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Deutsch: EDRi nun auf Twitter!
If 2 weeks is too much for you to wait to the fresh info, we have good news: EDRi is on Twitter ! Just follow @edri_org and expect news & updates on European Internet policy and civil liberties. And the random odd link. ;-)
EDRi twitter account
http://twitter.com/edri_org
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Deutsch: Kompromiss hinsichtlich Zusatz 138. Telekom-Paket zum Abschluss gebrac...
The European Parliament (EP) and the Council were set in reaching an agreement when they started the negotiation activities on 4 November 2009 at 7 PM. After hot debates, an agreement was reached on the 5 November, a little while after 00:30.
The adopted text on the Amendment 138 topic, now point 3a of article 1 is, according with our sources in Brussels, this one:
3a. Measures taken by Member States regarding end-users' access to or use of services and applications through electronic communications networks shall respect the fundamental rights and freedoms of natural persons, as guaranteed by the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and general principles of Community law.
Any of these measures regarding end-users' access to or use of service and applications through electronic communications networks liable to restrict those fundamental rights or freedoms may only be imposed if they are appropriate, proportionate and necessary within a democratic society, and their implementation shall be subject to adequate procedural safeguards in conformity with the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and with general principles of Community law, including effective judicial protection and due process. Accordingly, these measures may only be taken with due respect for the principle of presumption of innocence and the right to privacy. A prior fair and impartial procedure shall be guaranteed, including the right to be heard of the person of persons concerned, subject to the need for appropriate conditions and procedural arrangements in duly substantiated cases of urgency in conformity with European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms. The right to an effective and timely judicial review shall be guaranteed.
It was clear that the original Amendment 138 has no chance, when the EP's delegation went into the negotiations with a slightly changed text of the Council’s last proposal from 28 October 2009. The new text explained the measures "Any of these measures regarding end-user’s access to or use of services and applications through electronic communications networks".
The key text from the original Amendment 138 "without a prior ruling by the judicial authorities" was turned by the EP delegation into the "shall respect the requirements of a prior fair and impartial procedure including the right to be heard of the person or persons concerned and the right to an effective and timely judicial review."
The last paragraph from the Council's proposal was also deleted. (This shall not affect the competence of a Member State, in conformity with its own constitutional order and with fundamental rights, to establish, inter alia, a requirement of a judicial decision authorising the measures to be taken.)
Thus at least two of the concerns of the Internet users did not make it to the final text, if our sources are correct. The text doesn't concern private actors restrictions, thus allowing ISPs to be dragged in "voluntary agreements" with the recording industry.
Moreover the text does not guarantee explicitely "the prior judicial review", thus leaving alone the Three Strikes Law in France and an open door for other 3 strikes measures in other countries. It would have been extremely nice to see the initial wording in the final text, especially after the recent updates on ACTA (see ENDitorial: ACTA revealed, European ISPs might have a big problem).
Telecom conciliation: Parliament’s new proposal (4.11.2009)
http://christianengstrom.wordpress.com/2009/11/04/telecom-conciliation...
Telecom package meetings on Wednesday (2.11.2009)
http://christianengstrom.wordpress.com/2009/11/02/telecom-package-meet...
An evolution of "amendment 138"
http://www.laquadrature.net/en/an-evolution-of-amendment-138
EDRi-gram: EDRI Open Letter to the EP on Amendment 138 (21.10.2009)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number7.20/edri-open-letter-amendment-138
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Deutsch: Frei wie in freie Kultur
Free Culture Forum (FCF), organized by the Spanish NGO Exgae together with Networked Politics and the Free Knowledge Institute turned Barcelona in the capital of free culture for 3 days. Of course, Free as in Free Speech.
The official Introduction of the 3 day event was a dazzling show, called the Oxcars, where "free" music and video where blended with a showcase of awards for the ones that changed the current situation of the digital culture through their actions
This Free Culture Awards Festival, organized for the second time this year, gathered more than 1000 people in Sala Apollo in Barcelona to see the parody of the SGAE (Spanish music collective society) actions. The festival awarded several people or events that were considered crucial in defending the free flow of information and culture on the Internet.
One of the awardees, writer Alberto Vazquez-Figueroa, said in a public statement "I prefer to be read for no money than not to be read". The author published his latest book "Por Mil millones de dólares" not only on a paper format, but also gave it free on his blog.
Remi Gaillard, a French comedian, also won a prize for his extremely funny videos distributed freely on the Internet. Among the winners there was also the Electronic Frontier Foundation for the parodies after "bunker scene" from the 2004 film "Downfall." In the version presented at the OXcars, Hitler is ranting about troubles with DRM and the failure of DMCA takedowns to prevent fair uses. And the Spanish Campaign "Molina Pirate" received a public ovation for the Grand Twitter Contest that encouraged Internet users to express their creativity in 140 characters or less and to demand the resignation of the Spanish Minister for Culture Cesar Molina who seemed set on taking the rights to access information away from individuals and give them to multinationals and private companies for free.
