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1. EDRI-gram newsletter - Number 2.19, 6 October 2004
(EDRI-gram newsletter)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Date: Thu, 7 Oct 2004 00:38:36 +0200 (CEST)
From: "EDRI-gram newsletter" <[log in to unmask]>
Subject: EDRI-gram newsletter - Number 2.19, 6 October 2004
To: [log in to unmask]
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Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1
============================================================
EDRI-gram
biweekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe
Number 2.19, 6 October 2004
============================================================
Contents
============================================================
1. New EDRI website
2. Biometrics experts sceptical about quick introduction
3. Change in Germany's position on data retention
4. 7 of 10 NL providers remove public domain text
5. Germany attempts to censor website on censorship
6. RFID workshop FIfF anniversary conference
7. EU Parliament Committee approves of Buttiglione
8. Nominations Swiss Big Brother Awards
9. Report about WIPO conference
10. New EU questionnaire on spam
11. Recommended reading
12. Agenda
13. About
============================================================
1. New EDRI website
============================================================
European Digital Rights today launches a new website, with a new logo and
up-to-date information on campaigns and news items. The website is created
with the open source content management system Drupal, and offers new
features, such as an RSS-feed of the main news articles and press
releases. The main advantage of the new site is the improved accessibility
of the many different issues covered in EDRI-gram. In the months to come,
all the articles from 2003 on the old website will be migrated to the new
website. Until then, the old website remains accessible as an archive.
The webdesign and Drupal implementation were done by the Dutch design
company Anderemedia, thanks to a small grant from OSI / Soros foundation.
European Digital Rights website
http://www.edri.org/
Archived former website
http://archive.edri.org
============================================================
2. Biometrics experts sceptical about quick introduction
============================================================
The Europarl Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE)
today organised a hearing with experts on biometrics. In his opening
remarks the MEP Carlos Coelho (Conservative, Portugal) said he generally
agreed with the objective of securing people's identities, but has some
doubts about adding biometric identifiers to travel documents. Coelho is
the rapporteur on 3 different reports for the European Parliament
involving the inclusion of biometric features in personal documents.
After listening to what the four experts had to tell him, Mr. Coelho's
closing remarks sounded somewhat more critical: "Technological solutions
seem handy sometimes, but may hide the new problems they may be causing.
While the contrary can also apply - technology being blocked because
measures to work around the problem don't come to the surface - we must
make sure that there is a fair balance between the values of security and
of freedom. None of the two may be sacrificed for the other."
In the two-and-a-half hours that lay between the two remarks, four experts
had warned unanimously for the unforeseeable effects of what could be a
premature introduction of a technology not yet ready for wide-spread
application. Julian Ashbourn who acts as an adviser to the British, U.S.
and Japanese governments on biometrics, warned that the focus was
presently too much on technological aspects of biometrics, while societal
impacts that would inevitably concern the present-day generation as well
as our grandchildren were largely undiscussed. In the public discussion,
assumptions on the values of biometrics were being made that were simply
false - like believing that biometrics could prove that a person actually
is who she or he claims to be. "History will show", Mr. Ashbourn said,
"that certain assumptions involving biometrics will prove to be ill
founded." If related biometric-related initiatives were poorly conceived,
states risked the alienation of responsible citizens. Much more
discussion, M. Ashbourn argued, was needed before biometrics had
sufficient acceptance to be widely implemented - a 25 year time frame
would be realistic.
Jonathan Cave, an economic scientist with the University of Warwick in
Britain, supported much of Mr. Ashbourn's arguments. He said the possible
benefits of biometrics were often regarded as a surplus value, even if
indeed they weren't, because biometrics provided a degree of
identification that is not needed for many services. When calculating
these benefits, it was often ignored that biometrics - and in particular
standardised interoperable ones - also created barriers for competitors
who could not afford to buy the adequate equipment. Such a recipe for
market failure would cause additional costs.
