Blogging for the 5th of July Foundation on Security, Privacy and Liberty
“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 »
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” »
In a world where terrorists deliberately encrypt their connections, how big is the chance that a terrorist would (continue to) use a service that is known to be insecure? Our guess: as soon as the European Commission introduces legislation forcing services such as Telegram to decrypt secure communications, terrorists will turn to alternative tools. (…)
The idea that the way to gain access to terrorists’ communications is by backdooring services such as Telegram, is preposterous. Let’s be clear, the French and German proposal will undermine the security of every single person, under the populist guise of improving security. Or, in the words of cryptographer Phil Zimmerman: When crypto is outlawed, only outlaws will have crypto.
EDRi: When crypto is outlawed, only outlaws will have crypto »
The German Intelligence Service BND illegally collected and stored mass surveillance data and has to delete those data immediately, including XKeyscore. This is one of the results of a classified report of the German Federal Data Protection Commissioner that we are hereby publishing. In her report, she criticizes serious legal violations and a massive restriction of her supervision authority.
Netzpolitik: Secret Report: German Federal Intelligence Service BND Violates Laws And Constitution By The Dozen »
Ars Technica: German spies repeatedly broke law, must delete XKeyscore database—watchdog »
Worst of all, the draft directive contains a broad neighbouring/ancillary right for publishers of news (Art. 11). It shall be granted for the online use of “news publications” and have a duration of 20(!) years. What exactly is protected, who the rightsholders shall be or – most importantly – the addressed users is not defined. All the safeguards that were tried in Germany and Spain to keep the danger of such a right for the Internet at bay are neglected: The right is not restricted to the making available right but includes also the reproduction right. It is not restricted to certain users like aggregators or search engines, there is no snippet exception like in Germany and it is a full exclusive right not only a levy like in Spain.
IGEL: It could not be worse: Draft proposal for the copyright directive leaked »
The findings highlight one of the potential risks that come with hoarding undisclosed vulnerabilities for intelligence-gathering and surveillance. By holding on to bugs instead of disclosing them so they can be patched, spy agencies like the NSA create a potentially dangerous free-for-all if their exploits are exposed.
Wired: Of Course Everyone’s Already Using the Leaked NSA Exploits »
However, after reading the draft IA, our conclusion is that EU policy-makers do not seem to think it is worth the effort to bring copyright to the XXI century. Ignoring the results of the copyright consultation of 2014, and despite not having published the analysis on the results on the public consultation on ancillary copyright and freedom of panorama, the Commission has a plan: Let’s ignore all facts (even those previously identified) and avoid a real reform at all costs.
The EU is finally preparing its new copyright law.
It’s a historic chance to update outdated laws to the new realities and opportunities of the digital revolution. But a leaked draft reveals nothing of the sort.
Instead, Commissioner Oettinger has let the publishing, film and music industries hijack the reform in an attempt to protect old business models from progress – at a tragic cost to freedom of creativity and expression on the internet, startups’ right to innovate and the cause of a Europe without digital borders.
German Pirate MEP Julia Reda: Commissioner Oettinger is about to turn EU copyright reform into another ACTA »