Global minilinks for 2008-05-10

Posted by Danny O'Brien

• Press Freedom in the Arab World Goes Online
  An overview of the effect of the Net on freedom of speech in the Middle East. "The internet has been a godsend for freedom of expression in the Arab world," says the Egyptian-American syndicated columnist Mona Eltahaw.
• Google Grilled on Human Rights
  "We've seen little more than talk and defensiveness from Google since the problems emerged", says Amnesty International member proposing a shareholder vote on Google's behaviour in China.
• Vigils, Fundraising for Malaysia's Jailed Blogger
  Where almost every politician has a blog, citizen blogger Raja Petra remains under arrest for sedition. Petra's readers have already raised more money than is needed to pay his fine.
• MEPs Want More IP for Sports
  Sports teams and companies lobby the European Parliament to expand IP rights to cover more of sports.
• CCTV Has Failed to Cut Crime in the UK
  Surveillance camera footage used in less than 3% of cases.
• Privacy Competition for the Commonwealth
  The Privacy Commissioners of Australia, Hong Kong, New Zealand, Canada, the Northern Territory, New South Wales and Victoria launch a $3000 competition about privacy for high school students.
• UK Starts Forcing Keys From Suspects
  The first cases under RIPA, where the police can compel individuals to disclose passwords or private keys.
• Freedom for Fouad Al Farhan
  Egypt's prominent imprisoned blogger is freed, after months of online campaigning.
• Google Changes Trademark Ad Policy in UK to Match US
  Allows European companies to advertise on keywords connected to a competitors' brand.
• Cuba Lifts Ban on Home Computers
  Internet access still forbidden.

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The Struggles of France's Three Strikes Law

Posted by Danny O'Brien

As 2008 began, the international music industry was proudly predicting the dawning of a new age of co-operation between rightsholders, Internet companies and governments. The dynamic new President of France, Nicolas Sarkozy, together with Denis Olivennes, the head of France's largest consumer electronics and media retailer, had announced a new policy of "graduated response" for the French Net. Users accused of repeated copyright infringement online would be first warned, then suspended from the online world, and finally banned for a year if they did not tow the line. Music industry representatives heralded it as a model that should be imitated across the globe: in IFPI's 2008 report, its CEO John Kennedy said this was the year that "ISP responsibility" for protecting the music industry "becomes a reality".

Six months on from the original Olivennes report, with growing objections across Europe, collapsing support for Sarkozy's administration at home, and still no "three strikes" law on any statute books, the entertainment industry is getting a little antsy. Last week, the French RIAA, le Syndicat national de l'édition phonographique (SNEP), announced a deadline to Sarkozy's ministers. Hervé Rony, SNEP spokesman, said "it would not be acceptable" for the three strikes law to miss the French Parliament's Summer schedule.

It looks like SNEP's demands are not going to be met. Before the "Loi Olivennes" can even reach parliament, it has to be examined by the French Counseil d'Etat, the senior jurists that advise the French executive and acts as France's supreme court.

They are not rushing their analysis. Just why might be gleaned from the leaked copy of the law sent to them for consideration (provided by Squaring the Net in French). Even after being moderated from earlier drafts, the document still describes a stunning shift in judicial and enforcement, both offline and on.

After explaining exactly why drastic measures are necessary (to "prevent the hemorrhaging of cultural works on the Internet") 1 the document outlines a powerful new government body, the High Authority for the Distribution of Works and the Protection of Rights on the Internet (La Haute Autorité pour la diffusion des œuvres et la protection des droits sur Internet, or HADOPI).

As judge, jury, and executioner of "three strikes", HADOPI is born with wide-ranging powers over all French Internet users. The High Authority acts on reports of suspected infringement from rightsholder groups. Based on those accusations alone it can contact, warn, suspend and finally deny Net service to any French citizen. The High Authority has the right to obtain and peruse a year's worth of personal records from ISPs in the pursuit of their targets. They can order ISPs to include new filtering systems into their infrastructure, and can fine them up to 5,000 euros if they provide Net service to anyone on placed on the Authority's national Internet blacklist.