The fiesta was ended by a "Symphonic illegality" a free karaoke exercise with the Original Jazz Orchestra of Barcelona (Original Jazz Orquestra del Taller de Músics de Barcelona).
The next day was dedicated to a public event hosted by the Barcelona University, with speakers from all mediums, from Felix Stalder who talked about "The political implications of free culture" to the collective identity Isaac Hacksimov or from US Students for Free Culture to Consumers International. The subjects ranged also on a large scale starting with Education and Access to Knowledge and ending up with the immediate threats: TRIPS Plus, Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) or the Telecom package. The entire event was broadcasted live, with live microblogging on identi.ca in Catalan, Spanish and English.
In the next days over 100 high-profile specialists from 20 countries participated in the Forum of Free Culture with the declared purpose of starting a civil society offensive in the defense of fundamental rights in the digital era. This includes rights of freedom of expression or access to culture and knowledge.
The experts were divided, in the next days, into 5 different thematic
working groups:
- Legal Perspectives and User Access
- Economies, New P2P Models and Sustainable Distribution
- Education and Access to Knowledge
- Free Software and Open Standards
- Knowledge Sharing Hacker Philosophy and Action Technical Ware
After open discussions and explanations on sometimes different positions and nuances, a "Charter for a free culture" has been agreed upon. The document that will be finalized in the next 10 days will be dedicated to influence the Spanish Presidency of the European Union, by defining the basic principles for a 21st century society that makes use of new Technologies Information for a free and fair supportive and fair digital environment,. The document aims to have an international impact with a lot of participants from US and with official observers from the Ministry of Culture of Brazil assisting at the event, with just a few weeks before the Brazilian Digital Culture Forum where the Culture Ministry will launch a new strategy on copyright.
Draft charter
http://wiki.fcforum.net/index.php?title=Final_Document/Charter_%28Long...
Working documents from the 5 working groups
http://fcforum.net/topics
Live microblogging on Free Culture Forum
http://identi.ca/fcforum
The free distribution of content has its rewards in oXcars (only in Spanish,
28.10.2009)
http://www.publico.es/ciencias/264532/foro/barcelona/futuro/red/free/c...
FCForum, the rebel alliance (only in Spanish, 29.10.2009)
http://www.rebelion.org/noticia.php?id=94153
P2p escapes from Internet (only in Spanish, 30.10.2009)
http://www.publico.es/ciencias/265602/p/2/p/escapa/internet/oxcars/ang...
AntiSGAE Gala in Barcelona: P2P or death (30.10.2009)
http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2009/10/30/navegante/1256917941.html
Press release
http://wiki.fcforum.net/index.php?title=Final_Document/Press_announce
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Deutsch: Deklaration über globale Datenschutzstandards
The public voice coalition, where EDRi is also a member, gathered almost two hundred privacy experts, advocates, and governments officials from around the world for a civil society event in Madrid with the title "Global privacy standards for a Global world".
Held in conjunction with the annual meeting of the Privacy and Data Protection Commissioners, the event was cybercasted, live blogged and tweted in order to be available to any Internet user interested in the privacy topics.
The conference had 5 different sessions, with two keynote speakers - Mr. Stavros Lambrinidis, Vice President, European Parliament and Mr. Peter Hustinx, European Data Protection Supervisor (Netherlands).
The first session Privacy and Human Rights: The Year in Review presented several privacy issues from 2009 from different parts of the globe. The European status was presented by Meryem Merzouki from EDRi-member IRIS, France that highlighted the new threats brought by the Stockholm programme or the different police databases with high-level privacy intrusion. There was a specific interest from the audience on the status of EDVIGE 2.0. Meryem confirmed that the civil society will react to the new police file, while Peter Schaar has underlined that "Edvige is a horror database for us, because it includes many persons that did not breach any laws - they are just 'risky persons'."
The latest Privacy and Human Rights Report that covers 80 states was launched with this occasion by Ms. Katitza Rodriguez, Electronic Privacy Information Center.
The second session - Privacy Activism: Major Campaigns was kicked off by a lively presentation by EDRi-member Mr. Ralf Bendrath who explained what is Privacy Activism 2.0. Mixing open structures, viral marketing, pop culture, privacy issues with a healthy dose of fun was the perfect recipe for the biggest campaigns - biggest demonstration ever against surveillance in Germany known in the entire world as Freedom not Fear. Ms. Willemiem Bax from Consumer Organization BEUC highlighted the consumers actions for the protection of their digital rights, while David Rodríguez presented a creative local campaign against CCTVs in the neighbourhood of Lavapies, Madrid.
