(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)
On 14 February 2008, EU Internal Market Commissioner Charlie McCreevy announced his intention to propose to the European Commission (EC), in the next several months, an extension of the copyright term for performers from 50 to 95 years. This proposal should be ready for adoption by the Commission before the summer break of 2008.
As a justification to his action, Commissioner McCreevy stated: "I strongly believe that copyright protection for Europe's performers represents a moral right to control the use of their work and earn a living from their performances. I have not seen a convincing reason why a composer of music should benefit from a term of copyright which extends to the composer's life and 70 years beyond, while the performer should only enjoy 50 years, often not even covering his lifetime It is the performer who gives life to the composition and while most of us have no idea who wrote our favourite song - we can usually name the performer."
The Commissioner also believes the extension would have no negative impact upon the consumer prices as studies show that the price of sound recordings that are out of copyright is not necessarily lower than the ones under copyright and no negative impact upon Europe's external trade balance as most of the additional revenues collected during the extended term would remain in Europe for European performers.
The same proposal was made in UK in May 2007 as a result of the lobby made by some artists such as Cliff Richard and Roger Daltry (from the Who) to the UK Government. However, in July 2007, the UK Government took the decision to reject the proposal.
The Recast study of the Dutch Institute for Information Law, commissioned by the European Commission and issued in November 2007, dealt with the topic and its conclusions were unfavourable to an extension of the copyright term for performers.
"Overall one can say that a term extension would indeed benefit those performing artists that are still popular after 50 years and still receive payments from collecting societies and/or participate in the revenues from the sales of their recordings - providing they have not signed away their rights against a single fee (...) the share of recordings that are still commercially valuable after 50 years makes up for only a small part of the overall repertoire. Benefits from a term extension would therefore only accrue to a limited share of performing artists. For the larger part of performers that do not derive substantial revenues after 50 years, a term extension could -depending on the contractual setting- prevent their recordings from either being commercially exploited by a secondary party or by themselves; or from becoming accessible to the general public" reads the report.
The report concludes that: "The authors of this study are not convinced by the arguments made in favour of a term extension. The term of protection currently laid down in the Term Directive (50 years from fixation or other triggering event) is already well above the minimum standard of the Rome Convention (20 years), and substantially longer than the terms that previously existed in many Member States. (...) Perceived from an international perspective the American terms are anomalous and cannot serve as a legal justification for extending the terms of related rights in the EU."
In August 2007, the EDRi-member Open Rights Group also published a very strong opinion against the extension of the copyright term explaining that the extension of the term would "discourage innovation, stunt the reissues market, and irrevocably damage future artists' and the general public's access to their cultural heritage". In the Group's opinion, the ones to benefit from the term extension would certainly not be "the vast majority of recording artists (...) Because artists generally do not receive any royalty payments until the record label has covered the cost of production and promotion, this means that 80% of recording artists receive no royalties from their records. Their only income from recording is the non-refundable advance against royalties paid to them by the label so that they can survive whilst working on their album (...) royalty rates are set by the recording company and agreed in binding contracts which usually include pages of restrictions on how the artist can earn money (...) Like any business, record companies are trying to maximise their income."
Gowers Review also recommended the rejection of the proposal on the basis of a study carried out by a specialist team at the University of Cambridge which found only a weak economic increase as a result of the extension of the term (a 2% gain in the industry revenues) with increased costs imposed on the wider economy and society.
Performing artists - no longer be the 'poor cousins' of the music business
(14.02.2008)
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/08/240
EU commissioner: Let's extend music copyrights to 95 years. Ars: 50 years is
plenty (14.02.2008)
http://arstechnica.com/news.ars/post/20080214-eu-commissioner-lets-ext...
EU proposes to allow artists to collect royalties for 95 years (15.02.2008)
http://euobserver.com/9/25669
Longer Copyright Terms and Poor Performing Artists (15.02.2008)
http://www.jorisvanhoboken.nl/?p=131
Release the Music - Should the term of copyright protection for sound
recordings be extended? (08.2007)
http://www.openrightsgroup.org/uploads/releasethemusic_aug07.pdf
(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)
The German Constitutional Court published on 27 February 2008 a landmark ruling about the constitutionality of secret online searches of computers by government agencies. The decision constitutes a new "basic right to the confidentiality and integrity of information-technological systems" as derived from the German Constitution.
