdf/scientific-publication
-study_en.pdf

Brussels delivers blow to Reed Elsevier (19.04.2006)
http://business.guardian.co.uk/story/0,,1756426,00.html

European Commission Releases Key Scientific Publishing Report (10.04.2006)
http://www.infotoday.com/newsbreaks/nb060410-1.shtml

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2. European Data Protection Supervisor presents annual report
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European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) 2005 annual report was presented
on the 19 April . As stated by the report, following the first year of
setting up the new independent authority on protecting personal data and
privacy, 2005 was a year of consolidation  confirming its main activities:
supervision, consultation and cooperation. The authority increased its staff
and set up its own press service.

Peter Hustinx, the European Data Protection Supervisor, stated that EDPS is
now advising the European Commission, Council and Parliament on proposals of
new legislation affecting privacy and six formal opinions were published
last year in this context. Related mainly to the policy area "Justice,
Freedom and Security", these opinions included proposals such as the highly
controversial one on data retention, but also for large scale IT-systems
such as the second generation Schengen information system (SIS II) and the
Visa information system (VIS).

In 2005 efforts were made to further develop the network of Data Protection
Officers (DPOs) of institutions and bodies. A paper on the role of the
compulsory Data Protection Officers was published and advice and training
was also provided to DPOs. Resources were used to prior checking risky
operations (although most of them bex postb as the respective systems
already existed before EDPS was created).

EDPS ensured a series of tools facilitating the compliance of data
protection obligations by the EU administration as well as 34 opinions out
of which 30 on systems existing in various institutions and bodies. It
established some thematic priorities such as medical files, staff appraisal,
disciplinary procedures, social services and e-monitoring.

A background paper was also elaborated on how public access to documents and
data protection relate in the context of EU institutions and bodies.
As the supervisory authority of the central unit of Eurodac, EDPS prepared a
series of activities in 2005 expressing a general satisfaction on the
findings of the first stage of inspections.

Peter Hustinx expressed his trust in EDPS achievements during the first two
years of activity and considered progress has been made in developing a data
protection culture.

Consolidating the EDPS bsecond Annual Report presented b press release
(19.04.2006)
http://www.edps.eu.int/Press/EDPS-2006-5-EN_annual%20report.pdf

EDPS 2005 Annual Report (19.04.2006)
http://www.edps.eu.int/publications/annual_report/2005/AR_2005_EN.pdf

EDRI-gram : Results data protection inspection EURODAC kept secret
(15.03.2006)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number4.5/eurodac

EDRI-gram : EU Visa Database under scrutiny of the European Data Protection
(2.02.2006)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number4.2/visadatabase

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3. Debate on the revision of Swiss copyright law
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On April 6, the Swiss copyright office launched a discussion on the proposal
for the revision of the copyright law in Switzerland at its media event in
Berne. The Swiss copyright office presented a pocket guide as well as a
website and commented on the most important changes. The primary goal of the
copyright revision is the ratification of the two WIPO Internet Treaties.

A crucial point is the legal status conferred to technical copyright
protection measures, such as Digital Rights Management (DRM), and ensuring
prohibition of their circumvention. However, in contrast with copyright laws
passed in other countries, circumvention would be allowed for uses
authorized in general by copyright law (personal copies, fair use). File
downloading will remain legal, because users cannot be required to decide
whether a file is offered legally or not. The proposed law clarifies the
legal status of Internet Providers, stating that they can't be held
responsible for their customers' copyright infringements. The Federal
Council would also install an Observatory (Observatoire des mesures
techniques) to arbitrate between the different parties and to watch over the
use and misuse of technical protection measures. The Observatory was heavily
criticised by all sides, especially by consumer organisations because it
would lack power. Regarding the payment of rights, the Federal Council
favors the co-existence of their traditional levying by collecting
societies, and of direct automated levying through DRM technologies.

