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Deutsch: Broschüre über Netzsperren
European Digital Rights has published a booklet aimed at informing EU officials and parliamentarians about the many complex issues surrounding the issue of Internet blocking. The booklet was distributed this week to the mailboxes of all Members of Civil Liberties, Culture and Women's Right's Committees of the European Parliament.
This is part of EDRi's ongoing work in order to persuade the EU institutions not to introduce web blocking as part of the upcoming Directive on Child Exploitation.
A PDF version of the booklet can be downloaded from
http://www.edri.org/files/blocking_booklet.pdf
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Deutsch: EP: Wirtschaftsausschuss bezieht Stellung zur Offenheit des Internets
The Industry Committee of the European Parliament has adopted its non-legislative report on Internet governance. MEPs took this opportunity to respond directly, quickly and strongly to the recently-announced plans of the Council of the EU to introduce systems for the revocation of domain names and IP addresses (aiming to create a system of state-sponsored cyber-attacks on Internet resources in third countries) as well as Internet blocking.
Parliamentarians responded very clearly and concisely (using the text proposed by EDRi and the Trans-Atlantic Consumer Dialogue), explaining their opposition to such plans, as well as the dangers of such an approach. The Committee report calls on Member States to: "protect the integrity of the global internet and freedom of communication by avoiding any regional measures, such as revocation of IP addresses or domain names in third countries"
Similarly, the Committee adopted a text (proposed by German Social Democrat Matthias Groote) calling governments "to desist from imposing restrictions on internet access by way of censorship, filtering, blocking, monitoring or otherwise, and from requiring private entities to do so" and a text from the Civil Liberties Committee of the Parliament arguing for efforts on taking down websites first before blocking is even "considered". It should, however, be noted that this was a very rushed last-minute compromise and (very unfortunately) it is not necessarily a reliable guide to how the Parliament will vote when this issue is voted on, later this year, as part of a legislative proposal.
Unfortunately, some last minute lobbying by the copyright industry resulted in the addition of some unhelpful, but generally incoherent, text in the report. For example, an inexplicable text was adopted calling for a balance "between protecting users' privacy and recording personal data". Another amendment seeks, in a very confusing way, to place intellectual property rights on an equal footing with fundamental rights of freedom to communicate and privacy.
The report (which is not yet available in its final form) will be voted on by a full parliament "plenary" session in the coming weeks.
Council Conclusions concerning an Action Plan to implement the concerted
strategy to combat cybercrime (26.04.2010)
http://www.consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_Data/docs/pressdata/en/jha/1...
EDRi-gram: European Commission proposes Net blocking and defends illegal
activity (7.04.2010)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number8.7/framework-decision-blocking-pro...
(Contribution by Joe McNamee - EDRi)
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Deutsch: Artikel 29-Gruppe fordert mehr Datenschutz von Suchmaschinenbetreibern
In a letter addressed to the three big IT companies Google, Yahoo and Microsoft on 26 May 2010, the EU independent group of privacy regulators Article 29 Working Party (WP29) shows concerns related to data protection issues and urges the companies to improve online privacy.
The group's letter explains that a person's search history contains a footprint of that person's interests, relations, and intentions "and should rightly be treated as highly confidential personal data" and calls for the limitation of the retention period of personal data, a reduction of the possibility to identify users in the search logs and the creation of an audit process involving an independent, external auditing entity.
WP29's action comes following the analysis of the answer received from the search engine operators after WP29 issued an opinion in March 2008 in which it was explaining the specific obligations for search engine providers in terms of the EU data protection directive.
The opinion of WP29 was addressing the risks of incomplete anonymisation of the users. "Even where an IP address and cookie are replaced by a unique identifier, the correlation of stored search queries may allow individuals to be identified."