The journalist and privacy activist Bettina Winsemann, the politician Fabian Brettel (Left Party), the lawyer and former federal minister for the interior Gerhart Baum (Liberal Party), and the lawyers Julius Reiter and Peter Schantz had challenged the constitutionality of a December 2006 amendmend to the law about the domestic intelligence service of the federal state of North-Rhine Westphalia. The amendmend had introduced a right for the intelligence service to "covertly observe and otherwise reconnoitre the Internet, especially the covert participation in its communication devices and the search for these, as well as the clandestine access to information-technological systems among others by technical means" (paragraph 5, number 11). Parts of the challenges also addressed other amendmends which are not covered here.
The decision of today is widely considered a landmark ruling, because it constitutes a new "basic right to the confidentiality and integrity of information-technological systems" as part of the general personality rights in the German constitution. The reasoning goes: "From the relevance of the use of information-technological systems for the expression of personality (Persönlichkeitsentfaltung) and from the dangers for personality that are connected to this use follows a need for protection that is significant for basic rights. The individual is depending upon the state respecting the justifiable expectations for the integrity and confidentiality of such systems with a view to the unrestricted expression of personality." (margin number 181). The decision complements earlier landmark privacy rulings by the Constitutional Court that had introduced the "right to informational self-determination" (1983) and the right to the "absolute protection of the core area of the private conduct of life" (2004).
Information-technical systems that are protected under the new basic right are all systems that "alone or in their technical interconnectedness can contain personal data of the affected person in a scope and multiplicity such that access to the system makes it possible to get insight into relevant parts of the conduct of life of a person or even gather a meaningful picture of the personality." (margin number 203). This includes laptops, PDAs and mobile phones.
The decision also gives very strict exceptions for breaking this basic right. Only if there are "factual indications for a concrete danger" in a specific case for the life, body and freedom of persons or for the foundations of the state or the existence of humans, government agencies may use these measures after approval by a judge. They do not, however, need a sufficient probability that the danger will materialize in the near future. Online searches can therefore not be used for normal criminal investigations or general intelligence work.
If these rare conditions are met, secret online searches may only be used if there are steps taken to protect the core area of the private conduct of life, which includes communication and information about inner feelings or deep relationships. These protections have to include technical measures that aim at avoiding the collection of data from this core area. The Court goes on: "If there are concrete indications in the specific case that a certain measure for gathering data will touch the core area of the conduct of private life, it has to remain principally undone." If data from this core area is accidentially collected, it must be deleted immediately and can not be used or forwarded in any case.
Reactions to the decision were mixed. The opposition parties and many civil liberties groups acclaimed the birth of the new basic right with constitutional status and the high hurdles for any future use of governmental spyware. Others, among them many bloggers, were sceptical about the exeption clauses and how far they can be stretched by the government in future legislation and practice.
Secret online searches of personal hard drives and other storage media had been subject to intense political debate in Germany over the last year after the federal government had to admit it had already tried online searches for criminal investigations without legal grounds and was stopped by the Federal High Court. The federal government as well as several states plan to enact similar possibilities for their intelligence and law enforcement agencies, while the opposition parties and parts of the ruling Social Democrats are strictly against it. Privacy activists have called the plan "Federal Trojan" ("Bundestrojaner"). A real-life sized model of a trojan horse in Germany's national colors which was built by activists from EDRi member Chaos Computer Club (CCC) and used at several protest marches will soon be exhibited in the Museum of German History in Bonn.
Federal Minister for the Interior Wolfgang Schäuble (Christian Democrats) said he expects that the coalition will soon agree on a bill to give the Federal Criminal Agency (BKA) the legal possibility to use online searches in the fight against international terrorism. Privacy advocates pointed out that Schäuble now at least has to stick to a very narrow definition of fighting terrorist dangers and can not use this as a disguise for introducing general and far-reaching surveillance of personal computer systems.