The website and the pocket guide are the result of a joint effort by
different interest groups and the Swiss copyright office. Their aim is to
stimulate the public debate and give a balanced view on the topic, e.g. the
harms and benefits of DRM systems. The pocket guide tries to explain the
proposed changes on a very general level, and quotations of different actors
give a first view on the debated issues. On the website, however, there is a
dubious flash game, sponsored by Microsoft, where people are encouraged to
hunt "pirates of ideas".

The Parliament will decide about the revision later this year. It is
expected that the different groups will try to change the law and even
expand the revision to include further regulations such as the introduction
of a tax levy for copy machines, or the rights on works made for an
employer. Several civil liberty groups, such as SIUG, comunica-ch and
Digitale Allmend are planning to protect their interests as users and
producers of digital content.

Proposal for the revision of copyright in Switzerland
http://www.ige.ch/E/jurinfo/j103.shtm

Swiss Copyright Office - website and pocket guide
http://www.swiss-copyright.ch

(Contribution by Daniel Boos, Member of SIUG and Digitale Allmend)

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4. Hamburg court rules against forum providers
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The first-instance court of Hamburg gave its final ruling on the liability
of forum comments, stating that moderators of internet forums are liable
for content posted on their sites.

Initially, the legislation held forum providers liable for illegal content
they had knowledge about and there was no obligation for them to search for
such content. This interpretation was now overruled by the Hamburg court who
considered providing forums as a business operation. Therefore forum
providers should be able to have sufficient staff and means to check out
comments on their forums. As the court stated, in case they cannot operate
accordingly, bthey either have to expand their in-house resources or [...]
reduce the scope of their business operations,"

The case originating the ruling was that of a forum member of German news
site Heise Online, who posted a script disrupting the business practices of
Universal Boards, a Munich company criticised for allegedly distributing
premium rate internet dialers and also accused of buying up expired domain
names to use them for advertising porn. The company asked the publisher to
remove the script, which it did, but it refused to sign a formal obligation.
Universal Boards then obtained from the district court a temporary
restraining order.

Without taking account of the argument given by Heise that verifying the
contents of more than 200,000 comments per month would be an unreasonable
burden on the publisher, the court considered that a publisher should have
been able to prevent such situations by "reviewing the content of the
comments before publishing them."

The court was not clear in whether every Web forum could be held liable or
only the services of the press. The statement refers to "people who operate
facilities in which content is disseminated as in the press." And this
"also applied for companies that disseminate content via the Internet." As a
result, probably every Internet forum will enter this category.
Heise is appealing this ruling.

First-instance district court of Hamburg says forum operators are liable for
comments (18.04.2006)
http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/72085

German court rules moderators liable for forum comments (21.04.2006)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2006/04/21/moderator_liable_for_comments/

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5. Access to Knowledge in the digital world
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>From 21 June to 23 June, Yale Law School hosted the first
international "Access to Knowledge" (A2K) conference.  Following two
workshops on the same theme held in 2005 in Geneva and London, the aim
of this conference was to  "come up with a new analytic framework for
analysing the possibly distortive effects of public policies relying
exclusively on intellectual property rightsb and to "support the
adoption and development of alternative ways to foster greater access
to knowledge in the digitally connected environment."

The Conference saw the participation of a large number of speakers and
observers from numerous countries, distributed among a packed set of
panels, ranging from larger, conceptual discussions on how political
actions and academic discourses around A2K should be framed, to the
nitty-gritty details of global Digital Rights Management laws and
regulations, licensing frameworks, wireless technologies, genetically
modified food and organisms etc.

The introductory plenary panel on "Framing Access To Knowledge" set up
the beat for the three days; Jack Balkin (law professor and director
of the Information Society Project at Yale Law School) highlighted how
A2K is a matter of distributional justice in "promoting economic
development and human flourishing in [this] historical moment, the
global information economy." On the other hand, Balkin continued, A2K
is about intellectual property but also goes beyond that.

As expected, intellectual property issues were a central element of
the overall debate during the conference, but Balkin's last remark was
generally recognized; and, arguably due to the widespread
participation of delegates and observers from developing countries,
several panels highlighted how, more often than not, infrastructural
obstacles are at least as much a worry for a proper policy maximizing
A2K as are laws regulating the distribution and widespread usage of
intellectual assets.

