The 5 July podcast – your channel to information about what’s going on when it comes to Internet politics, mass surveillance and civil rights.
On EU copyright “reform”, free city WiFi and Mozilla’s web developer conference in Berlin. Now in English.
More information and episode notes at Soundcloud.
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Feedback and comments (MP3) to: karl[at]5july.org
Torrent Freak: EU Commission Proposes Mandatory Piracy Filters For Online Services »
“We need a copyright reform to make Europe fit for the 21st century. We now have a proposal that is poison for European’s free speech, poison for European business and poison for creativity. It could not conceivably be worse.”
– Joe McNamee, Executive Director of European Digital Rights
EDRi Press Release: New copyright directive fails at every level »
It’s hard to understand why the European Commission thinks that an EU-wide snippet tax will work when it has failed spectacularly not once, but twice.
Glyn Moody in Ars Technica: EU copyright plans a big win for old media, but public concerns ignored »
Sign the letter and urge President Obama to pardon Edward Snowden before leaving office »
Today the president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, gave his “State of the Union” speech in the European Parliament.
Every city in the EU will offer free wireless internet access in its centre by 2020, EU commission president Juncker promised in his state of the EU speech on Wednesday. “We need to be connected. Our economy needs it. People need it,” said Juncker. He also said that a faster mobile network, known as 5G, should be “fully deployed” in the EU by 2025.
Two reflections:
First, it is becoming ever harder for cafés, restaurants, and others to provide free internet access for their customers. The reason is that they can become liable for any copyright infringements their customers may commit. (Mainly because of EU regulations.)
Doesn’t this apply for “cities” as well? Will there be separate rules for free WiFi provided by private and public entities?
Second, there is the matter of what you see and what you don’t see. Free WiFi sounds like a good idea for most people. But what will the effects be on commercial networks? As you cannot compete with free (or rather stuff paid for by the taxpayers) – will this hamper the deployment of e.g. “faster mobile networks”? It seems like Juncker is sending mixed and conflicting signals.
Finally, one must put free, public networks into the context of mass surveillance. Exactly who will operate them – and what law enforcement agencies will these operators collaborate with?
/ HAX
Members from left to right in the European Parliament fighting the European Commissions proposal to tax and to extend copyright rules on Internet linking.
Youtube » | #SaveTheLink
A worldwide class-action privacy lawsuit against Facebook, initiated by Max Schrems, has been referred to Europe’s top court. (…)
Schrems first brought his suit in 2014, and accuses Facebook of breaking EU privacy law in multiple ways, including supporting the NSA’s Prism surveillance program. Later, 25,000 Facebook users from around the world—except those in the US and Canada, where different rules apply—joined Schrems in a class action under Austrian law by assigning their rights to him.
Ars Technica: Worldwide privacy class action against Facebook heads to EU’s highest court »
Swedish Internet service provider Bahnhof continues to fight against copyright holders that target alleged file-sharers. The company explains that it has setup its logging policies in such as way that it can refuse requests for IP-address information from so-called copyright trolls, suggesting that other ISPs should follow suit.
Torrent Freak: ISP Deletes IP-address Logs to Fend Off Piracy “Extortion Letters” »
