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Deutsch: Spanien: Oberster Gerichtshof verurteilt NGO wegen des Hostens offensi...

At the end of December 2009, the Spanish Supreme Court confirmed its ruling in making Asociación de Internautas (Internet Users Association - AI) pay a 18 000 Euro fine to SGAE (the General Society of Authors and Editors) for having hosted sites such as putasgae.org and antisgae.internaturas.org which included offences to SGAE.

The case was introduced by SGAE in March 2004 which stated that the website of AI was hosting webpages with the addresses mentioned above, which contained expressions like "hired gun", "mob gang", "fucking pickpockets".

On 6 February 2006, the

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Deutsch: Aserbaidschanische Blogger vom Gericht in Baku missbräuchlich verurte...

On 11 November 2009, two Azerbaijani bloggers were found guilty on hooliganism and violence charges by a court in Baku and sentenced to two years and two years and a half prison respectively.

Bloggers and political activists Adnan Hajizade and Emin Abdullayev were arrested on 8 July 2009 on false charges of "hooliganism" after they had posted a video on YouTube mocking the purchase of donkeys from Germany by the Azeri Government.

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Deutsch: Finnland: Beschwerden über die Kinderpornografieliste der Polizei nic...

The Helsinki Administrative court decided on 20 May 2009 that complaints lodged in regards to the child-porn censorship list maintained by the Finnish Police are not allowed.

The case originates from one Finnish activist's "battle" against the censorship list maintained by the Finnish police and originally the censorship law passed by the Finnish Parliament in 2006, meant to combat child pornography.

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Deutsch: Französisches Gericht trifft klare Entscheidungen bei gehosteten Inha...

Several decisions taken by the French courts lately recognize the principle of non-liablilty of some web 2.0 sites for the content hosted. The new interpretation is putting things back on track, after some earlier strange decisions of the lower courts.

Dailymotion, the French video sharing site, has recently benefited of three decisions in its favour, in each case the site being considered as a mere hosting site and thus not liable for copyright infringement.

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For the forth time in two years, on 20 November 2008, the Turkish authorities blocked access to YouTube asserting that certain content posted on the site was disrespectful to Kemal Mustafa Atatürk, the Turkish Republic's founder, or supported the outlawed Kurdistan Workers Party (PKK). Turkey is the only country in the world banning YouTube.

"We have said it before and we say it again now - blocking access to YouTube is wrong. It has been blocked since 5 May, as a result of an earlier court order, and the obstinacy shown by the authorities is unacceptable.

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Four former and present Google executives, including Senior Vice President David Drummond are waiting for the confirmation of the order issued by an Italian prosecutor to stand trial for a video on a young man with Down syndrome posted on YouTube in November 2006.

The case caused a lot of rumours in public media in 2006 and it was already estimated that the prosecutors action would take a lot of time before presenting the case in front of a judge. The Google executives are to appear in a Milan court on 3 February 2009 facing charges of defamation and failure to exercise control over personal data.

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The Bergamo Criminal Court overrules the seizure, but establishes a case law that is a violation of civil rights.

On 16 August 2008 ALCEI reported to the Italian Data Protection Authority the violations of law contained in the pre-emptive seizure order issued by the Justice for preliminary investigation of the Bergamo Tribunal.

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There is no censorship in Italy, but...

"Censorship" was abolished and outlawed in Italy sixtytwo years ago. Freedom of the press and of personal opinion is not only established by the Constitution, but also deeply rooted in custom and in all perceptions of civil society. There are, however, some worrying facts. The concentration in a few hands of a large part of the information system. A general, "centralized" myopia of the "dominant culture", that is partly deliberate manipulation and partly unintentional ignorance.