On the other hand, Joel Mokyr (professor of economic history at
Northwestern University) remarked how the debate around A2K should
strive to properly conceptualise what does "knowledge" mean, and care
on the costs of access should always be kept firmly in mind when
devising any policy in this area.  Prof. Mokyr suggested that the
sheer amount of information - and the need for such information to be
properly categorized, as well as the different needs of different
people and communities - will produce the occurance of "access
specialists", i.e. people that will serve as intermediaries and help
reducing the unavoidable information-gathering transaction costs that
are already emerging.

Many other points of view were presented during the three days;
although it would be impossible to cover all of them in this article,
luckily the conference organizers have set up a wiki, where it is
already possible to find notes from all the panels and related
references.

"Access To Knowledge" Conference
http://research.yale.edu/isp/eventsa2k.html

Yale Access To Knowledge Wiki
http://research.yale.edu/isp/a2k/wiki/index.php/Main_Page

Access To Knowledge Initiative Portal
http://www.access2knowledge.org/cs/

CPTech's Access to Knowledge page
http://www.cptech.org/a2k/

UNU-MERIT's Access 2 Knowledge Hub
http://www.merit.unu.edu/a2k/

(Contribution by Andrea Glorioso - Italian consultant on digital policies)

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6. German music industry wants new powers
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Representatives of the German music industry asked for new powers in order
to obtain, without court order, personal information about alleged
file-sharers from Internet Service Providers.

In a recent event held in Munich by the Institute of Copyright and Media
Law, representatives of the rights holder associations claimed that this
change would improve the fight against piracy, through easier civil-law
suits against the alleged copyright infringers. This new obligation should
be imposed through the new changes in the copyright law for the
implementation of the IPR enforcement directive.

Director of the German Chapter of IFPI, Peter Zombik, explained, "The EU
Directive does not require a court order for the disclosure of such
information." He also called for an earlier implementation of the data
retention Directive, hoping that the retained data could be used in the
civil-law copyright cases. IFPI Germany is blaming the file-sharers for a
seventh consecutive annual decrease in turnover in CD sales.

On the other hand, Hannes Federrath, Professor of Information Security
Management at the University of Regensburg reminded that "What you are
demanding here goes beyond what prosecutors of consumers of child
pornography get."

These actions of the rights holder associations are also confirming the
worries of the privacy experts that the data retained in Europe on the basis
of the new Data retention Directive will be used with a much broader scope
than initially suggested b fighting terrorism.

Holders of copyrights want to have providers hand over information without
court orders (10.04.2006)
http://www.heise.de/english/newsticker/news/71866

EDRI-gram:  Data Retention Directive: reactions related to the costs
involved (18.01.2006)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number4.1/dataretentioncosts

German Music Biz Hit by Pirates For Seventh Straight Year (22.03.2006)
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,1941076,00.html


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7. OECD focuses on global cooperation in tackling spam
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A new recommendation on the cross-border co-operation in the enforcement of
laws against spam was adopted by the OECD Council session on 13 April 2006,
completing the Anti-spam toolkit promoted by OECD since 2004.

The recommendation admits that there is not single solution for tackling the
spam issues and the international cooperation is the key in solving the
problem. The OECD document urges countries to ensure that their laws enable
enforcement authorities to share information with other countries and
promote the establishment of a single national contact point to facilitate
international cooperation.

According to OECD recommendation there are four important areas that need to
be taken into account by the member countries: establishing a domestic
framework, improving the ability to cooperate, improving procedures for
co-operation and cooperating with relevant private sector entities. Also the
education and awareness on the risks of spam and how to deal with it should
be an important factor to take into consideration.

The OECD Recommendation on Cross-Border Co-operation in the Enforcement of
Laws against Spam has been included in the updated version of the OECD
Anti-Spam toolkit that gives policy makers a comprehensive package of
concrete regulatory approaches, technical solutions, and industry
initiatives to fight spam.