Google committed to anonymise IP addresses in its server logs after nine months by deleting the last octet of the IP address but WP29 believes that this measure "does not prevent identifiability of data subjects". After analysing Google's answer, WP29 welcomed the company's commitment to a reduced retention period but strongly suggested that it should review its policy in order to "bring it into line with the recommended period of a maximum of 6 months" of the European data retention law. "Pursuant to the data protection directive the retention period should be no longer than necessary for the specific purposes of the processing, after which the data should be deleted," said the recent letter.
Another criticism to Google is that the company retains cookies for a period of 18 months. "This would allow for the correlation of individual search queries for a considerable length of time. It also appears to allow for easy retrieval of IP-addresses, every time a user makes a new query within those 18 months." WP29 concludes that the company does not comply with the European data protection directive.
Yahoo! had committed to anonymising its search logs after 90 days "with limited exceptions for fraud, security and legal obligations" and to deleting full IP addresses, not just the last octet but WP29 reached the conclusion that "a partial deletion of the personal data contained in search logs does not constitute true anonymisation." The letter also expressed the concern that the company hadn't provided enough information related to its techniques of anonymising users' identifiers and cookies. And concluded that Yahoo! did not comply with the European data protection directive either.
Microsoft's commitment was to de-identify cookies immediately after a search query, to delete the IP address associated with the search query after six months and to remove the de-identified cookie ID and any other remaining cross session-identifiers after 18 months. WP29 however believes that all cookies should be deleted after six months. "According to a technical paper describing the process of de-identification, you apply a de-identification procedure and hash to the cookies from registered users after 6 months, but you apparently retain the cookies of unregistered users for a period of 18 months," says the letter adding that the word "anonymous ID" is not quite appropriate as it seems to allow for the cross-matching of search queries for a rather long time. "Secondly, you have not provided enough information about the techniques of hashing to technically assess the quality of your anonymisation policy," says WP29 concluding that Microsoft does not comply with the European data protection directive either.
The group sent a copy of the letter to the US Federal Trade Commission and asked the US body to verify the behaviour of the three companies in terms of the Federal Trade Commission Act which prohibits unfair or deceptive acts of practices in the marketplace.
A copy of the letter was also sent to Viviane Reding, vice-president of the European Commission responsible for justice, fundamental rights and citizenship.
Article 29 Working Party letters related to search engine operators
(26.05.2010)
http://ec.europa.eu/justice_home/fsj/privacy/workinggroup/wpdocs/2010-...
Data protection watchdogs escalate complaints against search engines
(28.05.2010)
http://www.out-law.com//default.aspx?page=11068
Internet search engines scolded by EU regulators (27.05.2010)
http://www.euractiv.com/en/infosociety/internet-search-engines-scolded...
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Deutsch: Oberster Dänischer Gerichtshof bestätigt einstweilige Verfügung zur...
The Danish suppreme court took its decision on 27 May 2010 on the recourse to the decision issued by the High Court (In Danish: landsretten) November 2008. The latter was the in fact the appeal to February 2008 Bailiff court (In Danisg: fogedret) ruling, which obliged Tele2 (which was later taken over by Telenor) to block thepiratebay.org.
The supreme court only ruled that it was correct to issue the injunction and that the Tele2/Telenor interpreted the injunction correctly. The supreme court did agree with Telenor that DNS-blocking is sufficient to fulfill the injunction, considering costs and proportionality. If IFPI wants Deep Packet Inspection, they have to get a new injunction.
The decision of the supreme court only deals with the proportionality of economic burdens, not with freedom of speech. Which is normal, because it was Tele2/Telenor that appealed the injunction and their concern is only an economical one.
In its declaration, Telenor reffers to cost and to a 2006 Contest report listing four alternative methods for blocking. Regarding DNS blocking it says:
"The cost of DNS blocking is a few million DKK annually. The solution is already implemented in connection with the so-called child-porn-filter, and the amount is not discussed in detail because the administration costs depend on the number of webpages that have to be blocked and the level of activity on the blocked pages."
