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Deutsch: Britisches Innenministerium tritt vom Projekt zur Abhörung von Anschl...
<--- Text clarified on 20.11.2009--->
The Home Office's plan (known as the Interception Modernisation Programme) to put under surveillance everyone's email, mobile phone, text and Internet communications has been put on hold, following the outcomes of a consultation launched in April 2009.
At the beginning of the year, the Home Office had already given up its plans to build a central database with all information on who communicates on phone, email and Internet to whom, where, how and when. Instead, it planned to ask ISPs and phone companies to store this data for policy and security services access.
The 221 respondents to "Protecting the Public in a Changing Communications Environment", the consultation published by the Home Office that closed on 20 July, raised issues related to data protection but also to the costs involved and the technical feasibility of the project.
During the period of consultation, a briefing on the Interception Modernisation Programme issued by LSE Policy Engagement Network on 17 June, pointed out some of the main concerns related to the project. "This would lead to a tipping of the balance in favour of state power and away from communications privacy rights for the individual. In fact, the current policy environment already has incredibly weak privacy safeguards, and the Home Office is going some way to worsening the situation rather than improving it" said the briefing.
The report also emphasizes the high costs involved by such a programme due to he large amounts of traffic associated with each Internet user and the technology necessary to discard whatever appears to be "content", to combine different streams of traffic in order to obtain further information about an individual.
The statement of the Government that the system will record only information on communications and not the contents is not considered as argument if favour of the programme. The document points out that "this is as least as privacy intrusive as content interception." The gathering of this information will make possible to "create a comprehensive profile of an individual's interests, intentions, associates, usual locations, and the nature of those interactions. (...) It is a map of everyone's private life, but also his or her professional and social life too."
For the time being, the UK Government has put the programme on hold. "Any legislation requiring communications providers to keep data on who called whom, and when, will need strong safeguards on access. It is simply not that easy to separate the bare details of a call from its content. What if a leading business person is ringing Alcoholics Anonymous? There has to be a careful balance between investigative powers and the right to privacy," said Liberal Democrats home affairs spokesman Chris Huhne.
But the Home Office was still in the press' eye with a series of stories that were meant to explain the usefulness of the communication data. At least one of the five tales was heavily criticized and interpereted as distortion of an initial story. The Government claimed that the use of traffic data was essential to find a man that was lost in an area with very poor visibility on the Isle Of Lewis. But the rescuers confirmed that the Marine and Coastguard Agency (MCGA) could not use the location data, since the man was in the range of just one must. Therefore it was impossible to identify his exact position via the location data of the telecom network. "The mobile phone was most useful for keeping in contact," declared the MCGA spokesman.
Legislation to access public's texts and emails put on hold (10.11.2009)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/uk/2009/nov/09/home-office-plan-data-storage
Protecting the public in a changing communications environment - news
(9.11.2009)
http://security.homeoffice.gov.uk/news-publications/news-speeches/prot...
Protecting the public in a changing communications environment -
consultation and response (6.11.2009)
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/documents/cons-2009-communication-data/
Protecting the public in a changing communications environment - Summary of
Responses to the 2009 Consultation Paper (11.2009)
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/documents/cons-2009-communication-data/co...
Protecting the Public in a Changing Communications Environment (27.04.2009)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/shared/bsp/hi/pdfs/27_04_09communicationsconsu...
Briefing on the Interception Modernisation Programme by LSE Policy
Engagement Network (17.06.2009)
http://www.lse.ac.uk/collections/informationSystems/research/policyEng...
Home Office accused of sexing-up mobile phone rescue
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/11/16/imp_mobile_data/
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Deutsch: Spanien wird kein Drei-Treffer-Gesetz anwenden
As a ray of sunshine in a European environment favouring the disconnection of Internet users downloading allegdly copyrighted material, Spain (that will hold the EU Presidency from 1 January 2010) and Germany have decided not to join France and UK in promoting three strikes laws.
On 5 November 2009, the Spanish culture Minister Angeles González-Sinde stated during a TV show that the government "is not considering punitive measures for the end user of Internet" and that what needs to be done first was to "attack the origin of all these products that are on the Web sites, as well as those who benefit from them."
The minister also stated that "What is certain is that culture is a right and must be accessible but must be compatible with the people living out of it being able to do it". The Minister's opinions are shared by the Coalition of Creators and Content Industries as well as by Redtel representing the Spanish ISPs.
Already, in June 2009, the Spanish Coalition of Creators and Content Industries had decided to abandon plans for a three-strikes system after the Spanish Government indicated it would refuse to enact legislation allowing the disconnection of illegal file-sharers.
