One in three people in Switzerland download unauthorized music, movies and games from the Internet and since last year the government has been wondering what to do about it. This week their response was published and it was crystal clear. Not only will downloading for personal use stay completely legal,…
The European Court of Justice has ruled that the Netherlands can no longer permit its citizens to freely download copyrighted movies and music without paying for them. In its judgment the Court rules that the current system of a "piracy levy" to compensate rightsholders is unlawful.
When anti-piracy outfits and Big Media speak out against file-sharing they often claim to be standing up for the interests of the artists. However, a new survey among nearly 4,000 artists has revealed that nearly a quarter are pirating the works of fellow artists. Contrary to popular belief among higher…
A Dutch court has declared a criminal case against a Pirate Bay uploader inadmissible. The man admitted uploading more than 5,000 e-books to the popular BitTorrent site, but the court ruled that copyright infringement cases belong in a civil, not criminal court. Current policy rules prescribe that copyright infringements should…