French Net users do not only have a new Authority sitting in judgment over them: the Loi Olivennes also requires them to police their own networks for the benefit of rightsholders. They will have an obligation to oversee their own network for Internet copyright infringement, and are liable for any infractions, even by strangers. Your only defense against the HADOPI guillotine is if you install on your home network one of their recommended "security devices". It's unclear what these may be: at minimum, it will be software to lock down your network shared drives, and ensure you never open your Wi-Fi again. The stage is set, though, for the government to recommend for home use the fingerprinting and monitoring systems that the copyright cartels are trying to push on YouTube and the phone companies. (And if you think such spyware at home is unlikely, remember that NBC recently pressured Microsoft to include such filters on your MP3 player).

If HADOPI's powers to cut users off, create government-required spyware at the ISP and home level, and pry into the private records of ordinary French citizens at the behest of a few music and movie companies seems draconian, you're not alone. This week, the French Internet trade group ASIC, which includes AOL, Yahoo, Google, Wikipedia, MySpace and others, wrote to the Ministry to complain about the disproportionality and injustices in the HADOPI procedure.

The beleagured Sarkozy administration (the President's support is now at 28%) is facing a great deal of criticism on many policy fronts, is looking at a packed legislative agenda for the Summer, and needs to divert executive resources for the upcoming French presidency of the EU. The last thing it wants to do now is to attempt to rush through a proposal that is deeply unpopular with both the public and business for the benefit of a single industry.

Three strikes is still on the agenda, both at the Élysée and in the recording industry's talking points. But its continuing rough ride through the French political system should stand as a warning to any other nation seriously considering it as a policy.

1. 1. And, incidentally, misleads the Counseil d'Etat as to how widely the Olivennes proposal is being imitated elsewhere. The document claims that Canada is considering "three strikes", and that the United States has already implemented a similar solution as "a result of agreements between ISPs and rightsholders". Neither is true.

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Knitwit BBC Goes After Dr Who Fans

Posted by Danny O'Brien

Here's a fascinating UK legal analysis of an incident we see occurring all over the world: an over-eager rightsholder undermining Internet goodwill by pursuing their own fans for supposed IP infringements.

Andre Guadamuz, is a lecturer at the Edinburgh University school of law, and organizes the fantastic British conference on "geek law", Gikii. He was recently put in contact by the Open Rights Group with Mazzmatazz, a Dr Who fansite which posts knitting patterns of the current batch of Dr Who monsters, including those obedient servants of man, the Ood (see above).

BBC Worldwide, the commercial wing of the public service BBC, sent the site a demand to remove "any designs connected with DR WHO" -- even though the site was offering them free to anyone who wants to knit their own loveable Who-related terrors.

Guadamuz covers the legal ground, and suggests that, like many rightsholders, the BBC has less power to stop fans from creating their own transformative works than they might think. Sadly, that's not enough to save the woolly Ood designs which were taken down out of concern for just the threat of legal action.

As Guadamuz notes, the BBC and Dr Who production staff should know better than to pursue a campaign of online threats against their own fans. These are the people that kept the BBC's now-lucrative Who franchise going during years of neglect by its owners; these are the people who actively promote the current series; and, in the UK at least, these are the people who pay the bulk of BBC's salaries.

Like Dr Who's Ood, fans are happy to serve their favorite franchises when treated well. But if the BBC starts treating them like this, they can all too easily rise up and attack the very brand value the BBC is overzealously seeking to protect.

