The US Federal Trade Commission (FTC) has sent several letters to search engine companies (such as Google, Yahoo, AOL, Ask.com, Bing, Blekko and DuckDuckGo) asking them to better distinguish between advertising and natural search results. The FTC notes that in recent years, it has become less easy...

Google recently announced to make its 'Google News' service "opt-in" instead of  "opt-out" in Germany as of 1 August 2013. This decision by Google is a direct reaction to a new German copyright law that will take effect as of the same date. In practice, this means that Google News...

This week, France made an impressive U-turn on the way it handles P2P piracy on the internet. In a decree of 8 July 2013, the French government overturned the provision in the Intellectual Property Code that allowed a court to suspend one's internet access in case of illegal...

Belgium took part in an international campaign to block websites that sell counterfeit products. This was announced on 27 June 2013 by the 'FPS Economy' branch of the Belgian government ('FOD Economie' in Dutch). On a global scale, a total of 328 domain names were blocked under the operation 'In...

How to handle copyright infringement via 3-D printing? Should you stop infringement through cease-and-desist letters and litigation? Whom should you target? The individual 'downloaders'? The manufacturers of the printing machines? Or the providers of the printing services? Or should you rather...

The Italian competition authority sanctioned Ryanair for charging extra fees for handling online credit card payments. This is the third time since 2011 that Ryanair is sanctioned in Italy for this conduct. To learn more about this,...

If you are confused about the exact meaning of the two terms, read this interesting article: https://tudorlawfirm.com/the-difference-between-plagiarism-and-copyright-infringement/?goback=%2Egde_2276877_member_235898574   Author: Bart Van Besien Finnian & Columba Belgium bart@finnian.be

See https://www.pcworld.com/article/2036961/belgian-isps-sued-for-providing-internet-access-without-paying-copyright-levies.html 

Harper Lee, the author of 'To Kill a Mockingbird' filed a lawsuit against her literary agent to resecure her copyright over the book. For more information, read https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/thr-esq/kill-a-mockingbird-author-sues-451977 

Our new website has been launched today. Author: Bart Van Besien Finnian & Columba Belgium bart@finnian.be