Constitutional Court Press Release (only in German, 27.02.2008)
http://www.bverfg.de/pressemitteilungen/bvg08-022.html
Constitutional Court Decision (BVerfG, 1 BvR 370/07), (only in German,
27.02.2008)
http://www.bverfg.de/entscheidungen/rs20080227_1bvr037007.html
Video from the announcing the decision
http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=8630696719785982383&hl=en
Comprehensive press and background coverage (only in German)
http://netzpolitik.org/2008/neues-grundrecht-auf-gewaehrleistung-von-v...
Germany's Highest Court Restricts Internet Surveillance (27.02.2008)
http://www.dw-world.de/dw/article/0,2144,3152627,00.html
The most spied upon people in Europe (27.02.2008)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/7265212.stm
(Contribution by Ralf Bendrath - EDRi member Netzwerk Neue Medien)
(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)
The European Commission published the Draft Recommendation on RFID Privacy and Security on the Your Voice in Europe-Platform for public consultation.
After a public consultation on RFID Privacy Issues in 2006, some conferences and workshops and various discussions on the topic within the RFID Expert Group, this publication finally represents the measures that the Commission recommends to the member states and stakeholders, in order to achieve a high level of privacy and data protection in the context of RFID applications.
EDRi welcomes this Draft Recommendation, which contains various important measures, like the recommendation that RFID reading areas as well as RFID tagged object should be marked with a clear sign indicating the presence of RFID tags or readers. Also the recommendation to conduct a Privacy Impact Assessment before the deployment of RFID applications and to provide information on the policy governing the use of this particular application are important measures to inform individuals of the presence and the purpose of a given RFID application.
Regarding RFID use in the retail environment, the Commission addresses two scenarios:
a.When a RFID application processes personal data or when it is likely that personal data will be created, the retailer should deactivate the tag unless the consumer requests otherwise.
b.When the application does not process personal data and it is unlikely that personal data will be generated through the application, the retailer must only provide facilities to deactivate or remove the tag.
As already expressed in our contributions to the RFID Expert Group, EDRi strongly asks for an opt-in regime unless there are sufficient mechanisms in place to grant the individual full control over the RFID tags in his or her possession and the data stored on them.
The problems with the two retail-scenarios differentiated by the Commission are, that on the one hand the privacy risks not only stem from the RFID application in question but from the unique identifier stored on the tag as well as from the fact that this identifier can be utilised by any RFID application looking for a unique identifier for a person. This problem will not necessarily show up in the privacy risk assessment conducted for the RFID application in question.
On the other hand, experience shows that industry representatives and application operators often have problems with identifying privacy and data protection threats. Especially the concept of personal data is often not properly understood. Therefore it is not unlikely that application operators will not recognize privacy and data protection problems and leave the consumers with the burden to ask for deactivation or removal of the tags.
EDRi will therefore continue to argue for the implementation of binding policy requiring the deactivation or removal of RFID tags unless sufficient technical measures are in place to give individuals full control over the RFID tags in their possession.
The discussion on RFID, privacy and security will certainly continue, not only in the RFID Expert Group, but also amongst the public and the stakeholders. But not only discussions, also improvements are requested, as the Commission clearly states that it will evaluate the implementation of the Recommendation in three years time, in particular with a focus on systems "providing automatic deactivation at the point of sale on all items except where consumers specifically opted in to the RFID application."
For now, it is important that the general public provides the Commission with its opinions on the Draft Recommendation. Both approval and criticism are equally welcome.
Draft Recommendation on the implementation of privacy, data protection and
information security principles in applications supported by Radio Frequency
Identification (RFID): your opinion matters!
http://ec.europa.eu/yourvoice/ipm/forms/dispatch?form=RFIDRec
RFID and Informed Consent - Using and removing of RFID functionality
(5.12.2007)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.23/rfid-informed-consent
European Data Protection Supervisor's opinion on RFID (16.01.2008)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number6.1/edps-opinion-rfid
Article 29 Working Party: Opinion no. 4/2007 on the concept of personal data
(20.06.2007)
http://ec.europa.eu/justice_home/fsj/privacy/docs/wpdocs/2007/wp136_en...
(contribution from Andreas Krisch - EDRI-member VIBE! - Austria)
(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)
Nicola Zingaretti, Socialist Member of the European Parliament (MEP) asked the EU member states to speed up the plan to criminalise copyright infringement that was first proposed in 2005 and agreed upon in 2007. The implementation of the EU Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED2) creating new rules on copyright protection would require the Member States to pass laws that would penalise the infringement of intellectual property rights.