Paul de Hert of the Dutch University of Leiden warned that biometrics were
part of a trend towards a more pro-active, intelligence-led form of
policing that originated in the United States but became increasingly
popular with police forces also inside the EU. He said this trend must be
countered, among other things with a Directive on data Protection in the
EU's Third Pillar, where no data protection exists until now. Mr. de Hert
expressed his fear that storing the data in giant databases instead of a
chip on a smart card could cause additional vulnerabilities, and he called
for an option for people to opt out of a wide-spread biometrics regime.
Bernadette Dorizzi, a Professor at the Institut national des
Tilicommunications in Paris, discussed technological aspects of
biometrics. While the technology itself was not new, Mrs. Dorizzi said,
the possibilities of storing and processing it for milions of individuals
added a new dimension. No biometric system could be expected to be one
hundred percent accurate, and some, like face recognition, had enormous
failure rates of 40 percent. DNA was the only identifier that could be
considered unique to a person, but it would in the European context be
neither acceptable nor practicable to introduce it as an identifier. Only
China plans to include a DNA pattern as an identifier on national identity
cards. Fingerprints and Iris scans provided more security, but it must be
kept in mind that they are still under development.
Proposal for a Council Regulation on standards for security features and
biometrics in EU citizens' passports (18.02.2004)
http://europa.eu.int/eur-lex/en/com/pdf/2004/com2004_0116en01.pdf
Avanti, the independent non-profit web resource for biometrics, run by
Julian Ashbourn
http://www.avanti.1to1.org/
(Contribution by Andreas Dietl, EDRI EU Affairs director)
============================================================
3. Change in Germany's position on data retention
============================================================
According to an article in the Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung Germany is
changing its position on the proposal from the EU Council to oblige
telecom and internet providers to store traffic data about all their
customers for 12 to 36 months. The legislative chamber that represents
Germany's 16 states on national issues (the Bundesrat) voted on 1 October
to 'take notice of' rather than support the EU proposal. Previously this
important legislative body unsuccessfully tried to introduce mandatory
data retention for at least 6 months in the new Telecommunication law. The
current data retention regime in Germany allows for 90 days storage of
traffic data.
Meanwhile, the German government has published a new draft law for
telecommunication and post interception on behalf of the Customs Office. 2
Paragraphs of the previous law were declared unconstitutional by the
Constitutional Court on 3 March 2004, for violating the communications
secrecy guaranteed in Article 10. The new proposal defines the
surveillance powers of the Customs Office much more precisely, listing for
example the crimes that interception can be called for, in stead of the
previous, more general description of 'criminal offences of substantial
importance'. Also, in case of a possible hand-over of personal data to
other public institutions the materials must be marked as 'sensitive', to
respect the communication secrecy.
The strong German constitutional protection of the communication secrecy
might turn out to become crucial in the debate about general EU
surveillance legislation, since a third pillar decision such as the data
retention proposal can only be taken unanimously by all 25 member states.
FAZ English week edition 'Stand on data altered' (01.10.2004)
http://www.faz.com/IN/INtemplates/eFAZ/docmain.asp?rub=%7BB1311FCC-FBFB-11D2
-B228-00105A9CAF88%7D&doc=%7B48E0D91E-AA85-4088-8A62-0ED0C3952082%7D
Draft proposal preventive telecommunication and post interception by the
Customs Office (DATE)
http://www.parlamentsspiegel.de/WWW/Webmaster/GB_I/I.4/Dokumentenarchiv/doku
ment.php?k=BBD720/04
============================================================
4. 7 of 10 NL providers remove public domain text
============================================================
7 out of 10 internet providers in the Netherlands remove a text by the
famous Dutch author Multatuli (who died in 1887), without even looking at
the webpage, or verifying the identity of the plaintiff. These are the
results of an experiment conducted this summer by the Dutch EDRI-member
Bits of Freedom about complaint procedures at ISPs.