An inter-ministerial commission established by the Government in October has the task to find ways of ensuring that the availability of cultural content on the Internet does not reduce the copyright revenues of creators or content providers. The commission has to provide a report by the end of this year.
Another copyright-related scandal emerged last week in Spain, after Youtube decided to take down a parody video of a declining rock musician healvily involved with the Spanish collective society SGAE. The video produced by the satirical magazine El Jueves was posted in the portal of the magazine on YouTube. But the video-sharing website decided not to take down only that video, but the whole section produced by El Jueves with hundreds of videos, subscribers, comments etc. without previous notice or check. The magazine, of course, just posted another satirical press release hosted on a different videosharing website.
The musician declared he had just contracted a company to scan the network and complain against any comment considered offensive towards him. 72 hours later, when the lawyers retired the claim, the El Jueves portal was restored on YouTube.
The recently elected German governmental coalition, in a document outlining its policy proposal issued at the end of October 2009, expressed its intention to "achieve a high level of protection and an effective assertion of the copyright law." However, there is no question of disconnecting Internet access for repeated copyright infringers. "We want to promote the possibilities of an internal regulation with the participation of the right-owners and the Internet-providers," says the document. "We will not take initiatives for legal possibilities to block Internet access in cases of copyright infringements." The document also includes a commitment to facilitate European-wide licensing of online rights by copyright collecting societies.
González-Sinde: if the money invested is not recovered, the artist cannot
continue to record" (only in Spanish, 15.11.2009)
http://www.cadenaser.com/cultura/articulo/gonzalez-sinde-recupera-dine...
Spanish Govt Rules Out Three-Strikes Law (5.11.2009)
http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/content_display/industry/e3i6391eb52691...
Spanish Copyright Industry Abandons "Three-Strikes" (25.06.2009)
http://www.zeropaid.com/news/86493/spanish-copyright-industry-abandons...
Ramoncín makes 'El Jueves' channel disappear from Youtube (only in
Spanish, 11.11.2009)
http://www.20minutos.es/noticia/562971/0/ramoncin/youtube/jueves/
The TangaMan beats YouTube (only in Spanish, 13.11.2009)
http://www.eljueves.es/2009/11/13/youtube_caga_nos_devuelven_cuenta.ht...
German Gov't To Tighten Copyright Law (29.11.2009)
http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/content_display/industry/e3i018a992ff2c...
Germany says "nein" to three-strikes infringement plan (6.02.2009)
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2009/02/germany-walks-away-fro...
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Deutsch: Workshop der Kommission über datenschutzfreundliche Technologien
The European Commission held a workshop on Privacy Enhancing Technologies (PETs) on 12 November 2009. The event was supposed to be on the interim report from London Economics on the economic impact of PETs but ended up by being considerably broader.
Dirk Van Rooy (Head of Sector, Trust and Security) gave an overview of the work that DG Information Society had done on privacy issues, also within the context of the Framework Programmes. He drew attention to the European Commission Communication covering eID infrastructure and explained that this issue is being discussed currently with Member States and that further initiatives are planned.
London Economics were asked to present their initial findings after only four months of their nine month project - which was probably too early. It appeared from their presentation that they have not yet found a definition for PETs adapted to the specific context of this research. As a result, several participants in the workshop challenged the consultants on their approach.
In the second session, John Borking gave an overview of issues surrounding the take-up of PETs by industry, explaining the positive and negative elements leading to and mitigating against PETs usage. In essence, he appeared to argue that the cost/benefit analysis needs to be rebalanced in order to give industry a clearer view of the potential costs of, for example, data leaks.
Ari Schwartz from the Center for Democracy and Technology made a brief presentation of the history of P3P, describing what it does and does not do and the overblown claims that were sometimes made about it. He provided a very interesting quotation from Citibank on the issue:
"There is a concern that P3P would let ordinary users see, in full gory detail, how their personal information might be misused by less trusted or responsible web site operators. Such knowledge may cause users to resist giving out information altogether."
Yoram Hacohen from the Israeli DPA presented a project that he had been involved with in a previous job, where the electoral roll was made available on CD to political parties. The system had numerous, complex PETs that worked well but, once the election was over, the competent national authority failed to collect the CDs from the parties and the data ended up by becoming public. He said that the next Data Protection Commissioners' conference would take place in Israel in 2010 where "privacy by design" and PETs would be prioritised as topics.
Workshop on Economic Benefits of PETs (12.11.2009)
http://ec.europa.eu/justice_home/fsj/privacy/news/docs/workshop_econom...