At the beginning of February, Nicola Zingaretti, who was in charge of the adoption of the new rules and a supporter of IPRED2, sent a letter to the European Council asking member states to take "urgent action" to address the "increasingly systematic violation of copyright by some Internet users" and to "provide a timeframe for discussion" of the directive which has in view the criminalisation of offences ranging from illegal downloading to the sale of counterfeit medicines.
The new directive would criminalise illegal downloading but only if done with a commercial purpose or with a commercial profit. Zingaretti wanted to emphasize that: "It is about punishing mafia-style criminals, not about jailing kids who download music from the internet."
The matter has dragged for two years now as there has been certain reluctance and opposition from several member states. The original Commission proposal has been greatly criticized, being considered as disproportional and failing to make adequate distinctions between legal activities and commercial piracy enterprises and even common activities of ordinary individuals. IPRED2 draft was amended by the European Parliament but even so, it has raised concerns as key concepts and definitions are left unacceptably vague. One reason of concern was the fact that a European Parliament adopted amendment was not included in the final text that was passed by the Parliament in April 2007.
Ante Wessels, an analyst of the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure stated: "We have always warned that the definitions in this criminal law are badly drafted. And indeed, now the directive has passed parliament, the Rapporteur admits that the law is actually much broader than he has always claimed it is. (...) The Commission proposal is disproportional and the European Parliament left key concepts and definitions unacceptably vague. On top of that, democratic procedure is violated by leaving out an adopted amendment."
EU Parliament demands action on criminal IP penalties (21.02.2008)
http://www.out-law.com//default.aspx?page=8883
EU states urged to adopt tougher copyright protection rules (20.02.2008)
http://www.euractiv.com/en/infosociety/eu-states-urged-adopt-tougher-c...
Parliamentary questions - Written Question by Nicola Zingaretti (PSE) to the
Council Subject: Criminal measures to enforce intellectual property rights
(5.02.2008)
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+WQ+P-...
EP Rapporteur wants to crack down on internet users (19.02.2008)
http://press.ffii.org/Press_releases/EP_Rapporteur_wants_to_crack_down...
EDRi-gram: IPRED2 voted in first reading by the European Parliament
(25.04.2007)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.8/ipred2
(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)
French Internal Affairs Minister, Michèle Alliot-Marie, announced on 14 February 2008 new measures to fight against cybercrime, including extending the websites blacklist and pushing for computer online investigations, without the permission of the country of the hosting company.
The Minister visited the Cybercrime Brigade that is located in Nanntere and announced a new "best practices chart" with the operators in order to block websites. According to the statements, the Norwegian model was taken into consideration, meaning the creation of a list with websites not only with child pornography information, but also the ones with information on making explosives or chemical weapons, terrorist propaganda and racial hate speech.
The way the authorities will work with the ISPs is not clear yet, because these ones don't seem too happy to make pages inaccessible by Internet users. The Minister talks about a "constructive dialogue", but the ISP will be asked to automatically block the access to a certain webpage when the Police is notifying them.
The French authorities admit that the task will not be an easy one, since most of the problematic websites are hosted out of the French border. Thus, out of the last year complaints, only 308 were referring to websites hosted in France, meanwhile 1552 referred to pages abroad.
The Minister has tried to explain that the new measures are not Big Brother-type surveillance methods, but that all is about "protecting Internet users".
Another measure planned by the Minister is a European platform for exchanging information related to cybercrime, within the Europol. She plans to take advantage of the French Presidency of the European Union from July to December 2008 to suggest the creation of an international cooperation in order to allow "distance online searches of computer systems, without a prior authorisation from the country where the server is hosted."
Other ideas include usage of geo-localization in a case brought in front of justice and identifying users via the payment methods to buy illegal services.
All these new ideas will be included in a draft law that will modify the law regarding internal security, that the Minister will present during this Spring.
Fight against Cybercrime: Michèle Alliot-Marie presents her plan
(only in French, 15.02.2008)
http://www.vnunet.fr/fr/news/2008/02/15/lutte_contre_la_cybercriminali...