Bits of Freedom picked 10 internet providers for the test, 3 free and 3
paid (dial-up) access providers, 3 hosting providers dedicated to business
customers and 1 cable internet provider. A text was uploaded from
Multatuli (pseudonym of Eduard Douwes Dekker), dating from 1871. The text
is about democracy, and begins with the story of the sheep. The sheep
chase away a tyrant, only to find themselves in need of specialists to
represent them, and they end up inviting the tyrant back, disguised as
'Specialist'. The text clearly states in the opening line that the work
dates from 1871, and was reprinted in 1981. At the bottom of the text
there is a line stating 'this works belongs to the public domain'. Since
copyright expires 70 years after the death of the author, all works by
Multatuli are in the public domain since 1957.
First the customer was invented, and given the name 'Johan de Ruyter'.
Secondly, a non-existent society was created to act as copyright holder,
the E.D. Dekkers society. Representing this society was a 'legal advisor',
Mr. Johan Droogleever. A few weeks after the text were brought online, Mr.
Droogleever started to send complaints to the providers from his Hotmail
account, stating the society owned all the copyrights to any published
materials of E.D. Dekkers, and now that the provider was notified, he
expected the provider to act expeditiously and remove the text.
5 out of the 10 providers removed the text after the first or second
e-mail from Mr. Droogleever, one business provider even within 3 hours
after receiving the first e-mail. 3 providers replied with a paper
questionnaire, in which the plaintiff was invited to specify the exact
nature of the complaint. Droogleever just restated the same argument and
in 2 cases the providers removed the webpage without ever looking at the
webpage or verifying if the E.D. Dekkers society existed at all.
Only 1 provider sent a brief e-mail back to Droogleever explaining he as a
legal advisor should also know copyrights had long ago expired. In another
case, the provider responded that a Hotmail address was not credible at
all, and the complaint would only be processed if Droogleever could
provide several written proofs of the existence of the society and his
ability to act on their behalf. Finally, the third provider that did not
remove the text did not respond at all to any of the 4 e-mails Droogleever
sent.
Under the European E-Commerce directive internet hosting providers risk
liability for apparently illegal content from their customers. Once they
are notified, and the unlawfulness is 'apparent', they should take
immediate action to block or remove the content. According to Bits of
Freedom, this experiment clearly demonstrates the need for a precise
notice and takedown procedure and legal guarantees for freedom of speech
legal. Currently, there is too much one-sided liability pressure on ISPs
to immediately remove, without proper investigation.
Research paper Bits of Freedom (01.10.2004)
http://www.bof.nl/docs/researchpaperSANE.pdf
============================================================
5. Germany attempts to censor website on censorship
============================================================
The district government of Dusseldorf, Germany is bringing the
anti-censorship activist Alvar Freude to court. The hearing starts
tomorrow, on 7 October 2004. Freude is accused of posting hyper-links to
censored websites with radical right-wing content on his website and thus
helping to promote the distribution of the materials. Freude on the other
hand claims he only wants to make German censorship transparent.
The case dates back to a decision taken early in 2002 by the district
government of Dusseldorf. They passed orders to more than 80 internet
providers to block access from their users to 4 foreign websites.
Providers and civil rights groups united in protest against the directive,
but lost 3 out of 4 court cases, confirming immediate enforceability of
the orders. Meanwhile, 2 of the 4 websites have been dropped from the
blocking-order (rotten.com, a distasteful but not radical right-wing
website and front14.org).
The public prosecutor of Stuttgart now brought one of the most vocal
critics of the orders to court. According to an article in the German
e-zine Heise he said all hyper-links to radical right-wing websites are
forbidden. But according to Freude's lawyer, linking to right-wing hate
speech is permissible in the context of reporting current events.
The Court of Stuttgart now has to decide about the fate of the hyper-link;
whether it should always be considered a publication or distribution in
itself, and if it is illegal to mention the addresses of right-wing
websites even in a documentary or satirical setting.
