Eight years after the EU first began working on music online, the European Parliament this morning  adopted a new directive to regulate music collecting societies. MEPs came to a  political agreement that the transparency and administration of collecting societies should be regulated in order to improve the flow of money to artists. They also recognised that  cross-border licencing had to be addressed in order to enable pan-European online music services.

Read more: Europarl comes together on music licencing

Blink and you’d miss it, but there is a tiny little Bill on  Intellectual Property being discussed in the UK Parliament this week. The Bill has nothing to do with copyright or the enforcement of it (only patents and design rights) but guess what? There are calls for Internet copyright enforcement to be included in it. Could they, and should they, slip in measures like criminal penalties and increased intermediary liability, into the IP Bill mid-process, without having done the relevant consultations and contrary to EU policy?

***Updated Wednesday 29th and Thursday 30th January. See below.***

Read more: Should copyright enforcement be in the IP Bill?

City of London police domain seizures on behalf of copyright industry claimants  are coming under scrutiny following an adjudication  obtained by a Canadian domain registrar. EasyDNS, based  in Ontario, Canada, filed a complaint  regarding a transfer from another registrar, of domains that were under a seizure order. The decision obtained under the Internet governance rules, stipulated that there should be a court ruling. It  provides much food for thought in terms of the legality of take-down notices.

Read more: London police domain seizures under scrutiny after arbitration decision