The recent top of twelve spam relaying countries, over the first quarter of
2006, released by Sophos, presents six European countries as part of
this top: France, Poland, Spain, Germany, United Kingdom and Netherlands.
The top also shows that Europe is in danger of overtaking North America as
the second worst spam-relaying part of the world.

OECD urges governments and industry to do more to tackle spam (19.04.2006)
http://www.oecd.org/document/62/0,2340,en_2649_34487_36488702_1_1_1_1,00.html

OECD Recommendation on Cross-Border Co-operation in the Enforcement of Laws
against Spam (19.04.2006)
http://www.oecd-antispam.org/article.php3?id_article=238

Sophos report reveals latest 'dirty dozen' spam relaying countries
(20.04.2006)
http://www.sophos.com/pressoffice/news/articles/2006/04/dirtydozapr06.html

EDRI-gram: ITU wants codes of conduct for tackling global spam (15.03.2006)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number4.5/ituspam

OECD Anti-Spam Toolkit
http://www.oecd.org/dataoecd/63/28/36494147.pdf

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8. EU pays for surveillance and control technologies
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bArming Big Brotherb, a new report by Transnational Institute (TNI) and
Statewatch, reveals the army industry lobbying has led to creating a new
European security-industrial complex. According to this report, EU is
preparing to spend to b,1 billion per year on new "research" into
surveillance and control technologies.

Following the demands made in 2003 by the GoP (Group of Personalities)
including EU officials and Europebs largest IT and arms companies arguing
Europe multinationals needed a billion euros per year to compete with US
multinationals and Government, the European Commission appointed a European
Security Research Advisory Board to develop and implement the future
European Security Research Programme (ESRP).

Ben Hayes, the author of the report stated bThe ESRP is completely
unaccountable and gives multinational corporations an unacceptable role in
EU decision-making. This is contributing to a European security agenda in
the corporate rather than the public interestb&b

This claim is supported by the fact that 24 projects have already received
funding from the Commission out of which military organisations and defence
sector contractors are leading 17 of them. Another 10 projects deal with
research into high-tech surveillance systems.

The big four European arms companies have a combined annual revenue of
around 84 billion dollars, not far off the total EU budget. The author of
the report raises the question of whether the European citizens should
therefore pay the bill for the research of these companies.

Although some of the projects funded under the ESRP have a legitimate
objective focusing on radio-nuclear fallout and the protection of critical
infrastructure, the majority of these projects bdeal with surveillance and
the development of military technologies of political control offering
little guarantee as far as bsecurityb is concernedb.

The report argues that rather than facing serious threats like terrorism,
environmental degradation, climate change, diseases or other types of
insecurity, the ESRP is part of a EU strategy bfocused almost exclusively
on
the use of military force and new law enforcement technologies. Freedom and
democracy are being undermined by the very policies adopted in their name.b

There is already clear evidence that new law enforcement technologies,
unless under strict control, can damage civil liberties. The EU legislation
on the introduction of biometrics into passports and travel documents raises
serious privacy concerns. This creates an alarming image of a Europe in
which everybody is registered and fingerprinted, in which communications and
movements are monitored and in which this control is rather imposed by
bmilitary force rather than civilianconsentb.

Arming Big Brother makes an appeal to civil society to resist the
development of the security-industrial complex and the militarization of the
EU. Its author expresses his hope that the report may contribute to a larger
campaign against EU militarism and that independent groups will continue to
monitor the development and implementation of the ERSP.

Press release - Arming Big Brother: new research reveals the true costs of
Europe's security-industrial complex (25.04.2006)
http://www.statewatch.org/news/2006/apr/bigbro-press-release.pdf

Arming Big Brother The EUbs Security Research Programme (04.2006)
http://www.statewatch.org/news/2006/apr/bigbrother.pdf

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9. Agenda
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27-28 April 2006, Washington, USA
IP Disputes of the Future - TACD
This conference will ask what will be the IP disputes in new fields of
technology, and how advances in biotechnology and information technologies
will change the nature of IP disputes.
http://www.tacd.org/docs/?id=287