White Paper: Platform for Privacy Preferences Project (P3P) & Citibank
http://www.w3.org/P3P/Lee_Speyer.html
EC Communication - A Strategy for ICT R&D and Innovation in Europe: Raising
the Game (13.03.2009)
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2009:0116:FI...
(contribution by Joe McNamee - EDRi)
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Deutsch: Bankdatentransfer an die USA kurz vor dem Abbruch
The Swedish EU presidency and the United States government have finalized a draft agreement on bank data transfer for anti-terrorism purposes in mid-November. While the negotiations over the so-called "SWIFT agreement" were held exclusively behind closed doors, the draft has been leaked to the press and was published by the German blog netzpolitik.org (run by German EDRi member Netzwerk Neue Medien) on 11 November and later also by Wikileaks. It stirred a heavy debate in German-speaking media and made front-page news. According to press reports, the US government sees no room for substantial changes in the draft.
While the US Treasury used to have accress to international bank data held by the Society for Worldwide Financial Transactions (SWIFT) at its server in Virginia, the new agreement was deemed necessary because SWIFT will re-structure its network and process inner-European transfers on its servers only in the Netherlands and Switzerland. The broad use of bank data searches for anti-terrorism purposes has been heavily criticized by data protection commissioners, the European Parliament and privacy advocacy groups. The draft agreement does not meet even the weak conditions set by the European Parliament in its resolution from September 2009. It still allows for transfers of data to third countries, does not offer judicial remedies for non-US-citizens, and does not require a judge approval before data transfer takes place. Members of Parliament were fully excluded from the negotiations and had a hard time even getting access to the relevant documents.
A number of governments have also been publicly opposing this agreement so far and threatening to postpone any conclusion until after 1st December. On this date, the Lisbon Treaty enters into force and gives full co-decision powers in the area of justice and home affairs to the European Parliament - which would effectively kill the current draft agreement. Among the strongest opponents have reportedly been the German and Austrian governments, but also France and the Netherlands are not convinced yet.
Privacy activists are encouraged to call the governments and EU embassies of these countries and tell them to stick to European principles of data protection and the rule of law and keep their opposition to the SWIFT agreement. Otherwise, the EU Council of Justice and Home Affairs Ministers may seal a last-minute deal at its meeting on 30 November.
Council of the European Union, Presidency: Draft Swift Agreement
(10.11.2009)
http://www.netzpolitik.org/wp-upload/SWIFT-Abkommen-2009-11-10.pdf
Spiegel Online EU-Minister sollen US-Schnüffelbefehl folgen (only in German,
11.11.2009)
http://www.spiegel.de/netzwelt/netzpolitik/0,1518,660597,00.html
Ralf Bendrath: SWIFT Agreement Not in Line with European Parliament 's
Demands (18.11.2009)
http://bendrath.blogspot.com/2009/11/swift-agreement-not-in-line-with....
EDRi-gram: MEPs ask for a new agreement on SWIFT bank data transfers to USA
(23.09.2009)
http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.18/swift-european-parliament-res...
(Contribution by Ralf Bendrath, EDRi member Netzwerk Neue Medien)
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Deutsch: Das Recht auf freie Meinungsäußerung vs. das Recht vergessen zu werd...
A cease and desist letter sent by a Germany law firm to the English Wikipedia asked for a name to be removed from several articles. The law firm is representing a convicted murderer, released on parole.
The case looks more complicated, as the US have no law on the personality right, but a strong US First Amendment that protects the freedom of expression. But the German law firm considers that the Wikipedia page on Walter Sedlmayr that was murdered in 1990 needs to delete the name of the 3murderers fifteen years after their conviction. The law company convinced the German version of Wikipedia to delete their names, but not the English one.
Mike Godwin, the legal council of Wikimedia, indicated to the law company that the Foundation does not operate nor have assets in Germany. He also added: "we are interested in your effort to suppress content on the English-language version of Wikipedia about the convicted murderer who is your client. It is our hope that you will approve our publication of your demand letters, which we think will inspire donors to give us more money during our annual fundraising drive."
The law firm has also challenged an Austrian ISP that has published the names. The Austrian courts might not solve the case so easily and it might be referred to the European Court of Justice.
Jennifer Granick from EDRi-member Electronic Frontier Foundation commented: "A foreign power should not be able to censor publications in the United States, regardless of whether doing so suits the country's domestic law. (...) If all publications have to abide by the censorship laws of any and every jurisdiction just because they are accessible over the global Internet, then we will not be able to believe what we read, whether about Falun Gong (censored by China), the Thai king (censored under lèse majesté) or German murders."