Fight against crime on the Internet (only in French, 12.02.2008)
http://www.lefigaro.fr/actualites/2008/02/13/01001-20080213ARTFIG00013...
Police gets tools for tracking illegal websites (only in French, 15.02.2008)
http://www.lemonde.fr/societe/article/2008/02/15/la-police-se-dote-d-o...
EDRi-gram: The French Ministry of Interior has a new interception platform
(6.07.2007)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.11/french-interior-interceptation
(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)
The Romanian Government adopted on 20 February 2008 the draft law on data retention, but despite the official press release that praises the new measure, several officials have complained about the lack of reality of the legal text.
The draft law was adopted by the Government at about one year after the Ministry of Information Technology and Communication (MCTI) presented the first draft, with no major changes in the text. This means that the Government has changed its previous intention to adopt the text as an Emergency Ordinance.
The data should be retained for one year. The obligation to retain the data is only for electronic communication operators, thus excluding information society service providers. The retained data can be accessed by prosecutors only in the penal cases related to organized crime and terrorism crimes and with a proper specific judge-approved access authorization. The intentional access to the data without a proper authorization is a crime punished with prison from 6 months to 2 years.
Unfortunately, the text of the draft law still preserves the confusion regarding the access of the security services to the retained data. Thus, Article 20 foresees that for preventing and fighting against "threats to the national security", the data can be accessed by the "state institutions with attributions in this area" under the conditions established by the "laws on national security." This very broad terminology raises significant question marks on the practical application of the text and possible abuses.
The official press release of the MCTI praises the adoption by Romania of the "European standards" on data retention. But the optimistic tone is contradicted by the person in the Ministry in charge with writing the law, State Secretary Constantin Teodorescu, who declared to the Money Channel that obtaining the data for emails will not increase the chances of discovering the crimes: "The EU requests are exaggerated!".
He also explained that the issue can't be solved for email addresses hosted on foreign web servers and confirmed that the text "is a 100% translation of the European Directive." He also stated that a possible solution will be to convince the EU Commissioner Viviane Reading that the draft law will not work: "The solution should be that the Internet providers come together with the Ministry and explain to the Commisioner the technical point of view that these are measures not easy to fullfil and they leave huge gaps."
The President of the Romanian ISP Association, Mihai Batrineanu, considers the measure regarding the email as useless: "The request is just infantile. If someone wants to do a bad thing, he will not send emails from his personal address" and he also complained about the additional costs required for ISPs to implement the measures.
According to the draft, the Internet-related data will be kept only starting with 15 March 2009. The Government adopted text will now be sent to the Parliament for debates.
Draft Law on data retention (only in Romanian)
http://www.mcti.ro/index.php?id=16&lege=412
Retaining technical data on email - inefficient and redundent measure
(only in Romanian, 22.02.2008)
http://www.cotidianul.ro/index.php?id=57&brk=12501&cHash=c940f...
Romania aligns to European standards for data retention for
fixed and mobile telephony and ISP (only in Romanian, 20.02.2008)
http://www.mcti.ro/index.php?id=1&art=620&L=0
EDRI-gram: First draft on data retention law in Romania (9.04.2007)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.9/data-retention-romania
(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)
The UK Government intends to introduce legislation that will force ISPs to disconnect theirs customers that illegally download music or films.
Andy Burnham, the culture secretary, told the Financial Times "the government has no burning desire to legislate", but he announced a change of tone from the Government. A document called "Creative Britain: New Talents for the New Economy" commits the government to a consultation on anti-piracy legislation this Spring. The legislation could be implemented by April 2009.
The draft consultation which suggests that ISPs would be required to take action against illegal filesharers is aimed at dealing with the estimated 6 million UK Internet users that illegally download files every year.
The paper apparently suggests a "three-strikes" regime. "Users suspected of wrongly downloading films or music will receive a warning e-mail for the first offence, a suspension for the second infringement and the termination of their Internet contract if caught a third time, under the most likely option to emerge from discussions about the new law." It also proposes the prosecution of the companies that will not observe this procedure. The information was however denied by Mr. Burnham.
