Big tech accountability? Read how we got here in  The Closing of the Net 

Member States

Now that there is a European Copyright Directive  (2017) this section may look out of date. At the time when most of these articles were written - 2008-2012 - matters were more fluid. Several Member States were look at how they could implement laws to address the problem of the day, which was peer-to-peer file sharing.  For those who are studying this area of policy, it's an important part of the context for the 2017 law, and indeed for subsequent developments that may not deal with copyright, but do seek to enforce against content using similar measures.

This section of Iptegrity.com discusses Internet policy initiatives in the EU Member States, between 2008-2012, with the exception of France and Britain which are discussed in individual sections of the site.

If you like the articles in this section and you are interested in how policy for Internet, copyright, and net neutrality is made in the EU Member States, you may like my books A Copyright Masquerade: How Corporate Lobbying Threatens Online Freedoms and The Copyright Enforcement Enigma - Internet Politics and the ‘Telecoms Package’

If you are interested in EU policy on Internet governance,   you may like my book The Closing of the Net .

 In Portugal, an attempt by rights-holders to catalyse government action against peer-to-peer file-sharers and Internet downloading, appears to have back-fired. They tried to get the authorities to take action against file-sharers, but instead, they’ve got  an official  ruling that file-sharing - at least  for personal use -  is not illegal.

Read more: Portugese prosecutor says file-sharing is not illegal

As the Zapatero  government winds down and hands over to his rival Mariano Rajoy, the winner of the November 20 Spanish election, there is a little matter of copyright law to sort out. This is the so-called Ley Sinde ( Sinde’s law) which provided for blocking of websites deemed to infringe copyright.

Read more: Will Spain ditch its anti-downloading law?

The so-called ‘Centemero law’ – proposed recently in  Italy  and named after the MP who tabled it- would appear to put ISPs under a duty of care to filter for the purpose of enforcing copyright.  On the basis of an English translation,  the Italian proposal  would put ISPs under  an onerous obligation  which would radically alter the Italian implementation of the E-commerce directive ‘mere conduit’.  Indeed, it would reverse mere conduit. And it would be the most draconian, if unimplementable, copyright enforcement law in Europe.

Read more: Italy's Centemero law would give ISPs a duty to filter

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Iptegrity in brief

 

Iptegrity.com is the website of Dr Monica Horten. I’ve been analysing analysing digital policy since 2008. Way back then, I identified how issues around rights can influence Internet policy, and that has been a thread throughout all of my research. I hold a PhD in EU Communications Policy from the University of Westminster (2010), and a Post-graduate diploma in marketing.   I’ve served as an independent expert on the Council of Europe  Committee on Internet Freedoms, and was involved in a capacity building project in Moldova, Georgia, and Ukraine. I am currently (from June 2022)  Policy Manager - Freedom of Expression, with the Open Rights Group. For more, see About Iptegrity

Iptegrity.com is made available free of charge for  non-commercial use, Please link-back & attribute Monica Horten. Thank you for respecting this.

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States v the 'Net? 

Read The Closing of the Net, by me, Monica Horten.

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" essential read for anyone interested in understanding the forces at play behind the web." ITSecurity.co.uk

Find out more about the book here  The Closing of the Net

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Copyright Enforcement Enigma launch, March 2012

In 2012, I presented my PhD research in the European Parliament.

The politics of copyright

A Copyright Masquerade - How corporate lobbying threatens online freedoms

'timely and provocative' Entertainment Law Review


 

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