Convicted Murderer To Wikipedia: Shhh! (10.11.2009)
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2009/11/murderer-wikipedia-shhh
Decision in the Sedlmayr case postponed (only in German, 10.11.2009)
http://www.br-online.de/aktuell/sedlmayr-persoenlichkeitsrecht-interne...
Stopp and Stopp; German law firm attempts to censor Wikipedia (1.11.2009)
http://en.wikinews.org/wiki/Stopp_and_Stopp;_German_law_firm_attempts_...
Two German Killers Demanding Anonymity Sue Wikipedia's Parent (12.11.2009)
http://www.nytimes.com/2009/11/13/us/13wiki.html
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Deutsch: Seminar des Europäischen Datenschutzbeauftragten: Reaktion auf Datenv...
On 23 October 2009 the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS) and the European Network and Information Security Agency (ENISA) organised a seminar on security breaches. The three sessions focussed on the prevention, the management and the reporting of data breaches.
Background of this seminar was the upcoming reform of the ePrivacy directive (2002/58), which requires telecommunication providers to inform on security breaches related to personal data. EDRi was invited to present its positions on this topic.
From a data subjects point of view data breach notifications are not only an important instrument to mitigate the risk of identity theft or other criminal uses of leaked data. Since an active identity management is becoming more and more important in the information society (everybody does some kind of "identity management" by e.g. keeping private and professional information separated) it also is increasingly important to know who has access to which personal information and which information became public - either on purpose or by accidental security breaches.
Data breaches therefore cause not only financial risks but also a risk to ones identity management and - as the German Constitutional Court defined it about 25 years ago - ones right to informational self determination.
Therefore several safeguards are necessary to mitigate the risks for data breaches to occur. Data controllers should conduct risk assessments to identify potential threats to the data they process and the potential negative effects such a breach would cause not only for the controllers but also for the data subjects. Based on this assessment they should improve data security by technical and organisational measures and especially by focusing on data minimisation and the use of privacy enhancing technologies.
Based on the risk assessment guidelines should be developed on how to respond to data breaches as a data controller but also as a data subject. This helps to ensure, that data controllers and affected individuals can effectively respond to a given data breach event and have all the information at hand, that is needed to minimise negative effects.
Mandatory data breach notifications for telecommunication providers are an important first step to address an important problem. Similar obligations need to be implemented soon for all other sectors - public and private - and businesses.
Stakeholders discuss how to respond to data breaches at EDPS-ENISA seminar
(26.10.2009)
http://www.edps.europa.eu/EDPSWEB/webdav/site/mySite/shared/Documents/...
Data breach notification: Requirements from a Civil society perspective
(23.10.2009)
http://www.edri.org/docs/Krisch_data_breach_notification_20091023.pdf
EDRi-gram: EDPS endorses data breach notification provision in ePrivacy
Directive (28.04.2008)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number6.8/edps-data-breach-notification
(Contribution from Andreas Krisch - EDRi)
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Deutsch: Durchsetzungsbericht der IPR – zweiter Meinungsaustausch im EP
A discussion on the IPR Enforcement report took place in the European Parliament (EP) on 9-10 November 2009. At the beginning of the discussion, the Parliamentarian in charge of the dossier, Marielle Gallo (EPP, France) gave details of the current timetable for the dossier. The presentation of the draft report is estimated for 27-28 January 2010, while the deadline for amendments is 6 February. The vote in the Committe could take place on 23 February, while the EP plenary might consider the report in April 2010.
Ms.Gallo explained that the report should take a sector-by-sector approach as diffent types of content need to be handled in different ways, so a single policy would work . She also said it was important to stress the need for education to protect copyright. Most people would not dream of picking up a book and walking out of a shop with it without paying, but this is exactly what happens when people share books online. The Directive on sanctions is still stuck in the Council and the EP will need to work with the Spanish Presidency to get that dossier moving again.
She also considers that "online piracy is a problem and IPR law is there to protect rightsholders. We don't say that taxes should not exist because tax laws are widely broken. In the same way, we should not remove IPR law." Young people need to understand that they need to pay for content. For multi-territorial licences, a sectoral approach is needed. With regard to technical protection measures, the EP needs to examine how we can standardise content recognition. With regard to the international dimension of the issue, strong requirements on piracy in international agreements are necessary.
The Parliament needs to give some thought to the follow-up of the Communication. Should the adoption of new legislation be encouraged or should existing legislation be revised? Ms Gallo concluded her introduction by saying that she had lots of input from IPRs lobbyists and was open to contributions from other members.
