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.

This article is also available in:
Deutsch: ENDitorial: Urheberrechte vs Gemeinfreiheit als Kulturhindernis?

"The book, as a book, belongs to the author, but as thought it belongs -- the word is not too big -- to the human species. Any intelligent being has a right to it.

This article is also available in:
Deutsch: Internetzensur: Einflussnahme der USA auf Spanien macht sich bezahlt

The US has continued to pressure Spain since 2008 to adopt measures against users allegedly illegally downloading copyrighted music and movies from file-sharing networks.

This article is also available in:
Deutsch: ENDitorial: Urheberrechts-Kombinatorik

Although the creation of the single market has been the primary focus of the European Union for decades, it often seems that for every step forward it takes two back. In that respect it's often rather interesting to look at the mathematics as they play out in the different directives that come out of Brussels.

The EU Copyright Directive outlines 21 different optional exceptions or limitations to the right of reproduction of copyrighted works.

This article is also available in:
Deutsch: EDRi-Stellungnahme: Online-Vertrieb von audiovisuellen Werken

Adapting the European policy to the digital environment would offer the audiovisual industry access to an even broader audience and would give the consumer greater access to cultural works. It is the opportunity to redefine a simple and harmonised framework. It is a chance to achieve a digital single market.

What creates obstacles to achieving this goal? Which interests should be taken into account?

This article is also available in:
Deutsch: Europäische Kommission fördert Digitalisierung des Kulturerbes

An EC Recommendation issued on 28 October 2011 is urging Member States to intensify their efforts and involve the private sector to help in digitising cultural material in order to improve the exposure and stocks of Europe's digital library Europeana.

The Recommendation, which updates a 2006 version, has taken into consideration the Member States' progress reports from 2008 and 2010 and assigns a precise target, establishing a minimum content contribution for each state so as to reach 30 million objects

This article is also available in:
Deutsch: ENDitorial: Belgische Musikindustrie versucht Urheberrecht zu untergraben

We have all heard the music industry make claims about the vast amount of "piracy" going on, such as the estimation that from 2008 to 2015, the music industry was going to lose an amount equivalent to the combined national debt of Greece and Italy. The ever-impartial European Commission has been similarly apocalyptic in its analysis of the situation - describing illegal filesharing as "ubiquitous" in its report on application of the IPR Enforcement Directive.

This article is also available in:
Deutsch: ENDitorial: Partner unterzeichnen ACTA, zahlreiche Dokumente noch imme...

Last weekend, some of the EU's ACTA "partners" started the process of acceding to the Agreement (US, Canada, Singapore, Australia, South Korea, Japan and Morocco). Due to the controversial nature of the Agreement, this is happening in different legal processes and at different speeds in different countries.