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European antitrust regulators have voiced competition concerns regarding Microsoft's upcoming Vista operating system, including the possible bundling of Internet search and PDF-like formatting capabilities in the operating system. Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes sent a letter to the software maker last week outlining two main concerns regarding Vista and its conformity with the Commission's March 2004 decision, according to a statement from the Commission on Wednesday. One concern centered on the possibility that Vista would include features in its products that are already available separately from Microsoft and other companies, such as Internet search, digital rights management and software to create fixed document formats like PDF. The other concern focused on whether Microsoft would fail to disclose all necessary technical information to third parties to make Vista interoperable with competing products.
A British satellite will launch in 2008 to help bridge Europe's digital divide. The Hylas spacecraft, owned by Avanti Screenmedia PLC, will deliver broadband internet services to rural Europe. "There is a major problem in the lack of supply of high-quality broadband services in many parts of Europe," said Avanti's chief executive, David Williams. "I am delighted that a British initiative is the first large-scale project to address this requirement which the European Commission has estimated at 10 million customersAvanti says it is already in discussions with UK broadcasters, such as the BBC and ITV, to use Hylas to deliver HD-TV.
European Union Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson has made a fresh call for China to do more to improve market access and cut down on piracy. He warned China would face a backlash in Europe unless it did more to "apply rather than circumvent the rules". European and US firms have long complained about the volume of pirated goods on sale in China. Brussels and Washington have also clashed with Beijing over a number of trade issues in recent years, most recently accusing China of unfairly dumping clothing and shoe products on their markets. This has led to both the US and European Union tightening import quotas, although China insisted it was merely able to produce goods more cheaply and was being unfairly victimised by Western protectionism. The US government is also continuing to call on China to tackle piracy, with Washington warning earlier this week that it could take China to the World Trade Organisation over abuse of intellectual property rights.
A 'copy tax' could spread from blank CDs to mobile phones to internet service providers, according to a consultation document from the European Commission. The document warns that a wide spread of the tax would cause a backlash against it.In most European countries, though not in the UK, copying of music for private use is allowed. These countries add a levy to the cost of items which are likely to be used to make private copies so that the copyright holder can receive some compensation.The Commission is consulting with industry so that it can change the laws around this 'copyright levy' to suit the world of digital copying. It has warned, though, that applying traditional principles to digital media could cause consumers to reject any idea of a copyright levy."[In the digital media world] it would no longer be possible to hold only liable the manufacturers or importers of equipment and media," said the Commission's consultation document. "The logic of levies would also have to be applied to broadband and infrastructure service providers including telecommunications providers that carry content."
Companies from across IT face criminal sanctions, including prison time for employees, if their networks, software programs or online services are ever used to carry illegally copied material such as music or film, according to a draft law from the European Commission supported Tuesday by a committee of the European Parliament.The proposed directive switches the onus from end users to the technological conduits, which could include ISPs (Internet service providers), mobile phone operators, instant-messaging services, video- and music-sharing Web sites such as YouTube, as well as open-source software producers.The controversial draft law has sparked an outcry, uniting rivals within the IT industry, ranging from free and open-source software advocates, the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure, at one end to a lobbyist for the world's biggest software companies, the Business Software Alliance (BSA), at the other.The clause in the draft law that most worries them is one that criminalizes aiding and abetting or incitement to infringe an intellectual property such as copyright-protected music, software or film. Another major concern across the board is the inclusion of utility models -- in effect short-term, unexamined patents -- within the scope of the law. While the incitement clause helps rights holders such as record companies and Hollywood film studios pursue the carriers of illegally copied material, it narrows the scope for legal action against individuals who duplicate copyright-protected material.The legal-affairs committee agreed to exclude all intellectual-property infringements by private users for personal use. They went even further by saying that the abuse must be "a deliberate and conscious infringement of the intellectual property right for the purpose of obtaining commercial advantage."On this point the BSA and the FFII diverged. The FFII welcomed the limiting of personal liability, while the BSA said it amounted to "decriminalizing illegal file sharing and software copying," according to Mingorance.