The Internet Service Provider's Association (ISPA) believes that it would be difficult to create the appropriate legislation and stated ISPs were already considering self-regulation. Some of the UK's biggest Internet Providers, such as BT, Virgin and Tiscali have had discussions with the entertainment industry on the introduction of a voluntary scheme for illegal downloading activities, but no agreement has been reached yet.
EDRI-member Open Rights Group points out that the proposals are disproportionate and meant to fail as unrealistic. Filesharers will simply find methods to cover their identities using encryption and software will be created to help non-technical users to do the same thing. Besides, the measures will not help artists and will upset instead their fans.
The new proposed legislation could also raise problems in terms of the European laws on online privacy. ISPA believes data protection laws would prevent providers from checking on the content of information sent over their networks. "ISPs are no more able to inspect and filter every single packet passing across their network than the Post Office is able to open every envelope," said the association.
Government to ban illegal filesharers from the internet? (12.02.2008)
http://www.openrightsgroup.org/2008/02/12/government-to-ban-illegal-fi...
Illegal downloaders 'face UK ban' (12.02.2008)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/7240234.stm
ISPs could face piracy sanctions (22.02.2008)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/7258437.stm
DCMS - Unlocking Talent (22.02.2008)
http://www.culture.gov.uk/NR/rdonlyres/096CB847-5E32-4435-9C52-C4D293C...
(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)
Following several complaints and notifications, the French Data Protection Authority (Commission Nationale de l'Informatique et des Libertés - CNIL) is investigating Note2be.com website created in January 2008 that was proposing pupils to grade and evaluate their teachers.
The site encouraged pupils the give the name of the teachers they graded, the name of the school and the teacher's subject. On 13 February, three CNIL representatives made an emergency check out of the locations of the site webmasters.
The site has raised the anger of both the teacher's union as well as that of the pupils' parents. "This site is the antithesis of education and citizenship because it is based on tattling, denigration and disrespect" wrote FCPE (Federation of the Councils of Parents with Children in Public Schools).
Xavier Darcos, the Ministry of Education has also criticized the site emphasizing the fact that the teachers' evaluation is exclusively made by the national education system.
The SNALC-CSEN (The National Union of High Schools and Colleges) has started a procedure that offers those who find their names on the respective site three different possible means of action: to use the right to response, the right to ask for the deletion of any information related to them and the right to access all information on them, posted on the respective site. The union also offers models of documents that can be used for the respective actions and gives information on how to proceed in case there is no compliance from the site.
CNIL is presently investigating the site to verify whether there has been any infringement of the law and advised it would give its conclusions on 6 March 2008.
The Cnil and National Education condemn Note2be.com practices (only in
French, 15.02.2008)
http://www.zdnet.fr/actualites/internet/0,39020774,39378641,00.htm
Note2be.com, the teachers' grading site, controlled yesterday by the CNIL
(only in French, 14.02.2008)
http://www.cnil.fr/index.php?id=2394&news³³0³=520&cHash=c012d6...
Note2be, informatics and freedom (only in French, 10.02.2008)
http://contrenote2be.unblog.fr/2008/02/10/note2be-informatique-et-libe...
(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)
As of 1 January 2007 a law took effect in Finland allowing the Police to maintain a secret blacklist of child porn sites and distribute it to ISPs so that these may block access to those sites. Use of the lists is ostensibly voluntary to ISPs, but there have been rather strong hints of making it mandatory if not adopted otherwise. After a slow start, Police actually started distributing the list late last year and several ISPs have began using them.
In February 2008, the police added the site lapsiporno.info to the blacklist. Despite the name (Lapsiporno means "child porn" in Finnish), the website contains no child or any other kind of porn, but criticism of censorship and a partial collection of addresses from the officially secret list.
Publishing the list was apparently what made the police blacklist it. The point of the published list, however, was to demonstrate that not all blocked sites were child porn ones and there, it has succeeded beyond expectations.
Several people have gone through the list of over 1000 addresses and have concluded that the numbers of actual child porn sites are no more than 10, with some 30 or so borderline cases. Most of the sites contained legal sexual content, while some had no apparent connection with sex at all, like a violin shop in Japan and a memorial of Thailand's late princess. Even one search engine was blocked.
