Since 2004, legislation or courts in Europe have insistently required internet service providers (ISPs) to play various roles in the fight against online copyright infringement. Some of the obligations being placed upon the ISPs have included the disclosure of subscribers’ personal data, the filtering and blocking of access to infringing content or committing to sustained cooperative regulatory policies such as a graduated response mechanism. Although such approaches may be aimed at controlling illicit file-sharing, the trends being pursued by the copyright holders are also to be seen by ISPs as a move from their “passive-reactive roles” towards “active-preventative” roles. Particularly, the scope of ISP obligations are increasingly being seen as blurred and this has prompted several legal challenges in the courts with some of the litigations ended at the national levels and others required the intervention of the European Court of Justice. This paper will examine the extent to which the monitoring obligations placed upon the ISPs have been interpreted and assess the possible implications for the fight against file-sharing.

The RFID technology serves to identify objects and persons at distance using radio frequencies. On RFID chips data about individuals are stored and can afterwards be processed in a privacy infringing way. Since the RFID is suitable for identification, the technology is used to verify identity of the individual in order to allow access to buildings, to provide services or to check payments. The identity of the individual is usually disclosed whenever his/her RFID-enabled device gets in reach of a RFID reader or RFID tag. In order to reveal only the necessary information about individuals, the identity management should be applied, including identification, authentication and authorization. The identity management also concerns finding a balance between privacy and personal data protection on one side, and the need for verification on the other side. This paper deals with principals of the abovementioned balance and its legal regulation.

I am Second is an American religious movement that uses online video narratives to promote the Christian faith. This case study analyses I am Second’s evangelistic strategy, with particular attention to four areas: the website, Facebook page, blogs and YouTube. I am Second combines online and offline resources in sophisticated ways to mobilise grassroots support and draw attention to its stories, hoping that visitors to its website will watch more evangelistic content and contact an online missionary for conversation. I find no evidence within my selected samples to suggest that supporters are using the Internet to conduct their own evangelism, but branded merchandise and local events are discussed with enthusiasm. Even if supporters are hesitant to share evangelistic content through email or social media, they hope to start conversations with non-Christians by wearing, gifting and displaying intriguing brand logos.

The paper argues that our conventional approaches regarding the right to free speech seem outdated when applied online. To draw this conclusion, the free speech architecture of two jurisdictions is closely examined: Despite their ostensible differences, the First Amendment and the article 10 ECHR seem to have developed a common legal mechanism regarding the protective scope of the right to free speech. In particular, they both define the right’s contours by adjusting its permissible limits within a given context. Ultimately, the two jurisdictions perform a balancing act in order to outline the level of protection reserved for this right. The paper traces and analyzes three of the most frequently evoked balancing parameters: space, property and state coercion. Eventually, it is demonstrated that all these three parameters are challenged in cyberspace; as a result they seem to be of little help for balancing online speech. The paper therefore suggests adopting a new approach; digitizing our conventional human rights as the proper way of striking a fair balance for online free speech.

This paper is based on research conducted for a diploma thesis focusing on the accessibility of electronic sources of judicature in the Czech Republic. The paper deals with publicly as well as commercially accessible sources. Publicly accessible sources include NALUS administered by the Constitutional Court, the retrieval system of the Supreme Court and the retrieval system of the Supreme Administrative Court. Commercially accessible sources include Beck online, ASPI, and CODEXIS. All of these sources were evaluated on the basis of content range and search engine and user interface quality. This paper argues that the quality of public sources is generally comparable to commercial ones, in some cases even exceeding their quality (e. g. the NALUS system). The narrower specialization of the public sources makes them more user-friendly in terms of accessing judicature. On the other hand, judicature only constitutes one part of the services provided by the commercial systems: their search engines are shared by other services, which makes them more difficult to navigate. However this also enables them to provide judicature in the context of other relevant information such as legislation or literature.

Recently, the UK enacted prohibitions on the possession of extreme pornography with the passage of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act of 2008. The law targets the possessor of material that is both violent and pornographic. This controversial measure has brought to the fore the questions of how, and why, this jurisdiction regulates offensive material. This paper will trace the recent developments in the UK, including the prosecutions that have resulted from the law, as well as potential conflicts that may arise. A further focus is on the motivations behind the law as well as the implications and efficacy of the regulations, additionally examining the freedom of expression implications of such measures.

Information and Communication Technology (ICT) has created new ways for children to harass and bully each other. It is unfathomable and somewhat ironic to see how the phenomenon of cyberbullying has affected our society and indeed most disturbing to hear cases of teenagers committing suicide or being severely emotionally scarred through the misuse of the latest communication tools that were designed to improve the quality of our lives. Unfortunately the ICT’s very nature of being always-on, accessible-from-anywhere, and often anonymous means of communication makes it difficult to regulate what children say or do to each other. This paper attempts to examine online bullying and harassment - also known as cyberbullying - within the Australian context. Essentially, it discusses the various issues associated with cyberbullying including definition and characteristics of cyberbullying; laws that may be applicable to such forms of harassment; consequences of an anonymous bullying act; and whether intermediaries can be held responsible for cyberbullying. The article concludes by providing a few recommendations on how to address cyberbullying.