She also considers that "online piracy is a problem and IPR law is there to protect rightsholders. We don't say that taxes should not exist because tax laws are widely broken. In the same way, we should not remove IPR law." Young people need to understand that they need to pay for content. For multi-territorial licences, a sectoral approach is needed. With regard to technical protection measures, the EP needs to examine how we can standardise content recognition. With regard to the international dimension of the issue, strong requirements on piracy in international agreements are necessary.
The Parliament needs to give some thought to the follow-up of the Communication. Should the adoption of new legislation be encouraged or should existing legislation be revised? Ms Gallo concluded her introduction by saying that she had lots of input from IPRs lobbyists and was open to contributions from other members.
Several MEPs commented on Ms. Gallo introduction. Among them Christian Engstroem (Greens/EFA, Sweden (Pirate Party)) said that Ms Gallo's intervention demonstrated the problem. This Communication is almost exclusively about counterfeiting of goods (which is a real problem and should be illegal and ha has no objections to this, he said), while Ms Gallo talks almost exclusively about file sharing. While, at the moment, the fact that sharing of protected content is illegal can be conceded, this is a hot political topic and how it should be handled is far from clear. It is inappropriate for the Commission to be spending money on advocating for moving in one particular direction - making enforcement harsher.
Joanna Geringer (S+D, Poland) argued that the Internet is more like a library than a bookshop and that filesharing is not really theft. Legislation must be adapted accordingly. There is a crime only if there is an advantage being drawn from it and profit is being made. Young people see content being made available and that they are accessing it without having to break any protection measures. For individual users (filesharers) we should consider the Internet as a library. We should fight against counterfeit goods and other illegal activity but we should not confuse this with filesharing. Therefore, she agrees with Mr Engstroem that these two issues should not be in the same document.
Françoise Castex (S+D, France) said that this was a broad question and that the Committee needed to avoid becoming polarised and also to avoid focusing on one sector and ending up with something that is less appropriate for other sectors. Tackling just illegal downloads should be avoided, as there is a wider range of issues such as patents, exchange of knowledge, generics etc. The Parliament has time to get this right.
Cecelia Wikström (ALDE, Sweden) said that a balance must be struck between property rights (whether physical or not) and the fact that we live in an age where the Internet is an important source of information that allows us to share our heritage. Intangible rights need to be protected as well as tangible ones and we need to recognise that legal instruments are necessary to allow us to use the Internet legally.
Eva Lichtenberger (Greens/EFA, Austria) said that the subjects of the report needed to be split. There is a difference between copyright and patents and we cannot have the same strategy for both. The Internet undermines the logic that copyright is based on. On the Internet, we need to improve awareness, we need to reform the whole package of legislation to reflect the realities of the Internet. We need to deal with different activities differently.
Mereille Gallo closed the discussion by saying that the debate demonstrated that this was a fascinating subject. It is clear that the subjects need to be split up and that a clever approach is needed. Action is needed and all technologies must be taken into account. If the issue is the Internet today, there might be an even more powerful technology to consider in the future.
(contribution by Joe McNamee - EDRi)
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Deutsch: Aserbaidschanische Blogger vom Gericht in Baku missbräuchlich verurte...
On 11 November 2009, two Azerbaijani bloggers were found guilty on hooliganism and violence charges by a court in Baku and sentenced to two years and two years and a half prison respectively.
Bloggers and political activists Adnan Hajizade and Emin Abdullayev were arrested on 8 July 2009 on false charges of "hooliganism" after they had posted a video on YouTube mocking the purchase of donkeys from Germany by the Azeri Government. The sentence comes after four month of pre-trial detainment during which international organizations, institutions and individuals continuously asked for the release of the activists.
Many freedom group protested against the arrest and the detention of the two, considering the action was violating the freedom of expression. Reporters Without Borders said the case disregarded all the norms of the European legislation and Freedom House considered the case was "a disturbing pattern".
The situation of the two bloggers was also discussed on 1 October 2009 during the meeting between Elnur Majidli representing the Alumni Network, Chingiz Ganizade, the Chairman of the Committee of Human Rights and the High Commissioner for Human Rights of the Council of Europe Thomas Hammarberg. Both Majidli and Ganizade asked that the Council of Europe intervene in the human rights field in order to assist in the situation of the two young men.
The High Commissioner mentioned that the Council of Europe was following the trial and that the case was one of the main concerns in Azerbaijan.
Miklos Haraszti, the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media, considers the sentence as a political one. "The severity of the sentences for these young bloggers and other journalists who have criticized the authorities, including the President and the Interior Minister, is self-revealingly political," said Haraszti who added in a letter sent to the Foreign Minister: "These new imprisonments cement Azerbaijan's image as the pre-eminent jailer of journalists in the OSCE region. Five journalists are currently in prison, several of them on clearly trumped-up charges following organized provocations and unfair trials."
