Policy Observatory

La Quadrature du Net signs an open letter written by Health Action International Europe against the directive's project on trade secrets. Initiated by the business community, put forward by the Member States and the European Commission, it gives the possibility for private companies to sue any person that "unlawfully acquires, uses or discloses" the "trade secrets". Whistleblowers are poorly protected in this text, the directive creates a judiciary insecurity as it will dissuade from leaking from private companies.

On Wednesday, the UN Human Rights Council will review the human rights record of the government of Spain as part of its Universal Periodic Review. Spain should be named and shamed for its worrying treatment on digital rights issues. In its latest encroachment, authorities have criminalized the use of legitimate encryption and security tools.

The Universal Periodic Review process at the UN Human Rights Council reviews the human rights record of each UN member country every four years.

Second-hand e-book website Tom Kabinet must go offline within three days unless it can prove it is not allowing illegal downloads to be traded, the appeal court in Amsterdam said on Tuesday.

From the start of the new year 2015, the Copyright Law will only protect works of an original nature which bear the personal stamp of the author. The protection of non-original scripts in the case of, for example, telephone directories, catalogues, schedules, theatre programmes and instruction manuals will be abolished. Information can be taken from these verbatim.