30 April - 2 May 2006, Hamburg, Germany
LSPI Conference 2006 The First International Conference on Legal, Security
and Privacy Issues in IT
http://www.kierkegaard.co.uk/

1-5 May 2006, Geneva, Switzerland
WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR/14)
Crucial meeting which will decide on recommendations to the WIPO General
Assemblies in September on a draft WIPO Treaty on the Protection of
Broadcasting Organisations
http://www.wipo.int/meetings/en/details.jsp?meeting_id=9943

2-5 May 2006, Washington, USA
CFP2006
The Sixteenth Conference on Computers, Freedom & Privacy
http://www.cfp2006.org

3 May 2006, ZC<rich, Switzerland
Foundation of Digitale Allmend
Access to knowledge in Switzerland
http://www.allmend.ch

3-6 May 2006, Wiesbaden, Germany
LinuxTag - Europe's biggest fair and congress around free software
http://www.linuxtag.org

11-18 May 2006, Geneva, Switzerland
Consultations on WSIS implementation by action lines. 9 meetings on
different thematic action lines will be held by respective UN
Agencies facilitators. Open to all WSIS stakeholders.
http://www.itu.int/wsis/implementation/index.html

10 May - 23 July 2006, Austria
Annual decentralized community event around free software lectures, panel
discussions, workshops, fairs and socialising
http://www.linuxwochen.at

19 - 23 May 2006, Geneva, Switzerland
A new round of consultations on the convening of the Internet Governance
Forum will be held at the United Nations in Geneva on 19 May. The
consultations will be followed by a meeting of the IGF Advisory Group on
22 - 23 May 2006.
http://www.intgovforum.org

19-20 May 2006, Florence, Italy
E-privacy 2006
Trusted Computing, Data retention: privacy between new technologies and new
laws.
The central theme of this year's edition is data retention, but several
interventions on other relevant aspects of privacy protection are planned,
including Trusted Computing and the new issues raised by the draft reform of
Italian Criminal Law, with specific reference to Cybercrime.
http://e-privacy.firenze.linux.it

20 May 2006, Florence, Italy
Big Brother Award Italia 2006
Nominations accepted until 28 April 2006
http://bba.winstonsmith.info

19-20 June 2006, Paris, France
New relations between creative individuals and communities, consumers
and citizens. Hosted by the TransAtlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD)
http://www.tacd.org/docs/?id=296

21 June 2006, Luxembourg
Safer Internet Forum 2006 Focus on two topics: "Children's use of new media"
and "Blocking access to illegal content: child sexual abuse images"
http://europa.eu.int/information_society/activities/sip/si_forum/forum...

26-27 June 2006, Berlin, Germany
The Rising Power of Search-Engines on the Internet: Impacts on Users, Media
Policy, and Media Business
http://www.uni-leipzig.de/journalistik/suma/home_e.html

16 - 28 July 2006, Oxford, UK
Annenberg/Oxford Summer Institute: Global Media Policy: Technology and New
Themes in Media Regulation Application
deadline 1 May 2006.
http://www.pgcs.asc.upenn.edu/events/ox06/index.php

2-4 August 2006, Bregenz, Austria
2nd International Workshop on Electronic Voting 2006 Students may apply for
funds to attend the workshop until 30 June 2006.
http://www.e-voting.cc/stories/1246056/

14-16 September 2006, Berlin, Germany
Wizards of OS 4
Information Freedom Rules
http://wizards-of-os.org/

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10. About
===========================================================

EDRI-gram is a biweekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe.
Currently EDRI has 21 members from 14 European countries and 5 observers
from 5 more countries (Italy, Ireland, Poland, Portugal and Slovenia).
European Digital Rights takes an active interest in developments in the EU
accession countries and wants to share knowledge and awareness through the
EDRI-grams. All contributions, suggestions for content, corrections or
agenda-tips are most welcome. Errors are corrected as soon as possible and
visibly on the EDRI website.

Except where otherwise noted, this newsletter is licensed under the
Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License. See the full text at
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/

Newsletter editor: Bogdan Manolea <edrigram at edri.org>

Information about EDRI and its members:
http://www.edri.org/

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