"Your Data in the Cloud: What if it Rains? " was the inspired title of the third session. EDRi's President Andreas Krisch pointed out with an image from the computers in the 60s and 70s that the new technological developments do not change that much and we should address more seriously the security aspects of cloud computing. He suggested as ideas to be included in global privacy standards in cloud computing: data breach notification, data minimisation as well as responsibility for IT infrastructures introduce in the market (see RFID).
Moving even more in depth on the global privacy issues, there were discussions on the transborder data flows. Eddan Katz from EFF showed the real problems of the Safer Harbour privacy agreement between US and EU, including the fact that it doesn't cover non-profits, because FTC oversight on US side is only for companies. Gus Hossein from Privacy International bluntly declared that we should stop using transborder data flows as a Trojan horse for asking for data protection legislation in developing countries. He insisted that just having a data protection act is not enough and we should focus on capacity building for this countries.
The last session presented the Civil society declaration: Global Privacy Standards for a Global World, with the other representatives at the final panel (Ms. Jennifer Stoddart, Privacy Commissioner, Canada, Mr. Jacob Kohnstamm, EU Article 29 Group Vice-Chairman and Mr. Rafael García Gozalo from the Spanish DPA) openly supporting the Declaration.
Live blogging from the event
http://edri.blogactiv.eu/
Madrid anti-CCTV campaign (only on Spanish)
http://unbarriofeliz.wordpress.com/
Global Privacy Standards for a Global World -The Civil Society Madrid
Declaration (3.11.2009)
http://bit.ly/IVO1m
Event's programme (3.11.2009)
http://thepublicvoice.org/events/madrid09/
Tweeting on the event
http://twitter.com/#search?q=%23globalprivacy
Stavros Lambrinidis speech - video (3.11.2009)
http://bitacora.palomallaneza.com/2009/11/03/stravos-lambrinis-en-tpv/
Andreas Krisch - Data protection in the cloud (3.11.2009)
http://www.edri.org/files/akrisch_TPV_CloudPrivacy_20091103.pdf
Meryem Merzouki - Privacy issues with EU Law Enforcement Cooperation
Developments(3.11.2009)
http://www.edri.org/files/Presentation_Meryem_EDRi_civil_society.pdf
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Deutsch: Petition gegen Vorratsdatenspeicherung in Belgien
Macedonian: Петиција против задржување на податоц...
A number of Belgian NGOs representing Internet users, lawyers, journalists, human rights activists and others on 26 October 2009 started a petition against the Belgian transposition of the EU Data Retention directive.
In August 2009, the Minister of Justice presented a draft asking for a 2-year data retention. This period was considered excessive by the Belgian Data Protection Authority, which suggested a one year period. Considering even this period not to be acceptable, the NGOs took the initiative to start a petition against the implementation of the European directive in Belgium, convinced that the retention of traffic and location data is not a solution to security problems.
Like in other countries fighting the data retention law, the supporting organizations consider that the law would be in violation of the right to privacy and that it would interfere "with the professional confidentiality of doctors, lawyers and clerics, as well as (...) with the protection of informants from journalists".
Also, although traffic and location data retention may sometimes be necessary, the general preservation of data is considered too a drastic measure, which has not been proven effective in fighting terrorism.
"After all, a general and preventive obligation to retain traffic and location data represents a serious violation of the right to privacy and implies that each citizen is potentially dangerous," says the press release launching the petition.
Concern is also expressed related to the risks and costs resulting from a general obligation to retain data. "It will be the citizen that has to pay for the surveillance that is directed towards him; this might be through higher subscription prices with service providers, or it might be through higher taxes with which the government will compensate the service providers."
PRESS RELEASE - Launching the website "retain your privacy": Campaign
against the Belgian transposition of the European directive on the
retention of data (26.10.2009)
http://www.statewatch.org/news/2009/oct/belgium-civil-society-against%...
Petition - Retain your privacy petition
(French version)
http://www.preservetavieprivee.be
(Dutch version)
http://www.bewaarjeprivacy.be
EDRI-gram: Belgium: Minister of Justice wants 2 years of data
retention (26.08.2009)
http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.16/belgium-data-retention
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Deutsch: Treffen der ISPs heizt Debatte über niederländische Vorratsdatenspei...
Dutch government agencies held a meeting on 14 October 2009 with internet service providers, looking for ways to clarify the data retention obligations under the country's new Data Retention Act. After the meeting, ISPs still face uncertainty over how long to store data, who falls within the scope of the Act and how the authorities want the data to be stored or disclosed. Dutch civil rights movement Bits of Freedom released a critical report of the meeting, warning for the controversial possibility for centralized storage of the data and its negative impact on the right to privacy.