In a statement, EDRI member FITUG points out that it is very simplistic to
assume that all hyperlinks imply an endorsement. Such a position denies
the Web's potential for controversial debate, and threatens freedom of
speech.
On his website, Freude documents many developments regarding filtering and
blocking in Germany. With the satirical initiative FreedomFone, Freude
enables people to have blocked websites read out loud to them.
Website Alvar Freude documenting censorship
http://www.odem.org/
Netzaktivist werden volksverhetzende Links vorgeworfen (22.07.2004)
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/38785
FITUG statement (06.10.2004)
http://www.fitug.de/news/pes/fitug-20041006_en.html
============================================================
6. RFID workshop FIfF anniversary conference
============================================================
The RFID workshop organised during the FIfF anniversary conference
(Berlin, 30 September - 3 October 2004) offered an excellent overview of
the technical issues and privacy questions. Robert Gehring introduced the
history of RFID, and explained passive chips were first used in World War
II air-planes to detect the proximity of enemy planes. The chips were only
adopted on a large scale in Europe in 1980s, as huge ear-labels on cows.
In 1999 the Auto-ID center was founded at the US MIT lab. The Center's
research was focussed on robots, how they could move in a room with
unknown objects. In stead of working on image recognition for the robot,
the scientists decided to equip all the furniture with RFIDs and put the
intelligence in the objects. After years of large financial support by the
industry, on 31 October 2003 the Auto-ID Center closed down. Now several
Auto-ID labs are collaborating with EPCglobal to create new standards for
data storage and data retrieval.
Gehring also gave a technical overview of the different kinds of tags,
their frequency range and the distance they can be read. He remarked that
the dream of some supermarkets to have an entire grocery car scanned at
once wasn't yet physically possible, because of frequency interference
between the different tags. However, once the chips leave the area of
logistics and just-in-time production, and enter the consumer world, he
feared supermarkets and department stores would soon start to demand
mandatory identification at the entrance, to be able to connect individual
citizens to individual products.
Andreas Krisch from EDRI-member VIBE!AT explained what Verisign's role was
in creating the Electronic Product Code. This new identification scheme is
based on a 96 bit number, allowing for 238 million manufacturers to each
create 16 million different product types. In total EPC makes it possible
to create 1.152 billion different codes per manufacturer. In other words,
this system would allow very precise tagging of individual products. The
system proposed by Verisign involves 2 kinds of databases, operated by
three different players. The EPC discovery service offers a product
description on the Web per code, and the Object name service routes the
question about a number to the right party (the manufacturer, the
wholesale distributor and the retailer). Questions about authentication
are not answered yet, Krisch added. Besides, the current proposal was
heavily backed by large software companies such as Microsoft, Oracle, IBM
and SAP, with a very clear business need to push for expensive large-scale
databases and complicated network infrastructure. But the access to data
could just as easily be organised by low cost peer2peer networks,
according to Krisch.
Finally Sarah Spiekermann from the internet economy group of Berlin's
Humboldt University spoke about the privacy issues surrounding RFID. She
conducted a survey amongst 35 representative shoppers in Berlin what their
major concerns were about the technology. She found the most poignant
concern was the fear of being held responsible for objects, once RFIDs
would establish a one-on-one link between a person and an object. She gave
2 examples of this fear. If you forget your sweater, and at this place
later a murder is committed, the object will automatically identify you as
as suspect. Or if you accidentally throw away a battery with the regular
waste, you will automatically be fined by the trash depository. The second
fear Spiekermann noted was the fear of technology paternalism. Many new
cars for example are equipped with technology that detects whether you
wear a belt, and will start to beep if you don't. "With RFIDs everything
will start to beep!" she alarmed the audience, and automatically
discipline us into the desired behaviour.