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Global minilinks for 2008-05-04

Posted by Danny O'Brien

• Global Online Freedom Act To Get Hearing
  Rep. Chris Smith's bill to force companies to comply with US government standards on censorship, filtering and privacy in certain countries moves ahead.
• Egyptians use Facebook to Deter Censorship
  Dissidents collectively acting online to organize real world protests.
• China Beats US for Internet Population
  Now has 221 million users, to United State's 216 million.
• Jailed Chinese Journalist Shi Tao's Poem Follows Olympic Torch's Route Online
  The string of online activists jailed by the Chinese government dogs its Olympics preparations.
• Bypassing a Laptop's Fingerprint Login - Using Its Own Dirty Mouse
  Kim Cameron shows that a laptop has plenty of finger marks to undermine its own security system.
• Declared Income of All Italian Citizens Posted on Web
  Not a data leak, but a deliberate attempt to "fight tax evasion" by the outgoing Italian administration.
• A Short Film Commemorating the 1943 Dutch Population Registry Attack
  In occupied Holland, the resistance had to take desperate measures to stop misuse of collected personal data.
• EULAs in the UK
  British consumer groups and lawyers are becoming more and more concerned by EULA language.
• Google Hands Over Personal Data to Brazilian Authorities
  After fighting against revealing Orkut identities, Google has finally given data on 300 users to a Brazilian senate committee.
• Russian Prosecutors Eye Internet Censorship
  "The new proposal is for any website deemed to have hosted extremist material to be blocked by providers in Russia 'within a month,' Sizov said."
• Performing Rights Society Doing Well From Internet
  The UK collecting society is benefitting from a deal with YouTube and other digital platforms.

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Global minilinks for 2008-04-20

Posted by Danny O'Brien

• EU Intends to Criminalize Terrorist "Provocations"
  Online speech will be included.
• The Creep of Overbroad Surveillance Laws
  RIPA, a UK bill intended to be used in serious crimes, was used to spy on a couple suspected of forging school application forms.
• French Assembly Seek to Ban Anorexia Speech
  Bill which criminalizes "incitement to excessive thinness by publicising of any kind" passes the Assembly, but needs Senate approval before becoming law.
• Repression 2.0
  Newsweek looks at how the Net is used in censorship and surveillance in Africa and China.
• P2P Bandwidth - An International Overview
  Michael Geist takes a look at "disproportionate" net use -- and finds the Bell Canada has far less of a problem than other countries who do not throttle their users.
• "Judicial scandal" in Pirate Bay case
  One of the police officers and chief witnesses in the Swedish Pirate Bay case now works for Time Warner.

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Global minilinks for 2008-04-12

Posted by Danny O'Brien

• UK Judge Won't Stop Publication, Because Net Told the World
  British court turns down a request for an injunction preventing publication of a video, because the footage was already widely available online.
• British Music Industry Threatens UK ISP for Speaking Out
  "The music industry has consistently failed to adapt to changes in technology and now seeks to foist their problems on someone else. Rather than threatening us, the BPI's time would be better spent facing up to the reality of our times and adapting its business model accordingly."
• EU to Google, Et Al: Your Retention Policies Break Privacy Law
  Eighteen-month cookies, and how long data is stored, both need to be changed, says EU's top privacy regulators.
• Australia Looks to Make Wiretapping Easier
  The Senate investigates modern interception techniques -- Electronic Frontiers Australia and others express concern.
• ... While Revamping Privacy Act
  Australia's Labor party also plans to update the country's privacy legislation.
• The International Fight for Internet Rights
  Rebecca Mackinnon summarises how American companies can stop being complicit in human rights abuses internationally.
• Privacy prevails in battle over creativity...for now
  EFF's Erik Josefsson describes the battleground in Europe.
• New Zealand's DMCA -- Better than Most
  Michael Geist points out the more enlightened corners of New Zealand's new Copyright Act
• Businesses Like Canada's IP Approach
  The DMCA-less Canada may be criticised by the US, but the World Economic Forum says Canadian IP climate is better for the economy than their southern neighbor.
• Lawyer Who Threatened File-Sharers is Banned For 6 months
  A French lawyer violates ethical codes by using "aggressive foreign methods" in a threatening letter from rightsholders to Net users.
• China Allows Access to English Wikipedia
  "The move comes after International Olympic Committee (IOC) inspectors told Beijing organisers that the Internet must be open for the duration of the 2008 Olympics and that blocking it "would reflect very poorly" on the host country."