The new act, which took effect 1 September, obligates telecom providers and ISPs to retain identification, traffic and location data for 12 months for intelligence agencies and the investigation of serious crimes. Whereas most mobile and fixed telephony operators know what to expect of the new law, all ISPs were puzzled after the quite chaotic meeting and most of them concerned over the privacy interests of their customers.
First of all, it is still not sure if the retention period for ISPs will be reduced to six months. As of now, both telecoms companies and ISPs need to store the data for twelve months. But in the heat of the First Chamber (Senate) hearings in July, the Minister of Justice proposed a new "reparation law" reducing this term to six months for ISPs. This rather unique manoeuvre of the Minister was needed to get a majority in the Senate to pass the law. It remains to be seen, however, if the Second Chamber (Parliament) agrees with this shorter term. The Second Chamber opted for a twelve month period in May 2008.
Furthermore, uncertainty remained whether some specific services fall within the scope of the data retention obligations. Some ISPs pointed out that it was hard for them to determine if they had to comply or not, for instance when primarily offering webhosting services with limited e-mail functionality. Telecoms agency Agentschap Telecom (AT), responsible for supervising and enforcing the data retention laws, could not answer some of these questions, but promised to address the problem soon. In the meantime, AT announced IPSs can count on mild supervision during one year, and will only be punished for not complying to the obligations if they seem unwilling to do so.
Thirdly, and most controversially, the government introduced plans about how to store identification, traffic and location data. The officials did not exclude the possibility of creating a centralized system that automatically retrieves data from the roughly 300 ISPs in the Netherlands, a concept with far-reaching privacy implications. Bits of Freedom criticized this option: in stead of storing the data at 300 different databases, centralized storage makes access to these data even more easy than it is today. In 2008, identification data was already requested over 3 million times by the police (on a population of 16,5 million in the Netherlands). There is no information available to the public on traffic and location data requests by both police and intelligence agencies, since this information is regarded a "state secret". Unauthorized and more widespread access become serious risks for privacy, when the data is stored at one national database.
Major ISPs oppose centralization since they must also protect the privacy interests of consumers. Gert Wabeke - a spokesperson at telecoms provider KPN and a member of a European Commission expert group on data retention - said the proposal has led to "a lot of rumors. It has a privacy impact; it has (impact on) everything." Nonetheless, small ISPs may see this option as a way to cut the substantial costs involved with complying to the data retention obligations.
Ministry of Economic Affairs spokesperson Edwin Van Scherrenburg commented that "it is still very unsure if these (proposals) will lead to an electronic system to collect data from ISPs." Bits of Freedom will continue to watch the (technical) implementation of the data retention obligations in the Netherlands closely.
Detailed explanation of the Data Retention Act by Telecoms Agency AT (2009)
http://www.agentschap-telecom.nl/english/companies/retentionobligation...
Data Retention Act (only in Dutch, 21.10.2009)
http://wetten.overheid.nl/BWBR0026191/geldigheidsdatum_21-10-2009
The Bits of Freedom report of the meeting with ISPs on 14 October (only in Dutch, 15.10.2009)
http://www.bof.nl/verslag151009.pdf
Earlier this year, Bits of Freedom argued that the Dutch Data Retention Act
interferes with the fundamental right to privacy (only in Dutch, 20.10.2009)
http://sargasso.nl/archief/2009/09/20/wet-bewaarplicht-strijd-met-gron...
(Contribution by Axel Arnbak - EDRi-member Bits of Freedom - Netherlands)
This report was partly based on an article in the Privacy & Security Law Report, 8 PVLR 1535 (26 October 2009). Copyright 2009 by The Bureau of National Affairs, Inc. (800-372-1033) http://www.bna.com
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Deutsch: Internetsperren erhalten die rote Karte!
Government attempts to block access to the Internet are mounting throughout Europe - but look set to backfire, a new study published on 22 October 2009 concludes.
The Open Society Institute funded the report which is titled "Internet Blocking: Balancing Cybercrime Responses in Democratic Societies." Four experienced professionals, Cormac Callanan of Ireland, Marco Gercke of Germany, Estelle De Marco of France, and Hein Dries-Ziekenheiner of the Netherlands, collaborated on the research. Callanan, who is also a member of the Irish Internet Safety Advisory Council, presented the report at a press conference in Brussels.
We all know about efforts to censor the Internet in undemocratic countries such as China. But the study shows how efforts to block Internet content are spreading throughout democratic Europe. In Germany, Britain, Italy and Scandinavia, the measures are intended to block pages containing child pornography. In France, the proposed "three strikes" law would cut access to users who upload allegedly copyrighted content. In Turkey, the Telecommunications ministry has blocked more than 6,000 websites, including YouTube, Geocities, DailyMotion, and WordPress.