Therefore, Telenor says that they do not want to block access. But if they have to do it, DNS-blocking is the option that will not be too expensive considering that all ISPs implemented voluntarily the so-called child-porn-filter .
What happens now? IFPI has to file the justification case. Telenor could fight it again, but they should consider that the High Court and the Supreme court spent two years confirming the injunction.
Nicholai Kramer Pfeiffer, head of legal affairs of Telenor, tells Computerworld that telecommunication companies have no motivation to use resources on an issue that is between rightsholders and people accused of infringing copyright. He predicts, that in the future, injunction cases on blocking ISPs will not even show up in court. He adds: "Guess what that will do to the rule of law?"
Pfeiffer told EDRi-gram that the Danish ISPs are currently discussing how to handle the justification case, and that he expects that they would put up a fight in case the rightsholders would seek an injunction to force the ISPs to use other means of blocking, such as deep packet inspection.
It seems that, once the ISPs are forced to introduce access blocking, they do not care what they are forced to block.
Danish Supreme Court case (only in Danish, 27.05.2010)
http://www.domstol.dk/hojesteret/Documents/Domme/153-09.pdf
Supreme Court confirms closure of The Pirate Bay (only in Danish,
27.05.2010)
http://www.computerworld.dk/art/56336
EDRi-gram: PirateBay - blocked in Denmark (13.02.2008)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number6.3/piratebay-denmark
(Contribution by Niels Elgaard Larsen - EDRi-member IT-POL Denmark )
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Deutsch: Three Strikes in Irland und Großbritannien
Irish Service Provider Eircom announced on 24 May 2010 its decision to introduce a voluntary graduate response procedure that would end up in shutting down broadband Internet connections of its clients who are considered to illegally download music.
The decision comes after the company concluded an out of court settlement with the Irish Recorded Music Association (IRMA) in 2009 by which the ISP agreed to introduce a graduated response scheme for copyright infringers. Although challenged by the Data protection Commissioner, the mechanism was accepted by the High Court which ruled that broadband subscribers' internet protocol (IP) address did not constitute personal information.
Under the pilot scheme, Eircom customers illegally sharing copyrighted music will receive three warnings that may take the form of a letter, an email, a phone call or even a web popup, after which their broadband service will be cut off for a year. Eircom will process around 50 infringement notifications a week, at random.
Mark Mulligan of Forrester Research has pointed out the inefficiency of the system explaining that at a rate of 50 infringers per week chosen randomly, the odds of choosing the same infringers a second or third time were very small. "Unless genuinely compelling legal alternatives are in place (e.g., cheap, subsidised all-you-can-eat MP3 subscriptions), enforcement will do little other than accelerate the off-network trend" also added Mulligan who considers that the customers will simply give up Eircom services and go to a different provider. For instance to its competitor UPC which considers there is no legal basis for monitoring or blocking its subscribers' activities.
Reporters Without Borders commented: "The current tendency is to put Internet Service Providers at the centre of efforts to combat illegal downloading (...) This is also the case with the ACTA, the proposed international treaty against counterfeiting that is currently being discussed. The disastrous effect of these initiatives is to turn the ISP into an Internet policeman."
The situation is slightly different in UK but not much better. UK regulator Ofcom recently proposed a draft code of practice that would ask the major ISPs to draw lists of copyright infringers with names and number of infringing times. The creation of the code is included in the Digital Economy Bill and Ofcom said the code should come into force at the beginning of 2011.
According to the proposal, the music firms and movie studios can request details from the list in order to decide whether to start action against serial infringers. The draft code establishes how and when the ISPs covered by the code (initially fixed-line ISPs with over 400 000 subscribers) would send letter notifications to their subscribers informing them of allegations that their accounts have been used for copyright infringement.
Ofcom proposes a three stage notification process for ISPs to inform subscribers of copyright infringements and the inclusion on a list, required by a copyright owner, of subscribers which have received three notifications within a year.