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European Parliament to Sarkozy: No "Three Strikes" Here

Posted by Danny O'Brien

Despite last minute attempts by the French government to divide them, European< MEPs today voted decisively against "three strikes", the IFPI-promoted plan to create a class of digital outcasts, forbidden from accessing the Net if repeatedly accused by music companies of downloading infringing content.

In a vote held today, hundreds of MEPs supported language which declared termination of Internet access to be in conflict with "civil liberties and human rights and with the principles of proportionality, effectiveness and dissuasiveness", all core values of the European Union.

In an attempt to limit the damage of this vote, the French government (whose President, Nicholas Sarkozy publically supports three strikes) wrote to all French MEPs to oppose the vote. "Three strikes" advocates also worked hard to divide support for the amendment. They successfully managed to split the language into two parts, to be voted on separately: the first section condemned any action that would conflict with such ideals, but failed to specify what those actions might be. The second specifically named disconnecting Net users as being beyond the pale.

EFF (which has been following the Bono report closely since the first attempts were made to "hijack" it last October) collaborated with activists across Europe to co-ordinate support for the amendment, and wrote to all MEPs yesterday to point out the real dangers of graduated response, and urge a vote for both parts. French Net activists, including the new Squaring the Net initiative, contacted their MEPs en masse to oppose the French Government's recommendation. And Guy Bono, the author of the report, had this to say in the plenary:

"On this subject, I am firmly opposed to the position of some Member States, whose repressive measures are dictated by industries that have been unable to change their business model to face necessities imposed by the information society. The cut of Internet access is a disproportionate measure regarding the objectives. It is a sanction with powerful effects, which could have profound repercussions in a society where access to the Internet is an imperative right for social inclusion."

Both parts of the amendment passed. (You can watch the vote in French, English and German - it's about two minutes in.).

The entertainment industry originally intended the Bono Report on the Cultural Industries to be a stalking horse for their new approach, encouraging MEPs to insert language that would show support for copyright extension, banning Net users, and censoring the Net in the interests of rightsholders.

Instead it has turned into a watershed: a clear rejection of the strategy of forcing the telecommunications industry to act as a private police force for entertainment lobby — and a positive endorsement of the Net's free flow of information, and a positive agenda for copyright reform. It seems like the music industry will remain the only group to believe that spying, filtering and punishing your own customers is a good idea: either for business, or for society as a whole.

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EU Politicians Strike Back Against Three Strikes

Posted by Danny O'Brien

Last time we wrote about the EU's Bono Report on the Cultural Industries, it was to warn of a rightsholders' hijack. Lobbying groups like IFPI were encouraging amendments that would give a European Union stamp of approval to ISP filtering content, blocking sites and cutting off Net users at the demand of the entertainment industry.

Now the tables have turned - and the same report has become a strong demonstration of the deep discontent in the heart of Brussels with how far the entertainment industry wants to impose its policies on the European Internet.

On Wednesday, the Bono report goes to a final parliamentary vote. The pro-blocking amendments are gone, thanks to your calls and protests. In their place, a new amendment has been proposed by young Swedish MEP Christofer Fjellner and the former Prime Minister of France, Michel Rocard, condemning any measure taken by the EU or nation states that:

"[conflict] with civil liberties and human rights and with the principles of proportionality, effectiveness and dissuasiveness, such as the interruption of Internet access".

Among the signatories to this strong statement are the original author of the report, Guy Bono, and representatives from all the political parties in the Swedish government.