Though some of the motivations behind Internet blocking are understandable - everyone wants to crack down on child pornography, for example - the new study concludes that the measures are ineffective. Many technical ways exist to get around blocking technologies. More importantly, the blocking measures are intrusive and often abuse fundamental freedoms. These systems either over-block or under-block content and do not prevent the serious offender from gaining access.
"Attempts to block offensive content all too often backfire," Callanan says. "Technically, it is difficult. Legally, it is problematic. Above all, it represents a real threat to the free transfer of information and conflicts with basic democratic principles."
Graham Watson MEP, former President of the Civil Liberties Committee of the European Parliament commented on the report: "It is remarkable that this kind of research was not published by the Commission before it launched its proposal for EU-wide blocking of websites. Protection of children is a matter of the utmost importance, but this does not mean that the Commission can propose measures that may well be entirely ineffectual but which will have long-term consequences for the right of freedom of communication in Europe."
Press release in English (22.10.2009)
http://www.aconite.com/sites/default/files/Press%20Release%20EN.pdf
French version (22.10.2009)
http://www.aconite.com/sites/default/files/Press%20Release%20FR.pdf
Executive Summary - Internet blocking - balancing cybercrime responses in
democratic societies
http://www.aconite.com/sites/default/files/Internet_Blocking_and_Democ...
Complete report - Internet blocking - balancing cybercrime responses in
democratic societies
http://www.aconite.com/sites/default/files/Internet_blocking_and_Democ...
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Deutsch: Dritte PrivacyOS-Veranstaltung: Mehr Datenschutz, erhöhtes Bewusstsei...
Continuing the privacy events after the huge success of the 11th Austrian Big Brother Awards that took place in the evening of 25 October 2009, the Third PrivacyOS Conference took place in Vienna on 26-27 October 2009, focusing on sharing information and best practices among experts in the field, but also on raising awareness in privacy. .
There was a large variety of presentations in an Open Space format from participants arriving from 10 countries and representing diverse sectors: industry, SMEs, government, academia or civil society.
The event is part of a European project where EDRi is a partner, led by the Schleswig-Holstein Data Protection Authority (Independent Centre for Privacy Protection), within the ICT Policy Support Programme under the Competitiveness and Innovation Framework Programme (CIP).
This PrivacyOS meeting was held under the patronage of the Chairman of the ARGE DATEN - Privacy Austria Hans G. Zeger, who opened up the event pointing out that "Freedom, fundamental rights and privacy are central terms for the organisation of our information-society - not the other way round - we must not subordinate our fundamental rights and our private life to an omnipresent security-paranoia."
With most of the presentations already available on the Project wiki, anyone can follow the topics, balanced between from the first presentation on The Role of DPAs in Raising Awareness about Data Protection, highlighting the positive examples from Slovenia and Madrid DPAs, to the last presentation of the second day when Eddan Katz from EDRi-member Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) pointed out the lack of privacy ethics in some EU funded Research projects. Eddan presented the example of the INDECT project which aims to research on "Intelligent information system supporting observation, searching and detection for security of citizens in urban environment". The project video on Youtube seems to support the privacy concerns if anyone sees the comments.
Another highly concerning subject was presented by Filip Pospisil from EDRi-member Iuridicum Remedium, that focused on the disturbing implementation of the data protection principals in a number of Czech medical databases.
With a title that could sound like one for a sports article "The Battle between "MP3 Pirates and Privacy Buccaneers", Cedric Laurant raised the question on How to protect the privacy of DRM system users while protecting copyright holders' interests? By discussing another feature of the delicate conflict between privacy and copyright, Cedric pointed to the not well known DRMs' threats for individual privacy, including of massive dissemination of digital traces, loss of anonymity because of payment information disclosure or data mining that opens the possibility of behavioural targeting. He also suggested possible solutions, based on the change of the paradigm: Let DRMS be based on authentication, not identification.
A practical example on solutions of Privacy on the Internet was given by Andreas Lehner from EDRi member CCC Germany who made an easy to understand introduction to Onion Routers & Overlay Networks, highlighting the JAP project and especially the TOR Network.
The PrivacyOS event was also the place where the first EuroPrise Seal was awarded to an Austrian company that developed an innovative solution to deal with the CCTV's privacy concerns by blurring the images of any human beings appearing in the CCTV images.
PrivacyOS project
https://www.privacyos.eu/
Wiki PrivacyOS project
https://www.privacyos.eu/wiki/index.php/Main_Page
Hans G. Zeger - Arge Daten - On the Way to Scoring Society
https://www.privacyos.eu/images/164_arc-677240-priva.pdf
Video presentation of Indect project
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=dl5g93m-SbA
European Privacy Seal for KiwiVision Privacy Protector
https://www.european-privacy-seal.eu/awarded-seals/de-090017
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Deutsch: Frankreich: Die zweite Version des Drei-Treffer-Gesetzes ist durchgese...