After a public outcry, the police stated they woudn't explain the justification of blocking any individual site, but suggested that the collection of links to the banned sites could be construed as a "portal" to them, and summoned Matti Nikki for questioning, under suspicion of aiding the distribution of child porn. No charges have been made as of now.
Meanwhile, there have been several complaints about the legitimacy of the law and the legality of the Police action to the Parliamentary Ombudsman and to the Chancellor of Justice, among others by EDRi-member Electronic Frontier Finland, arguing, inter alia, that the law is against the constitution, the police interpretation of it is arbitrary and the law wouldn't achieve its stated purpose even if effectively implemented.
The minister of communications, Ms. Suvi Lindén, defended the law in public in a way that suggested she completely failed to understand the point of the criticism, even hinting she'd want to make filtering mandatory to ISPs. Subsequently, a Internet petition was started demanding her resignation, which until now it has attracted almost 12000 signatures (for the sake of comparison, she was elected to the Parliament with just 4131 votes).
Otherwise, only one parliamentarian, Mr. Jyrki Kasvi, has spoken against the censorship - others have made no public statements whatsoever. Finnish politicians have clearly been taken by surprise.
There have been talks about "crisis of democracy" in Finland due to the decreasing voter turnout. Perhaps there is a crisis but rather due to government actions eroding people's freedoms. That people are rising to defend freedom of speech even in such a controversial context suggests democracy isn't dead here yet.
Finish Internet Censorship List
http://lapsiporno.info/suodatuslista/?lang=en
Recent developments in the Finnish Internet censorship system. The Finnish
police censors much more than was originally intended (18.02.2008)
http://www.effi.org/blog/kai-2008-02-18.html
(Contribution by Tapani Tarvainen - EDRi-member Electronic Frontier Finland)
(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)
Article 29 Working Party changes its president
http://ec.europa.eu/justice_home/fsj/privacy/news/docs/pr_18_19_02_08_...
(Dieser Artikel ist auch in deutscher Sprache verfügbar)
10-12 March 2008, Geneva, Switzerland
WIPO Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights: Sixteenth Session
http://www.wipo.int/meetings/en/details.jsp?meeting_id=14502
15 March 2008, London, UK
OKCon 2008 - Open Knowledge: Applications, Tools and Services
http://www.okfn.org/okcon/
19 March 2008, London, UK
Musicians, fans and online copyright
http://www.eventbrite.com/event/98391291
2-4 April 2008, Berlin, Germany
re:publica - The Critical Mass
http://www.re-publica.de
10-12 April 2008, Amsterdam & Hilversum, Netherlands
Economies of the Commons - Strategies for Sustainable Access and Creative
Reuse of Images and Sounds Online
International Working Conference
http://www.ecommons.eu
28-29 April 2008, Vienna, Austria
PRISE Final Conference -Towards privacy enhancing security technologies -
the next steps
http://www.prise.oeaw.ac.at/conference.htm
9-10 May 2008, Florence, Italy
"Digital communities and data retention"
Deadline for papers submission is 31 March 2008
http://e-privacy.winstonsmith.info/
15-17 May 2008, Ljubljana, Slovenia
EURAM Conference 2008 - Track "Creating Value Through Digital Commons"
How collective management of IPRs, open innovation models, and digital
communities shape the industrial dynamics in the XXI century.
http://www.euram2008.org
30-31 May 2008, Bucharest, Romania
eLiberatica 2008 - The benefits of Open and Free Technologies
http://www.eliberatica.ro/2008/
17-18 June 2008, Seoul, Korea
The Future of the Internet Economy - OECD Ministerial Meeting
http://www.oecd.org/FutureInternet
23-25 July 2008, Leuven, Belgium
The 8th Privacy Enhancing Technologies Symposium (PETS 2008)
http://petsymposium.org/2008/
19-20 July 2008, Stockholm, Sweden
International Association for Media and Communication Research
pre-conference
Civil Rights in Mediatized Societies: Which data privacy against whom and
how ?
Deadline for papers submission is 1 April 2008
http://www.iamcr.org/content/view/301/1/
8-10 September 2008, Geneva, Switzerland
The third annual Access to Knowledge Conference (A2K3)
http://isp.law.yale.edu/Wiki/view.aspx/A2K3_Announcements