As Karl Sigfrid, MP in Sweden's national parliament, notes on his blog, this is a sharp rebuke against IFPI's demands that Net users be cut off on the orders of rightsholders — and current French President Sarkozy's plans to do just that. It's early days, but the Bono Report fight has the shown that the EU can listen to more than just the rightsholders in this debate.

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Global minilinks for 2008-04-05

Posted by Danny O'Brien

• Chaos Computer Club Publishes German Official's Fingerprint
  Snatched from a glass left after a talk, Interior Minister Wolfgang Schauble's fingerprint is now (irrevocably) the biometric of choice for German pranksters...
• A Technical Guide to Phorm
  The Foundation for Information Policy Research's Richard Clayton analyses exactly how Phorm works -- including fake cookies for every website you visit, and fake HTTP redirects every time you visit a new site.
• UK ISPs Against "Allegation-Based Enforcement"
  IFPI's attempts to introduce "three strikes" in the UK flounder on ISP reticence to be anything but a conduit to the wider Net.
• Filter or Else! Music Industry Sues Irish ISP
  Digital Rights Ireland's TJ McIntyre looks at the background behind the music industry's lawsuit against ISPs in Eire.
• Search Engines Keep Data Too Long, Says Europe
  Data privacy czars may take action against Google, Microsoft.
• The Norwegian Napster
  A new translation into English of the primary Norwegian P2P case, from 2005.
• Polish Court Decides Websites Need to Register
  Apparently, a local website is equivalent to a newspaper, and needs to register with the Polish government. Let a million .pl applications bloom!
• Fair Use, the Three-Step Test, and the Counter-Reformation
  William Patry launches a counterblast against those who say that fair use and other limitations are against the Bernes Treaty.
• Fordham Debates Canadian Copyright
  A summary of the big issues facing Canada's copyright community in the next year.
• French Sony BMG Under Investigation of Copyright Infringement
  Apparently it asked for tech support with an unauthorized license key.
• How ISPs Should Co-operate with Law Enforcement
  The Council of Europe (creators of the Cybercrime Treaty) give their recommendations (including the advice that ISPs should obey international human rights treaties, as well as local law).

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Global minilinks for 2008-03-29

Posted by Danny O'Brien

• Israel Adopts Fair Use
  In their reform of national copyright law, Israel opts for an open-ended and court-defined idea of fair use, similar to the United States.
• India Wants Blackberry Crypto
  On the eve of renewing RIM's license in the country, India wants the keys to the mobile device's encryption system.
• Council of Europe Thinks Hard About Internet Filtering
  Good (but minimal) recommendations for any country considering tampering with the Net.
• Industry Losing Faith In WIPO; Debates US WTO Cases Against China
  
• Caught in a Culture War: Yahoo!'s Sticky China Situation
  Rebecca MacKinnon analyses the problems faced by a compliant Yahoo!
• Russia's Government Files Sneak Onto the Net
  "For many years secret databases from the Interior Ministry, road police and phone operators have been available on the Russian black market."
• EU's Privacy Chief Not Happy with Biometic Passports
  Says the exemptions aren't good enough, and the real security weaknesses lie elsewhere.
• Canada's ISPs get a Net Neutrality Wake-Up Call
  When the country's wholesalers start throttling without permission, what can downstream providers do?
• UK's Byron Review on Internet Child Safety Published
  Despite widespread fears, is surprisingly mild in its recommendations.
• A New Organization to Fight Three Strikes In France
  "Squaring The Net" challenges the French government to understand how the Net works, and not create dangerously impractical laws like the Olivennes law.
• EU and US Struggle with Common Language for Privacy
  High-level meetings between the two powers try to cross the wide gulf of how to protect privacy.
• Free the Music
  Musicologist Ed Baldwin explains why copyright term extension in Europe makes no sense for artists or consumers.
• Israel Fights Back: A Purim Story
  Bill Patry records Israel's challenge to the United States "watchlist" of countries who don't tow America's ideas of IP law.

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