In a disappointing decision in comparison with its initial assessment on the first three strikes law (called HADOPI 1), on 22 October 2009, The French Constitutional Court validated the three strikes law with only one minor change.
The so-called Hadopi 2 law that was recently passed through both French chambers was referred to the Constitutional Council by the opponents of the law in the hope that the Court will once again find the text as unconstitutional as it did in June 2009.
This time, the Court failed to acknowledge the infringement of several liberties rights such as the right to due process and the presumption of innocence and validated the text with just one amendment stating that the judges will not be able to decide on civil damages during the same trial. This means that in order to claim damages, the copyright holders will have to bring a separate action to court.
"It is a sad day for liberties in France. The fact that a text such as HADOPI 2 can be validated is very revealing of the state of our institutions. The government will now have to face the consequences of the unavoidable failure of the law, once it is implemented. What is ahead now is a big price tag for taxpayers, unfair penalties, and resistance to these repressive measures. French citizens can now rent IP addresses in countries that do better at safeguarding rights and freedoms", stated Jérémie Zimmermann, spokesperson for La Quadrature du Net.
While deploring the Court's decision, La Quadrature du Net considers the law is anyway doomed from many points of view. Although it did not reject the text, the Constitutional Court emphasized the role of the judge who is the one to decide on the evidences brought by Hadopi authority and who can refuse to impose any punitive actions. Therefore the application of massive sanctions is illusory. And as many have already proven and reassessed several times, it is technologically easy to bypass the measures imposed and therefore entirely inefficient.
However, La Quadrature du Net believes that although the court may never decide on cutting off the Internet access based on Hadopi authority accusations and that probably nobody will be condemned for "characterized negligence", the validation of the law is a defeat of the Rule of Law, a step back for civilization.
As expected the law has been signed by President Sarkozy and was published in the Official Monitor on 29 October 2009.
Press Release of the French Constitutional Court (22.10.2009)
http://www.conseil-constitutionnel.fr/conseil-constitutionnel/francais...
French Constitutional Court Decision Décision n° 2009-590 DC on the law
regarding the protection of the literary and artistic property on the
Internet (22.10.2009)
http://www.conseil-constitutionnel.fr/conseil-constitutionnel/francais...
Who has won Hadopi battle? (only in French, 24.10.2009)
http://www.laquadrature.net/fr/qui-a-gagne-la-bataille-hadopi
HADOPI 2 validated, a defeat for the rule of Law (24.10.2009)
http://www.laquadrature.net/en/hadopi-2-validated-a-defeat-for-the-rul...
Hadopi 2 validated, Nicolas Sarkozy is pleased (only in French, 22.10.2009)
http://www.clubic.com/actualite-307002-hadopi-validee-nicolas-sarkozy-...
Law 2009-1311 from 28 October 2009 - Law Hadopi 2 (only in French)
http://www.legifrance.gouv.fr/affichTexte.do;jsessionid=A30626F1BC51E9...
EDRI-gram: Deja-vu: France's three-strikes law referred to Constitutional
Council (7.10.2009)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number7.19/three-strikes-law-constitution...
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Deutsch: Pläne für ein britisches Drei-Treffer-Gesetz
Europe seems to take no notice of the strong opposition against measures to cut down Internet access. After the adoption of the three strikes law in France, UK's politicians found a good background turn to push ahead their three strikes plans.
Business, Innovation & Skills Minister Lord Peter Mandelson confirmed on 25 October 2009 the intention of the UK government to go on with the planned legislation to cut off allegedly illegal Internet downloaders, that was already announced in August 2009.
"What we will be putting before parliament is a proportionate measure that will give people ample awareness (of their wrongdoing) and opportunity to stop breaking the rules. It will be clear to them that they have been detected, that they are breaking the law and risk prosecution. (...) It will also make clear that we will go further and make technical measures available, including account suspension. In this case, there will be a proper route of appeal. But it must become clear that the days of consequence-free, widespread online infringement are over," said Lord Mandelson at the Cabinet Forum talking shop.
He also stated that the suspension measures will only be used as a last resort and that "I have no expectation of mass suspensions resulting. If we reach the point of suspension for an individual, they will be informed in advance, having previously received two notifications, and will have the opportunity to appeal ... the threat for persistent infringers has to be real."
It seems that the UK regulator Ofcom was asked to monitor the file-sharing levels as it was already proposed by the initial Digital Britain report in June 2009.
UK ISPs have long argued that they should not be treated as an Internet police and that they should not bear the costs for the respective measures. Lord Mandelson said in his speech that the costs implied by the application of the legislation should be "shared between ISPs and content providers" while the Internet Service Providers' Association believes that the bearers of the costs should rightfully be the rightsholders according to the principle that the beneficiary pays.
