Proposed amendments to the UK’s Digital Economy Bill have revealed a desire by some MPs to force search engines to tackle piracy. A new clause would require search engines to come to a voluntary arrangement with rightsholders, or face being forced into one by the government.
TorrentFreak: UK Considers Fines to Force Search Engines to Tackle Piracy »
But what do we do when the same threats aren’t the result of a law or the practices of an individual company, but the result of a private industry agreement? For example, agreements between copyright holders and Internet companies that give copyright holders the ability to effectively delete users’ content from the Internet, and agreements on other topics such as hateful speech and terrorism that can be used to stifle lawful speech. Unlike laws, such agreements (sometimes also called codes, standard, principles, or guidelines) aren’t developed with public input or accountability. As a result, users who are affected by them are often completely unaware that they even exist.
EFF: Shadow Regulation: the Back-Room Threat to Digital Rights »
EDRi: Commissioner defends nuclear attack on internet freedom »
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
I’m a free marketeer. I believe that free trade would be hugely beneficial for all.
I also believe in a free and open Internet. Especially as it provides a level playing field on which entrepreneurs from all over the world can join a global market, 24/7.
And I’m not at all happy with politicians and bureaucrats trying to force me to choose between the two.
The CETA (EU-Canada) and TTIP (EU-US) trade agreements are problematic. CETA will undermine Europeans right to data protection and privacy online. The same goes for TTIP, which also might contain intellectual property regulations undermining the principle that Internet service providers are not responsible for what their customers are up to in their cables (the mere conduit principle). That would have huge implications, leading to a strictly controlled Internet where everything you are up to must be approved in advance. When it comes to TTIP, we still have no comprehensive information about what is going to be included or not when it comes to IP – as negotiations are carried out behind closed doors.
Also, the ISDS mechanism in these trade agreements will make a much needed and long overdue copyright reform impossible.
But then, again, these trade agreements are not really about free trade. They are about »harmonizing« rules and regulations. So, they are really about regulating trade.
If you want free trade, all you have to do is to get rid of customs fees and other trade barriers. That would benefit us and all of the humanity greatly. But that is not what the politic and bureaucratic elite hope for. They want to regulate and control. The EU even has a special sub-bureaucracy for »trade defense«.
So, I don’t buy into it when they claim that these »free trade agreements« are about free trade.
I’m standing with free trade. And I’m standing with a free and open Internet. It is perfectly possible and logical to combine these standpoints with being critical to CETA and TTIP.
/ HAX
This week the European Court of Justice heard a crucial case that will give more clarity on the infringing nature of unauthorized streaming. Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN and the Spanish authorities argued that offering or watching pirate streams is a violation of the EU Copyright Directive. However, the European Commission believes that consumers who watch unauthorized streams are not breaking the law. (…)
Based on the hearing the Advocate General will issue a recommendation later this year, which will be followed by a final verdict from the EU Court of Justice somewhere early 2017.
TorrentFreak: Watching Pirate Streams Isn’t Illegal, EU Commission Argues »
Last week European Commission president Jean-Claude Juncker proposed open city WiFi networks. This left us with some unanswered questions, e.g. about the rules for liability when it comes to copyright infringements. (Link»)
The very next day a ruling in the European Court of Justice (ECJ) brought some clarity. And raised some new questions.
The court finds that a measure consisting in password-protecting an Internet connection may dissuade the users of that connection from infringing copyright or related rights, provided that those users are required to reveal their identity in order to obtain the required password and may not therefore act anonymously, a matter which it is for the referring court to ascertain.
Ars Technica wrote…
Businesses such as coffee shops that offer a wireless network free of charge to their customers aren’t liable for copyright infringements committed by users of that network, the ruling states—which, in part, chimes with an earlier advocate general’s opinion. But hotspot operators may be required, following a court injunction, to password-protect their Wi-Fi networks to stop or prevent such violations. (…)
The implications are obvious: no more free and anonymous Wi-Fi access in bars, cafes, or hotels in countries within the 28-member-state bloc that can now use existing law to demand that users hand over their ID first.
Pirate Party MEP Julia Reda commented…
Juncker’s free Wi-Fi plan is aimed at travellers, refugees, and other groups that could not possibly be expected to identify themselves before using a public Wi-Fi. The commission is even advertising its new initiative as password-free. This ruling means that copyright holders will be able to foil that plan and require free Wi-Fi providers to restrict access to their networks.
Let me add to the confusion.
First, let’s have a look at the situation for traditional hotspot operators such as cafés.
It is not reasonable to expect a café owner to keep a database of all local WiF users. That would require an extensive and very privacy sensitive register that cannot be tampered with and that can stand up to legal procedures. And still, it would do nothing to identify an individual user on the cafés single IP address. At least not with the relatively cheap and simple WiFi equipment normally used in such places.
It all quickly gets complicated and expensive. This would effectively kill free WiFi with your coffee.
The same general questions can be raised when it comes to Juncker’s free city WiFi. But there is a difference. Public sector operated WiFi will have more money and can apply common technical standards. As the number of users in a city-WiFi can be expected to be substantially higher that at a single café – there would not only need to be some sort of password protection but also individual user names, linked to personal identity. At least if you want to meet with the ECJ ambition to be able to identify single users.
In both cases, anonymity will be more or less impossible.
And when it comes to city-WiFi, we can expect various law enforcement and intelligence agencies to show a keen interest.
/ HAX
Ars Technica: Wi-Fi providers not liable for copyright infringements, rules top EU court »
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
Pirate MEP Julia Reda: Freedom to link threatened by EU court decision and copyright plans »
The unpleasant practice of sending extortion letters to file sharers / downloaders seems to be spreading. The latest example is Sweden. And it all seems to be loosely built on the German model.
Here are few links describing what’s going on in Germany:
• File Sharing infringements in Germany »
• Germany offers frightening glimpse at copyright trumping privacy »
• Your Digital Rights in Germany »
• Advice on the copyright infringement warning letter from Fareds »
