Support of a single Internet without restrictions and accessible to all is the message of this year's world day against cyber-censorship. For the fourth time, Reporters without Borders (RSF) has published a report listing the worst violators of online free speech worldwide.

In the following, we want to focus on the top 5 threats to free speech - and on the top 5 positive developments in Europe. In the past few years several EU member states have introduced worrying policies that undermine the openness of the Internet, such as online censorship, surveillance measures, (voluntary) website blocking or the adoption of repressive Internet laws. RSF lists France as one of "countries under surveillance".

The Internet has become increasingly important for all kinds of protest, from the Arab spring to the off- and online demonstrations in the US and over 200 different European cities against misguided proposals such as PIPA, SOPA and ACTA.

Dieser Artikel auf Deutsch

Cet article en français

Introduction

Following the initial discussions in the European Parliament and the overwhelmingly negative workshop that was held on 1 March, ACTA is close to dead in Europe. What are the strategies for bringing it back to life and how will this impact on other similar initiatives? How can activists ensure that our great success so far can be maintained?

• The Netlog and Scarlet/Sabam rulings & ACTA - what have we learned?
• More ISP blocking in different EU countries
• Internet communications heavily monitored by German intelligence services
• UK: Home Office spy plan
• Protect Coders' Rights!
• European data protection authorities: Google violates privacy rules
• Private copy levies draft law in Portugal
• EU standards reform: Carte blanche stifles open formats
• Twitter censors unfavourable Sarkozy accounts
• ENDitorial: Member States turn a drama into a crisis for Commissioner Malmström on data retention
• Recommended Action
• Recommended Reading
• Agenda

This article is also available in:
Deutsch: Häufig gestellte Fragen zur Vorlage des ACTA-Abkommens beim Europäis...

Following the recent decision of the European Commission to refer the draft Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) to the European Court of Justice, Access and EDRi have prepared this short FAQ to explain this process.

SABAM (Société Belge des Auteurs, Compositeurs et Editeurs), the Belgian collecting society for music royalties, is in the spotlight again. A few months after the Scarlet/SABAM case, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) has released a new decision on the legality of filtering systems on the Internet, this time with regard to filtering of content stored on web services.

Today, the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU) ruled that a social network “cannot be obliged to install a general filtering system, covering all its users, in order to prevent the unlawful use of musical and audio-visual work”.

• European Anti-ACTA protests of 11 February
• European Commission discusses tactical, partial retreat on ACTA
• EC "Roadmap" for review of the IPR Enforcement Directive
• Hadopi takes the final steps towards cutting Internet access
• Two Strikes in Germany?
• Software-hardware bundling not accepted in France
• UK: 3 million checks on criminal records in 2011
• RFID - a dangerous fashion trend highlighted on German streets by FoeBuD
• Irish ISP puts its customers' personal data at risk
• ENDitorial: EU DP Regulation Proposal: The French CNIL defends its turf
• Recommended Action
• Recommended Reading
• Agenda

1. This is only about large-scale infringements
a. Criminal sanctions

There is no minimum-level of infringement that could be criminalised by ACTA. It requires parties to, at least, criminalise infringements which are for direct economic advantage, direct commercial advantage, indirect economic advantage, indirect commercial advantage or “aiding and abetting” such an offence.

In the absence of a definition of any these five activities, the European Commission has no way of knowing whether only large-scale infringements will be covered.

In order to counter the spreading misinformation, we are providing a how-to with short explanations regarding different practical problems related to ACTA. This guide looks at the risks that ACTA creates for websites, particularly e-commerce sites.

To stay online, a website owner just needs to make sure that their site contains nothing which might cause any of the site's service providers to fear that it contains an (intentional or unintentional) infringement of intellectual property rights. This could include information posted by third parties, such as user-generated content.