Several ISPs including BT Group and Talk Talk are opposed to the measure considering it inefficient, disproportional and costly. "What is being proposed is wrong in principle and won't work in practice," stated TalkTalk. The company also stated that in case it was imposed to apply extra judicial technical measures, it would "challenge the instruction in the courts," and that it would "continue to resist any attempts to make it impose technical measures on its customers".
Even the counter-intelligence MI5 unit believe that the proposed legislation may have an opposite result and that instead of protecting artists and discouraging illegal downloading, it may encourage "an encrypted and unpoliceable darknet that would affect the artists.
A study published on 2 November 2009 by the London-based think-tank Demos shows that those who illegally download music from he Internet are also those who spend the most money on official records. The survey revealed that a large percentage of people downloading music illegally stated they did it in order to "try before you buy" and about 60% of file sharers stated they would be encouraged to stop illegal downloading if they had the option of new and cheaper music services.
Jim Killock, executive director of the Open Rights Group, has expressed his disappointment related to the government's actions. "Yet Mandelson seems determined to push forward with his plans for 'three strikes' - threatening to punish people extremely harshly, threatening their education, businesses and livelihoods for a relatively minor financial misdemeanour," he said.
The full proposals for the graduated response scheme will be detailed in the Digital Economy Bill later on this year and according to the Business, Innovation & Skills Department, it will come into force in April 2010. The tougher disconnection policy will be introduced in the spring of 2011 if necessary.
In parallel, also on 25 October 2009, an Intellectual Property Office report called © The Way Ahead, was issued, focusing on the liberalisation of copyright. Basically what the report says is that it wants to "move toward a pan-European approach for copyright exceptions in the digital age" which means allowing more use of copyrighted works.
The report states that the rights holders should broader the terms of use for the works they offer and also advocates for the distinction between commercial and non-commercial copying of copyrighted works. According to the report, the government intends to introduce collective licensing and to open orphan works for copying by cultural bodies and businesses.
"We must now work within the international and European framework to ensure copyright keeps up with technology and consumer behaviour. We have to make it simpler, and make it address the concerns of all those who have an interest in the copyright system: business, consumers, creators and copyright owners," says © The Way Ahead report.
Net pirates to be 'disconnected' (28.10.2009)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/8328820.stm
UK Confirms Plans To Warn, Throttle, Kick Illegal Downloaders (28.10.2009)
http://paidcontent.co.uk/article/419-uk-confirms-plans-to-warn-throttl...
Mandelson confident filesharing rules will work as well as French policy
(28.10.2009)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2009/oct/28/peter-mandelson-confident-...
Illegal downloaders spend MORE on music than those who obey the law
(1.11.2009)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1224460/Illegal-downloaders-sp...
Book pirates advance in £5bn war of the internet (1.11.2009)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/money/article-1224411/Book-pirates-5bn-war-...
ISP Threatens Legal Action Against UK Over Anti-Piracy Plans(29.10.2009)
http://torrentfreak.com/isp-threatens-legal-action-against-uk-over-ant...
UK Will Urge EC To Legalise Mashups, Format-Shifting, Content Sharing
(28.10.2009)
http://paidcontent.co.uk/article/419-uk-will-urge-ec-to-legalise-mashu...
© the way ahead: A copyright strategy for the digital age (10.2009)
http://www.ipo.gov.uk/c-strategy-digitalage.pdf
EDRI-gram: UK music industry shows divided opinions on cutting off p2p users
(23.09.2009)
http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.18/uk-three-strikes-music-indust...
This article is also available in:
Deutsch: EU-US: Gemeinsame Grundsätzen zu Datenschutz und Datenverbreitung
After three years of working together, the Departments of Homeland Security, Justice and State and the experts from the EU Presidency and Commission have recently issued a statement establishing a set of common principles to protect the personal data exchanged for law enforcement and security purposes.
Based on these common principles, a binding international EU-U.S. agreement will be negotiated based on these common principles "to facilitate further cooperation while ensuring the availability of full protection for our citizens," as expressed by the Department of Homeland Security.
U.S. and EU Agree on Data Protection Principles (3.11.2009)
http://www.dhs.gov/journal/leadership/2009/11/us-and-eu-agree-on-data-...
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Deutsch: ENDitorial: ACTA enthüllt, europäische Internet-Service-Provider dü...