FIfF conference program (in German)
http://waste.informatik.hu-berlin.de/peter/fiff/2004/zeitplan.html
RFID: Furcht vor "technologischem Paternalismus" (03.10.2004)
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/meldung/51754
============================================================
7. EU Parliament Committee approves of Buttiglione
============================================================
Representatives of the European Parliament's Social Democrat, Liberal,
Green and Left Groups uttered harsh words after the Parliamentary hearing
of Rocco Buttiglione (Italy), Commissioner-designate for Justice, Freedom
and Security and designated Vice-President of the European Commission. He
was interrogated a second time by the parliamentary Committee on Civil
Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs (LIBE) on Wednesday 5 October.
"The groups representing the majority of the Members of the Parliamentary
Committee estimate that the moral and political convictions of the
Vice-president-designate do not offer in any manner the guarantee that he
will engage against discrimination, in particular with regard to sexual
orientation, as actively as the Parliament would wish. The standpoint of
the vice-president-designate on the role of women in society and on the
supposed immorality of homosexuality causes apprehensions with these
groups that the Commission's capacity of legislative initiative be emptied
of all or part of its reality." Mr. Buttiglione, a staunch right-wing
Catholic, had angered the MEPs with his remarks on conservative family
values.
They were more happy with his views on data protection. "The Groups
representing a very vast majority of the Members of the Committee, on the
other hand, appreciate (Mr. Buttiglione's) engagement in favour of data
protection, even if the candidate did not show himself very explicit on
measures he intends to take on this subject. The Parliamentary Committee
remains very worried by the risks of softening the criteria presently in
force within the Union by certain international negotiations like the ones
being led within ICAO, as well as by certain agreements concluded with the
United States." Mr. Buttiglione had indeed answered very vaguely on
questions concerning the Commission's future policy on the transfer of
airline passenger's data to the United States, which, admittedly, is not
his field of competence.
He answered in a much more straightforward manner on his general views
concerning data protection: "I am committed to strike the appropriate
balance between legitimate law enforcement requirements and the protection
of privacy, in conformity with the Treaties and the EU Charter of
Fundamental Rights. High European standards for the protection of
fundamental rights of individuals, in particular their right to privacy,
already exist. The Commission must continue to ensure that these
provisions are properly observed. But we cannot ignore the fact that
threats from international terrorism and crime have become a major
security challenge. The Council Declaration on Terrorism of 25 March 2004
called for action on the collection and facilitation of the exchange of
information. Delivering on this means creating the conditions for making
relevant and necessary data and information accessible to EU law
enforcement authorities, based on common standards, including data
protection provisions."
MEPs were especially happy with Mr. Buttiglione's commitment to
introducing data protection legislation for the EU's Third Pillar, which
does not yet exist. "Protection of personal data in the third pillar is a
priority. The preparation of a legislative proposal laying down relevant
standards is in the Commission's legislative and work programme for 2004.
A general rule does not exist, as Directive 95/46/EC does not apply to the
processing by public enforcement authorities of personal data for the
purposes of Title VI of the EU. We have to build on the specific data
protection rules for Schengen, Europol, Eurojust and the Customs
Information System."
Mr. Buttiglione will start on 1 November 2004. "Under these reservations,
the Groups representing a vast majority of the Members of the
Parliamentary Committee give a favourable opinion on the nomination of Mr.
Buttiglione at the post of Vice-President, in charge of Freedom, Security
and Justice." MEPs can vote only on all 25 Commissioners at once, not on
any single one of them, and it would come as a big surprise if a majority
of the Parliament would vote against Manuel Barroso's Commission.
European Parliament website on Commissioner hearings, including video
streams
http://www.europarl.eu.int/press/audicom2004/index_en.htm
Buttiglione's answers to Parliamentarian's written questions
http://www.europarl.eu.int/hearings/commission/2004_comm/pdf/gen_buttiglione
_en.pdf
(Contribution by Andreas Dietl, EDRI EU Affairs Director)
============================================================
8. Nominations Swiss Big Brother Awards
============================================================
The organising committee of the Swiss Big Brother Awards today presented a
selection of candidates for the Big Brother Award. A jury of 13 well known
individuals will choose the winners out of this selection.
