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EU: Privatised censorship and filtering of free speech

By on December 29, 2016 in Big Entertainment, Copyright, EU, Freedom of Speech, Intellectual Property

The European Commission’s proposal on copyright attempts something very ambitious — two different measures that would restrict free speech, squeezed into a single article of a legislative proposal. (…)

1) Requires internet companies to install filtering technology to prevent the upload of content that has been “identified by rightsholders”. (…)

2) Seeks to make internet providers responsible for their users’ uploads. (…)

3) Gives internet users no meaningful protection from unfair deletion of their creations.

Medium: EU Copyright Directive — privatised censorship and filtering of free speech »

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Links to need pre-clearance?

By on December 12, 2016 in Copyright, Freedom of Speech, Germany, Intellectual Property, Internet, Link wars

This is worrisome…

(A) Hamburg court ruled that the operator of a website violated on copyright by publishing a link to material that was infringing, even though the site operator was unaware of this fact.

Ars Technica: Commercial sites must check all their links for piracy, rules Hamburg court »

Pre-clearing all links with the linked websites would be a very complicated and time-consuming task – for both parties. Not to mention all the paperwork to document this, to avoid future problems.

And exactly what constitutes a »commercial site«?

The Hamburg court ruled that even though the link in question was not used to generate revenue directly, the site as a whole was commercial, since it sells learning materials via one of its Web pages.

So – I guess – if you have ads on your site, if you sell stuff or if you lead your readers to anything of commercial interest (like services that you provide) the purpose can be deemed »commercial«. This resulting in most sites on the net falling into this category.

This is leading to a very real dilemma. Links are the nerve system of the Internet. Most site owners would love to have you link to their pages. And for reference, an open and democratic debate and knowledge building links are essential. (Like in this blog post.)

But according to the Hamburg court, you can get in serious trouble if you don’t obtain a pre-clearance.

Even if you have the time and resources to pre-clear every link – it is likely that people running the sites you would like to link to simply do not have the resources to reply to every request to link.

So if you run a blog or a site that you want people to link to, you better state that it is published under Creative Commons license CC=BY or CC=0.

/ HAX

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A word of warning on piracy filters

By on December 6, 2016 in Censorship, Copyright, EU, File Sharing, Internet

A group of prominent legal scholars has warned that the EU Commission’s plans to modernize copyright law in Europe appear to be incompatible with EU law. One of the main problems is the mandatory piracy filter Internet services are required to use, which largely ignore existing case law and human rights.

TorrentFreak: Mandatory Piracy Filters May Violate EU Law, Scholars Warn »

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EU in new attempt to make ISP:s police and censor the Internet

By on November 12, 2016 in Censorship, Civil liberties, Copyright, EU, Freedom of Speech, Intellectual Property, Internet, Rule of law

Joe McNamee, EDRi: EU Copyright Directive – privatised censorship and filtering of free speech »

The proposed Directive:
1) requires internet companies to install filtering technology to prevent the upload of content that has been “identified by rightsholders”
2) seeks to make internet providers responsible for their users’ uploads
3) gives internet users no meaningful protection from unfair deletion of their creations

So, ISP:s will have to check on all content uploaded by users – i.e. scrutinize everything that is uploaded to the Internet.

What is to be allowed or censored will not be a matter of rule of law – but falls under company terms and conditions that can state… whatever.

There will be no legal means of redress or appeal.

Freedom of speech and freedom of information will be in the hands of ISP:s who are to be liable for all user uploads. There is good reason to fear that these companies will be overly anxious and cautious – censoring everything with even a remote possibility of being an infringement of copyright.

This is yet another attempt to get around the eCommerce-directives principle of »mere conduit« stating that net operators can not be liable for what users are doing in their cables.

And imagine the burden on the ISP:s, having to police all of the users net activities.

This proposal is an assault on »mere conduit«, free speech, privacy and the rule of law. It must be stopped.

/ HAX

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Swedish anti-piracy scheme folded

By on October 31, 2016 in Big Entertainment, Copyright, File Sharing

Some months ago the Swedish anti-piracy initiative Spridningskollen was launched by a few entertainment companies, a debt collecting agency, and a PR firm. The idea was to threaten illegal file shares with economic claims – and if they do not pay, with legal actions.

This raised quite some noise. In the frontline of the protests stood Bahnhof, a very privacy-oriented Internet service provider.

After intense media coverage and public outcry, today Spridningskollen announced that it will fold its operations and that no economic claims for illegal file sharing will be sent out in its name.

Hopefully, this will lead to Swedish copyright holders and entertainment companies working with providing their fans and customers with better services instead of threatening them.

/ HAX

Links (in Swedish): 1 | 2

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“Anti-Piracy Plans Harm The Internet”

By on October 28, 2016 in Big Entertainment, Copyright, File Sharing, Intellectual Property, Internet

The Internet Infrastructure Coalition is urging the U.S. Government not to blindly follow the RIAA and MPAA’s input regarding online piracy threats. The group, which represents tech firms including Google, Amazon and Verisign, warns that the future of the Internet is at stake.

Torrentfreak: “MPAA and RIAA’s Anti-Piracy Plans Harm The Internet” »

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Yet another ill-conceived EU idea on fighting copyright infringements

By on October 20, 2016 in Big Entertainment, Civil liberties, Copyright, EU, File Sharing, Intellectual Property, Internet

The European Commission has a new idea – to fight copyright infringements by targeting companies who advertise on file sharing sites. To nobody’s surprise, what the commission suggests is a mess.

EDRi:s Joe McNamee:

It is currently discussing “guiding principles” for withdrawal of services by advertising companies to penalise and prevent “commercial scale” infringements. Tellingly, the final paragraph of the “guiding principles” contains very similar wording to the ill-fated “Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement” (ACTA) that was rejected in 2012.

Like ACTA, the “guiding principles” include illusory “safeguards”, such as references to non-existent legal terms like “fundamental principles” and “fair process” (not due process). Like ACTA, it refers to “commercial scale”, as if this was a safeguard. The European Commission itself has previously said that the term is too vague in existing law.

The text also refers to a “right to access lawful content”, even though there is no such “right”. We have a right to freedom of movement (not a right to legal movement), we have a right to freedom of communication. The implication of the expression “right to access lawful content” is that everything we do or say should be assumed to be illegal until proven otherwise. This is profoundly objectionable.

Why is it that every time the European Commission address issues like copyright, file sharing and a free and open Internet – they totally loose it?

The commissioners are supposed to be the elite of European bureaucracy and they have top legal advisors. But do they even know what they are doing? Or do they deliberately conspire to deceive the public?

/ HAX

EDRi: “Follow the money” on copyright infringements »

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