After the sentence, Abdullayev called on the audience to use all means to spread the reality of the situation in the country regarding freedom, justice and their case. Hajizade is said to have stated that the decision was framed in falsehoods and called on youth to change themselves and to work together for a better Azerbaijan.
The Verdict (11.11.2009)
http://flyingcarpetsandbrokenpipelines.blogspot.com/2009/11/verdict.ht...
Thomas Hammarberg: Bloggers case of our main concerns in Azerbaijan
(10.2009)
http://ol-en.blogspot.com/2009/10/thomas-hammarberg-bloggers-case-of-o...
Azerbaijan bloggers found guilty (11.11.2009)
http://www.mediahelpingmedia.org/content/view/528/2/
OSCE media freedom representative protests sentence handed down to Internet
journalists in Azerbaijan (11.11.2009)
http://www.osce.org/item/41288.html
EDRi-gram: Azeri online activists framed for hooliganism and put in prison
(15.07.2009)
http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.14/azeri-online-activits-jailed
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Deutsch: Rückschlag für dänische und norwegische Anti-Piraterie-Gruppen
The Danish Antipiratgruppen representing the movie and music industries has recently announced it gives up attempts to sue alleged copyright infringers following several defeats in court.
"It requires very strong and concrete evidence to have these people convicted. We simply could not lift the burden of proof," stated Antipiratgruppen lawyer Mary Fredenslund explaining the group's decision.
Out of the four cases of alleged illegal downloading brought before the High Court in one year, three trials have resulted in the defendants being acquitted due to insufficient evidence. The forth trial led to the conviction of the file-sharer only because the defendant confessed the deed. Besides these cases, according to defense attorney Per Overbeck, cases against two of his clients have been dropped in recent years as well. "Antipiratgruppen has acknowledged that they can not get people convicted without either catching them in the act or threatening them to confess. (...) In practice, this means that without a confession there is no case," said Overbeck.
A recent Government report from the Ministry of Culture supports the idea that it is practically impossible to get somebody sentenced for illegal file-sharing in Denmark. According to the report, only the Internet subscriber can be identified by an IP-addresses and not the person who actually downloads the files. The courts have ruled several times that an IP-address alone is not sufficient as evidence to prove the guilt.
In one of the trials, a computer forensics investigator admitted that any ISP account could have multiple users in the same household and could have other unauthorized 3rd-party users if a wireless router was compromised. He testified that a court order might be required in order to identify the individual that actually performed the deed.
Also, in Norway, The Pirate Bay has finally a break as the Norwegian court rejected on 6 November 2009 the call from the entertainment industry to force ISP Telenor to block its customers from accessing The Pirate Bay.
IFPI, backed by several Hollywood movie companies, has earlier this year given Telenor an ultimatum to block users from accessing The Pirate Bay within a 14 day-period or face legal action and sued the company which refused to comply.
The court decision says that Telenor and other ISPs in Norway cannot be held liable for copyright violations that arise from illegal downloads and that a decision to block websites should better be taken by the Norwegian authorities.
Ragnar Kårhus from Telenor said in a statement: "it is important for us to emphasize that this case is not about being in favor of or opposed to copyright, but about whether or not it is reasonable to saddle Internet service providers with a censorship role in respect of content on the Internet." He added that in order to maintain steady, healthy revenues, IFPI and other rights holders should develop business models and services that may compete with sites like The Pirate Bay.
Anti-Piracy Group Throws in the Towel, Pirates Walk Free (7.11.2009)
http://torrentfreak.com/anti-piracy-group-throws-in-the-towel-pirates-...
AFACT v iiNet: Day 6 - IP Address Alone Is Not Enough (13.10.2009)
http://torrentfreak.com/afact-v-iinet-day-6-ip-address-alone-is-not-en...
Norway court snubs call to block The Pirate Bay (6.11.2009)
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5j8PR7Xf0rC4GgxguVpB...
IFPI Loses: Telenor Will Not Block The Pirate Bay (6.11.2009)
http://torrentfreak.com/ifpi-loses-telenor-will-not-block-the-pirate-b...
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Deutsch: Googles Street View steht vor einer Klage in der Schweiz
Switzerland continues its actions against Goggle's Street View service. The Swiss Data Protection Authority has recently expressed its firm intention to bring Google to court on the matter.
In August 2009, the Swiss Privacy Authority asked Google to interrupt the service and make adjustments to improve its face blurring technique. Now, the authority considers that Google has not met its requirements and will take legal action, as previousely warned.
