4 4 April 2002

News:

The victory of P2P file sharing site Kazaa.com in its appeal in the Amsterdam Court of Appeals, where it was held that its service was not in breach of music companies’ copyright, came as an unexpected blow to the music industry.

The European Parliament is likely to reject proposals from its own Citizens Rights and Freedoms Committee that recipients need not be informed in advance about cookies and insist on prior notice. Parliament is also likely to back a mandatory opt-in procedure for text messaging and emails.

Deutsche Bahn AG, the German national train company, has taken action against Google and Dutch ISP XS4ALL, to oblige them to remove links in its search results to the magazine, the Radikal. The magazine published articles about disrupting rail transport as part of the campaign against transporting nuclear waste by train.

Features:

The success of P2P file swapping site, Kazaa.com, in their appeal in the Amsterdam Court and the success of Deutsche Bahn in their action against XS4ALL and Google throws up contrasting facets of the Courts and industry’s approach to the challenges of the internet.

The Land Registration Act 2002 has been described as the single largest project of law reform undertaken by the Law Commission. It presents the outcome of several years of consultation and cooperation between the Law Commission and the Land Registry. The Act wholly replaces the Land Registration Act 1925, the principal legislation which used to govern the law of buying and selling property. The 1925 Act had long been regarded as a complex and often difficult to read piece of legislation, which was, in many respects, out of date

Email has become an indispensable method of communication for businesses. However, the use of email and internet within the workplace also poses a significant commercial risk. Inappropriate use or misuse of these systems by an employee may give rise to what has become popularly known as ‘Cyberliabilities’. These are liabilities which remain with the employer but which are incurred as a result of an employee’s misuse of his employer’s electronic systems.

Account aggregation is, perhaps, a natural progression for the retail finance sector, having seen the invasion of institutions such as supermarkets expanding into the traditionally exclusive financial services market. Whilst the benefits of account aggregation to the consumer may be obvious, this article aims to set out both the potential advantages and pitfalls of this new service tool.

In its UK Online Strategy, the government commits itself to e-government. In true New Labour fashion, the strategy is translated in to a simple target. The government will ensure 100% of services are available online by 31 December 2005. It has given the e-Envoy responsibility for co-ordinating and monitoring the progress of government departments and agencies as they implement this strategy. Behind the target are big numbers - central civil government departments are currently in the initial stages of procurement for around 100 major IT projects with a total value of £10 billion. This large investment has prompted the National Audit Office (NAO) to assess the progress made so far by government departments and consider what more needs to be done to ensure that e-government delivers better public services and efficiency1 (the Report). This article considers one of the Report’s major themes - the importance of encouraging wide usage, not just wide availability - and the policy changes in the implementation of e-government.

The first two articles in this series discussed the principal issues of service levels and security in a contract for online services with an ASP. This final article concludes the series by looking at data issues, intellectual property licences and pricing mechanisms in the context of an ASP contract.

The Government’s recent White Paper, ‘A Safe Bet for Success’ is the Department for Culture, Media and Sport’s response to the Gambling Review Report issued last summer by Sir Alan Budd and his committee (the Budd Report). It is the clearest indication yet that the Government is planning a fundamental overhaul of the law and regulatory regime for the betting and gaming industry in the UK which will open new opportunities for those involved in both on- and off-line gambling activities.

Since late 1999, lawsuits against file swapping services have been reported in the IT press almost continuously. First, Napster felt the wrath of the music industry. Then came stories about services called Scour, Gnutella, Freenet, Aimster - which became Madster, MusicNet, Grokster, Morpheus, AudioGalaxy, KaZaA, MusicCity, MMO Japan and others. The stories show no sign of ending.These services are the best known forms of what is called peer-to-peer, or P2P, computing. This article looks at the growth of these services and the consequent legal battles and argues that the law cannot be applied independently of the commercial reality - and that this is where the music industry is making a mistake.