Half of the 52 public nominations were sent in for the 'State' category,
including several police departments, the district council and the
national assembly. The police of Graubunden was nominated for collecting
and sharing data of at least 1.000 demonstrators during the World Economic
Forum in Davos, and the police of St. Gallen and Zurich were nominated
together for unlawfully collecting genetical data. A very original
nomination was sent in for the Bern municipal council, for monitoring all
the bicycle parking lots in the innercity.
In the 'business category' many public transport companies were nominated
for video surveillance. The supermarket chain Migros was nominated for
experimenting with RFIDs on individual products, while the national
alliance of medical insurance companies risks getting a Big Brother Award
for inventing a new tariff-system that displays extensive, very
privacy-sensitive diagnostic information on doctors' bills.
Besides the category 'lifetime achievements' and the positive 'Winkelried
Award', the Swiss BBA introduce the new category 'workplace'. In this
section a regional public transport firm is mentioned for taking alcohol
tests, and several supermarket chains for asking very inappropriate
questions on job application forms.
The awards ceremony takes place on Saturday evening 16 October, in
Emmenbrucke, near Luzern. Before the ceremony, there will be a camera
surveillance walk in Luzern, followed by an international symposium on
filtering, datamining and surveillance. From 15 to 17 October Pulp is
organising many performances and events in the Hal where the ceremony
takes place.
Nominations and ceremony Swiss Big Brother Awards
http://www.bigbrotherawards.ch/2004/event/
International conference, performances and installations
http://www.pulpnet.ch/
============================================================
9. Report about WIPO conference
============================================================
How does the work of WIPO - the World Intellectual Property Organisation -
affect the daily lives of the world's six billion plus consumers? Is
WIPO's mission and work inherently exclusive, benefiting only the richer
countries and consumers and harming the poor? Does WIPO need a new mission
to embrace new information technologies and to benefit poor countries and
consumers?
These were some of the questions asked at an international workshop
organised by the TransAtlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD) in Geneva on 13
and 14 September 2004. The workshop consisted of nine panels, each with
five or six speakers, each dealing with a separate aspect. The speakers
came from a wide range of backgrounds, there were many lawyers and
academic researchers, with others drawn from areas of medicine, arts and
civil society, including consumer organisations. There were also
government officials from the US and EU countries, while developing
country delegates to WIPO were invited as guests (none wished to be
panellists). Very creditably, WIPO itself recognised the validity of the
issues discussed and top WIPO officials took part in the workshops and sat
on several panels.
The tone was set by an introduction by Jim Murray, Chairman of TACD and
Director of BEUC (European Consumers Organisation), who quoted Thomas
Drummond, 19th Scottish inventor and political administrator: 'Property
has duties as well as rights'. Drummond was talking about absentee
landlords in Ireland but his words could be equally well employed to
describe the relationship between rich corporations and countries, with
their control over innovations in science and technology, and developing
countries, who not only have to pay high prices to gain benefits but are
often denied benefits at all.
The first and last panels looked specifically at WIPO's mission and
whether it should be changed. WIPO itself describes its mission as
`promoting the use and protection of works of the human spirit.' While no
panellist disagreed with such a mission, many pointed out that WIPO's
activities seemed to stifle innovation and creativity rather than promote
it, through its emphasis on the rights of owners, especially corporations,
rather than authors or users. Others felt that the mission was too vague
and that there needed to be greater emphasis on the role of invention and
innovation in supporting economic growth and development. Several speakers
made the point that the term 'intellectual property' was itself suspect as
it lumped together disparate notions of patents, copyrights, trademarks
and other protective devices.