But Swiss data protection Commissioner Hanspeter Thuer believes that: "Numerous faces and vehicle number plates are not made sufficiently unrecognizable." He also expressed concern for the fact that the images obtained by Google cameras show people in sensitive places such as schools, hospitals and that the angle of Google cameras also gives too many details on fences and walls.
Google expressed its disappointment for the Commissioner's move considering the product is completely legal. "We're proud of the blurring technology we've developed for Street View," said Google adding that "we wanted to go the extra mile to address Herr Thuer's concerns," by proposing five additional measures to deliver "improvements in both license plate and face blurring."
Mr Thuer has asked the court to order Google to cease its service in Switzerland and remove all pictures until a ruling has been made. As it may take some months before this happens, Google might be facing an interruption of the StreetView service in Switzerland for some time.
Switzerland takes Google to court (13.11.2009)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/business/8358908.stm
Street View in Switzerland (13.11.2009)
http://googlepolicyeurope.blogspot.com/2009/11/street-view-in-switzerl...
Google's Street View contested in France and Switzerland (26.08.2009)
http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.16/street-view-france-switzerlan...
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Deutsch: ENDitorial: Mobilisierung um ACTA zu stoppen
The negotiating partners of ACTA have announced that the next round of negotiations on ACTA will take place in Mexico in January and have promised to conclude the agreement in 2010. As the last edition of the EDRi-gram exposed, the Internet Provisions of ACTA lay down a global foundation for riposte graduée, a global DMCA, and increased authority for border guards to implement an information customs regime. This global secret copyright treaty seems unstoppable, but it stands on some fragile footing.
Not everyone was taken by surprise. The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) and especially Ante Wessels, has been working on a sharp and thorough analysis of ACTA for quite a long time that sets forth the issues of concern and points out the weak spots in ACTA's armor. La Quadrature du Net also has set up a web dossier on ACTA, the OpenNet Coalition behind the Blackout Europe campaign has been getting prepared, and the Werebuild.eu project wiki has an ACTA page.
The European Parliament has already spoken clearly in the Susta Report last year on the expectations for transparency to European citizens, the limitations of the Commission's competence on the criminal provisions, the protection of privacy, and other public interest concerns about this closed door pact of global impact.
And this time, artists have come out to show their support for the Open Internet and not be used as pawns in the entertainment industry's attempts to rig an international regime to preserve their business models. The Free Culture Forum has released their Charter for Innovation and Access to Knowledge. The Trans-Atlantic Consumer Dialogue recently concluded the second round of the Paris Accord, negotiating an agreement between consumers and artists.
Now, Christian Engström, Member of European Parliament (Pirate Party) has invited the Internet community to help him shape a question on ACTA and the Telecom Package, to which the European Commission and Council are obliged to respond. Below are some brief thoughts intended to engage a fuller discussion on four areas of intersection between ACTA and the Citizen's Rights Amendment (138) of the Telecom Package: (1) Judicial obligations; (2) Privacy; (3) Fundamental Rights; and (4) EU Competence.
First, in regards to obligations for adjudication and enforcement on the members states, it was a long and hard fought battle over the essence of Amendment 138 as requiring a prior judicial ruling before termination of Internet access. Conveniently prepared just weeks before the final Conciliation, the legal services of the European Parliament issued an opinion that the EU's meddling in such civil and criminal procedures is outside the competence of the EU. Well, now it turns out that ACTA not only wants to increase the ex officio authority of border guards, it also delves quite specifically into changes in the remedial powers of the court, including the calculation of damages, the mandatory availability of injunctions, the scope of criminal sanctions, and rules regarding search and seizure. Does the hurried legal memo apply for this vast overreach on shaping global norms as well? The European Parliament should inquire as to the changes ACTA may require of Members States regarding their civil and criminal procedure.
Second, ACTA can only be agreed upon by the negotiating partners if it does not require a change in their own laws. As the Director of the Mexican IP Office who will be hosting the next ACTA negotiations has declared that they are "not going to negotiate something that is outside of our legislation, which goes against the constitution, laws or the criminal code." There are of course differences between the diverse countries taking part in the negotiations of ACTA. A significant difference in legal framework is in regards to privacy, especially between the US and EU. The final Amendment 138 text emphasized the increased standard of the privacy right and the presumption of innocence, so that their priority is preserved in the balancing of interests when in conflict with IP enforcement, for example. The European Parliament must make sure the general public is aware of the potential privacy implications of ACTA well before it is concluded.
