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Google to Israel: adopt a Notice & Notice system

Israel should follow Canada and adopt a Notice & Notice system, says William F. Patry, Senior Copyright Counsel at Google, Inc. Mr. Patry appeared yesterday before the Science Committee of the Knesset, preparing the E-Commerce Bill. According to Mr. Patry, most Cease and Desist letters Google companies get, do not deal with copyright infringement but rather with commercial competition ...

A class action against Bezeq for broadband speed approved

The Tel-Aviv District Court has approved [Hebrew] a class action suit against Bezeq in the extent of 100 million NIS (as of 2005). The prosecution claims that Bezeq has charged full rates from its ADSL clients, despite actual technical difficulties in the connection. The action was brought forward in the name of "WOW" clients' who joined the ADSL service promised ...

Knesset approves Anti Spam Law

The Knesset approved today an amendment to the Israeli Communication Law that prohibits various sorts of spam: email, fax messages, short text messages (such as cellular SMS) and automatic dialing systems - all should be opted in, if they intend to induce the recipient to spend money.

The strict demand requirement for prior consent is mitigated by two exemptions. An ...

The new Israeli Copyright Law of 2007

On Monday, November 19, 2007, the Knesset (Israeli Parliament) enacted a new Copyright Law, which represents a complete transformation of Israeli intellectual property law. In May, 2008, within six months of the new law's publication in the official publication, the 96 year-old Copyright Law currently in force will be abolished. The current law, which has its roots in the English ...

New law regulates access to communication data

Law enforcement agencies in Israel have been granted broad access to information held by telecommunication service providers, under legislation aimed at regulating communication data transfer during the course of criminal investigations. Following several months of deliberation by the Israeli Knesset’s Constitution, Law and Justice Committee, the Communication Data Law, formally called the Criminal Procedure (Enforcement Powers – Communication Data) Law, ...

A Labor Tribunal disqualified e-mail messages as evidance

The Nazareth District Labor Tribunal has granted [Hebrew] an employee’s motion, during proceedings against his employer, to strike off a number of e-mail messages, included in the defendants’ affidavit. The grounds for the motion were that in order to obtain these messages, the employee’s work electronic mailbox was accessed, thus injuring his right to privacy. The Tribunal commented that these ...

A forum manager to pay 100,000 NIS for libel

A forum manger at the Walla! Website was ordered [Hebrew] to pay compensations in the sum of 100,000 NIS, for her part in libelous publications posted by the public in the forum under her management.  In May 2007, Judge Shoshana Almagor, president of the Tel-Aviv Magistrates’ Court, has determined [Hebrew] that Anat Refuah-Aharonovits is responsible for the publications, due to ...

Petition to the Supreme Court: recognize web users as journalists

The Israeli High Court of Justice recently granted a petition to review a claim by an Israeli user-generated news website named "Scoop.co.il" to recognize its writers as Journalists. The petition was filed against the Israeli Government Press Office (GPO).

The petitioner is looking for two remedies: it asks to recognize itself as 'media' and its writers as 'Journalists'. These definitions ...
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