Two panels looked at the broad area of WIPO and the information society.
There was general agreement among many panellists that digital technology,
especially the spread of personal computers and the internet, had produced
a different type of environment in which patents and restrictions were not
always good or useful for society as a whole. Several speakers from the
free/open software movement emphasised that computer software should not
be subject to patent rules as this stifled the individual innovation which
was so essential to driving the digital revolution forward. However,
panellists also pointed out that there were still more areas where
traditional patents were absolutely necessary to protect author and
invention rights.
So what was the outcome? Does WIPO need a new mission? Most delegates at
the meeting seemed to think it did. Most wanted to see more openness and
flexibility, and more of a development agenda. They wanted to see less
protection for corporations and more benefits for creators and consumers,
especially when it came to providing essential goods and medicines for the
poorest consumers.
Full conference report at the EDRI website
http://www.edri.org/issues/copyright/WIPO
(Contribution by Ben Wallis, Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue)
============================================================
10. New EU questionnaire on spam
============================================================
The European Commission and the Dutch EU presidency have distributed 2 new
questionnaires on spam, "to assess progress in the EU on combating 'spam'
following the Communication on this issue of January 2004 that identified
relevant action for all interested parties." One questionnaire is
addressed to industry, the second questionnaire to Member States and the
competent regulatory authorities.
Based on the answers, the Commission will organise an open workshop,
provisionally scheduled for 17 November 2004. By the end of 2004 the
Commission will determine if additional or corrective action is needed.
Answers must be provided by 20 October 2004.
Workshop information (05.10.2004)
http://europa.eu.int/information_society/topics/ecomm/useful_information/lib
rary/public_consult/index_en.htm
Questionnaire for industry (in MS Word, 05.10.2004)
http://europa.eu.int/information_society/topics/ecomm/doc/useful_information
/library/public_consult/spam/documents/410_05_spam_quest_final.doc
============================================================
11. Recommended reading
============================================================
A new book by the US Harvard professor William W. Fisher provides the
first very detailed overview on the digital music distribution and related
issues that have been going on in the Internet lately. The most valuable
part in the book are three scenarios, on copyright as real property
rights; on copyright as a heavily regulated industry; and thirdly on
alternative compensation systems. This approach opens totally new
perspectives to the options for the current situation. Especially the
chapter on alternative compensation systems will inevitably shape the
global discussion on the future of copyright.
William W. Fisher III: The Promises to Keep. Stanford University Press 2004.
2 chapters available online
http://www.tfisher.org/PTK.htm
============================================================
12. Agenda
============================================================
9-10 October 2004, Cambridge, UK
EDRI-member FIPR is organising a European workshop on the consultation
currently being run by the European Commission on the EU legal framework
in the field of copyright and related rights (whose deadline is at the end
of October).
http://www.fipr.org/
16 October 2004, Emmenbrucke, Switzerland
Swiss Big Brother Awards, preceded by a public camera-walk and an
international conference in the afternoon
http://www.bigbrotherawards.ch/
http://www.pulp.ch/
24 October 2004, Amsterdam, The Netherlands
Dutch Big Brother Awards
http://www.bigbrotherawards.nl/
26 October 2004, Vienna, Austria
Austrian Big Brother Awards
http://www.bigbrotherawards.at/
29 October 2004, Bielefeld, Germany
German Big Brother Awards
http://www.bigbrotherawards.de/
17 November 2004, Brussels, Belgium
Tentative date EU Commission open workshop on spam
http://europa.eu.int/information_society/topics/ecomm/useful_information/lib
rary/public_consult/index_en.htm
============================================================
13. About
============================================================
EDRI-gram is a biweekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe.
Currently EDRI has 17 members from 11 European countries. 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 or agenda-tips are
most welcome.
Except where otherwise noted, this newsletter is licensed under the
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End of EDRi-news Digest, Vol 19, Issue 1
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