Third, it is important to remember that the fundamental rights and freedoms ACTA impacts is not only in regards to the Internet, but is also harmful to the global Access to Medicines. The Dutch drug seizure scandal should of life-saving treatments that were in transit from India to Brazil confiscated for patent infringement even though they were not under patent at neither the origin nor destination of shipment. The leaked copies of the ACTA text contain "in-transit" provisions that would give pharmaceutical companies the power to control the distribution of generic versions of essential medicines. (These "in-transit" provisions would also then presumably mean that an electronics product that contains hardware or software under patent in one country but not another could also be seized.) The European Parliament should clarify how ACTA will impact the distribution of medicines and textbooks, and the impact on accessibility and the availability of library information across borders.
Finally, in regards to EU competence, it is a great stretch for the Article 133 Committee of the European Commission DG Trade to claim proper competence for the sweeping changes proposed in the ACTA on a broad range of policy issues. As the FFII analysis and the Ombudsman complaints reveal, ACTA goes beyond the acquis communitaire in several important areas. The criminal provisions of ACTA in particular clearly lie outside its competence, which is why a couple representatives from the Council were reportedly invited to previous negotiations to satisfy the need for a common accord with the European Members States, despite the requirement for unanimity in European Council. And as EDRi's Joe McNamee reminded us, the European Commission is opening up the issues of third-party liability in the Internet Provisions even though Parliament expressly declared that it shouldn't. The European Parliament should ask for clarification on how it is justified that those questions which are at the forefront of the controversies and debates over digital rights and access to knowledge, which are now in the midst of the legislative process, can be decided behind closed doors for the world, without public input and democratic participation.
EDRi-gram: ENDitorial: ACTA revealed, European ISPs might have a big problem
(4.11.2009)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number7.21/acta-revealed-isp-europe
FFII: ACTA analysis
http://action.ffii.org/acta/Analysis
La Quadrature: Acta
http://www.laquadrature.net/en/acta
We Re-Build: ACTA
http://werebuild.eu/wiki/index.php/ACTA
Free culture forum: Charter for Innovation, Creativity and Access to
Knowledge
http://fcforum.net/charter_extended
The Paris Accord Round II (23-24.10.2009)
http://www.tacd-ip.org/blog/the-paris-accord/
Question on ACTA and the Telecoms Package (15.11.2009)
http://christianengstrom.wordpress.com/2009/11/15/question-on-acta-and...
Report on the impact of counterfeiting on international(8.11.2008)
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+REPOR...
Interview with Jorge Amigo, Director of IMPI about #ACTA (13.11.2009)
http://partidopiratamexicano.org/?p=497
HAI Statement - Release of generic ARV medicines by Dutch Customs
Authorities (20.03.2009)
http://www.haiweb.org/12082009/20%20Mar%202009%20Statement%20Release%2...
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_...
(Contribution by Eddan Katz - EDRi-member Electronic Frontier Foundation - USA)
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Deutsch: Zum Mitmachen
The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF), Electronic Information for
Libraries (eIFL.net), and other international copyright experts joined
together today to launch Copyright Watch - a public website created to
centralize resources on national copyright laws at
http://www.copyright-watch.org
This article is also available in:
Deutsch: Lesestoff
EDRi's - Response to Europeana Consultation
http://www.edri.org/docs/edri_europeana.pdf
EDRi's Response to Consultation - Council of Europe's Draft Recommendation
on the Protection of Individuals with Regard to Automatic Processing of
Personal Data in the Framework of Profiling (October 2009)
http://www.edri.org/docs/edri_CoEprofiling_response_091103.pdf
EDRi's Recommandation to MEPs on Stockholm Programme Voting List
http://www.edri.org/docs/edri_stockholm_voting.pdf
This article is also available in:
Deutsch: Agenda
19-20 November 2009, Malmö, Sweden
First popular European e-government conference
http://malmo09.org/
4 December 2009, Brussels, Belgium
Are you ready for the Internet of Things?
Lift Workshop @ Brussels, Council and Tinker.it!
http://liftconference.com/lift-at-home/events/2009/12/04/lift-brussel-...
9 December 2009, Brussels, Belgium
The European OpenSource & Free Software Law Event - EOLE 2009
http://www.eolevent.eu/
27-30 December 2009, Berlin, Germany
26th Chaos Communication Congress
http://events.ccc.de/congress/2009/
20-22 January 2010, Namur, Belgium
The Conference for the 30th Anniversary of the CRID - An Information Society
for All : A Legal Challenge
http://www.crid.be/30years/
29-30 January 2009, Turin, Italy
"Cultural Commons" - First International Workshop
Submissions of the extended abstracts deadline: 20 November 2009
http://www.css-ebla.it/css/
6-7 February 2010, Brussels, Belgium
FOSDEM 2010
http://www.fosdem.org/2010/
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