Negotiations on the highly controversial Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement have started in Seoul, South Korea. This week's closed negotiations will focus on "enforcement in the digital environment." Negotiators will be discussing the Internet provisions drafted by the US government. No text has been officially released but as Professor Michael Geist and IDG are reporting, leaks have surfaced. The leaks confirm everything that we feared about the secret ACTA negotiations. The Internet provisions have nothing to do with addressing counterfeit products, but are all about imposing a set of copyright industry demands on the global Internet, including obligations on ISPs to adopt Three Strikes Internet disconnection policies, and a global expansion of DMCA-style TPM laws.
As expected, the Internet provisions will go beyond existing international treaty obligations . We see three points of concern.
First, according to the leaks, ACTA member countries will be required to provide for third-party (Internet Intermediary) liability. This is not required by any of the major international IP treaties - not by the 1994 Trade Related Aspects of IP agreement, nor the WIPO Copyright and WIPO Performances and Phonograms Treaty. However, US copyright owners have long sought this.
Second and more importantly, ACTA will include some limitations on Internet Intermediary liability. Many ACTA negotiating countries already have these regimes in place: the US, EU, Australia, Japan, South Korea. To get the benefit of the ACTA safe harbors, Internet intermediaries will need to follow notice and takedown regimes, and put in place policies to deter unauthorized storage and transmission of allegedly copyright infringing content.
IDG reports that: "The U.S. wants ACTA to force ISPs to "put in place policies to deter unauthorized storage and transmission of IP infringing content (for example clauses in customers' contracts allowing a graduated response)," according to the (leaked European) Commission memo." The US government appears to be pushing for Three Strikes to be part of the new global IP enforcement regime which ACTA is intended to create - despite the fact that it has been categorically rejected by the European Parliament and by national policymakers in several ACTA negotiating countries, and has never been proposed by US legislators.
European citizens should be concerned and indignant. As reported, the ACTA Internet provisions would also appear to be inconsistent with the EU eCommerce Directive and existing national law, as Joe McNamee, the European Affairs Coordinator of EDRi notes:
"The Commission appears to be opening up ISPs to third party liability, even though the European Parliament has expressly said this mustn't happen," McNamee said, adding that ACTA looks likely to erode European citizens' civil liberties."
Last, but by no means least. ACTA signatories will be required to adopt both civil and criminal legal sanctions for copyright owners' technological protection measures, in line with the US-Korea (and previous) FTA obligations. They will also be required to include a ban on the act of circumvention of technological protection measures, and a ban on the manufacture, import and distribution of circumvention tools.
Original article: Leaked ACTA Internet Provisions: Three Strikes and a
Global DMCA (3.11.2009)
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/11/leaked-acta-internet-provisions-t...
Trade Talks Hone in on Internet Abuse and ISP Liability (3.11.2009)
http://www.pcworld.com/article/181312/trade_talks_hone_in_on_internet_...
The ACTA Internet Chapter: Putting the Pieces Together (3.11.2009)
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/4510/125/#copycon
EDRi-gram: European Parliament wants more transparency on ACTA (26.03.2009)
http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.6/acta-transparency-european-par...
(Contribution by Gwen Hinze - EDRi-member Electronic Frontier Foundation USA)
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Deutsch: Zum Mitmachen
Sign the Madrid Civil Society Declaration- Global Privacy Standards for a
Global World
http://thepublicvoice.org/madrid-declaration/
French Version - Standards mondiaux de respect de la vie privée dans un
monde globalisé
http://thepublicvoice.org/madrid-declaration/fr/
Spanish Version - Estándares de Privacidad en un Mundo Global
http://thepublicvoice.org/madrid-declaration/es/
This article is also available in:
Deutsch: Lesestoff
Ian Brown: Can creative industries survive digital onslaught? (2.11.2009)
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/4f35215e-c745-11de-bb6f-00144feab49a.html
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Deutsch: Agenda
4-6 November 2009, Madrid, Spain
31st International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy
http://www.privacyconference2009.org
10-11 November 2009, Cambridge, UK
Public Domain Calculators Meeting
http://wiki.okfn.org/PublicDomainCalculators/Meeting
12 November 2009, Brussels, Belgium
Workshop on Economic Benefits of PETS
http://ec.europa.eu/justice_home/fsj/privacy/news/index_en.htm
13-15 November 2009, Gothenburg, Sweden
Free Society Conference and Nordic Summit
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15-18 November 2009, Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt
UN Internet Governance Forum
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19-20 November 2009, Malmö, Sweden
First popular European e-government conference
http://malmo09.org/
27-30 December 2009, Berlin, Germany
26th Chaos Communication Congress
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4 December 2009, Brussels, Belgium
Are you ready for the Internet of Things?
Lift Workshop @ Brussels, Council and Tinker.it!
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26-28 May 2010, Amsterdam, Netherlands
World Congress on Information Technology
http://www.wcit2010.com/
9-11 July 2010, Gdansk, Poland
Wikimedia 2010 - the 6th annual Wikimedia Conference
http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimania_2010