The EDRi-member Open Rights Group together with the Communications Consumer Panel, Consumer Focus, Which? and Citizens Advice have drafted together a set of principles they believe should govern the code of practice in order to ensure that new rules on online copyright infringement properly protect consumers.
The principles say that sound evidence is needed before any action is taken and consumers must have the right to defend themselves. "It is imperative that a system that accuses people of illegal online activity is fair and clear," said Anna Bradley, chair of the Communications Consumer Panel.
"The aim should be to encourage suspected copyright infringers to use legal alternatives" stated Robert Hammond, head of Post and Digital communications at Consumer Focus while Jim Killock's, Executive Director of the Open Rights Group, opinion is that the Government "needs to draw a clear line between the notifications and potential technical measures. Without this, the consequence of receiving a notification will be impossible to know. We also need clarity that customers will be told that running open community wifi networks is still completely legal and does not open the door to legal threats."
Ofcom has started a consultation on the proposals which will be concluded on 30 July.
Eircom to cut broadband over illegal downloads (24.05.2010)
http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/frontpage/2010/0524/1224271013389....
Ireland debuts Fone-a-Freetard lottery- But what's the point, again?
(28.05.2010)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2010/05/28/fone_a_freetard_flaw/
Pulling the plug is not the answer (31.05.2010)
http://www.digitalrights.ie/2010/05/31/pulling-the-plug-is-not-the-ans...
ISP introduces "graduated response" leading to disconnection for illegal
downloaders (28.05.2010)
http://en.rsf.org/ireland-isp-introduces-graduated-response-28-05-2010...
Communications Consumer Panel: Online copyright infringement rules must
protect consumers' rights, say leading UK consumer groups (28.05.2010)
http://www.tmcnet.com/usubmit/2010/05/28/4815651.htm
Draft code of practice to reduce online copyright infringement (28.05.2010)
http://www.ofcom.org.uk/consumer/2010/05/draft-code-of-practice-to-red...
Ofcom unveils anti-piracy policy (28.05.2010)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/10183820.stm
Ofcom 'letter writing' consultation is out: the Digital Economy Act rattles
on (29.05.2010)
http://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/2010/ofcom-letter-writing-consulta...
EDRI-gram: Irish ISP settled to introduce 3 strikes (11.02.2009)
http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.3/3-strikes-ireland
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Deutsch: Unschuldige Reisende werden mittels PNR überprüft und zu Verdächtig...
It has recently been revealed that UK Police secretly investigated the PNR (Passenger Name Records) data of 47 000 innocent people having travelled in and out of UK in 2009.
Checks included scrutiny of the police national computer, financial records and analysis of "known associates" related to travellers including information on their family and friends before being cleared for travel. All the data passengers give to travel agents, including home address, phone numbers, email address, passport details and the names of family members, can be shared with Government agencies all over the world for analysis and stored for up to ten years.
The information is used by the police to issue 14 000 intelligence reports on travellers, for future use. "Red flags" can mark travellers as potential terrorists based on information such as ordering a vegetarian meal, travelling with a spouse of foreign birth, asking for an over-wing seat, buying a one-way ticket and making a last-minute reservation. Travelling to the Middle East, Pakistan, Afghanistan or Iran can also bring about a red flag.
After the investigation of a total of 48 682 people, the system has led to the arrest of 2000 people. The police is rather targeting sex offenders and football hooligans. The Home Office states the system has led to arrests of murderers and rapists and to 1000 people being denied entry to Britain. But no terrorists have really been spotted out by the system.
US civil society group Papers Please notes that "it's tempting to think that ID and PNR-based travel control systems don't "work" as anti-terrorist measures" because of the incompetence of the US authorities implementing it. Yet, the British system proves to be as faulty thus suggesting the system does not work as a concept and not due to its execution.
The system, strongly criticised by civil liberties campaigners, may hopefully be stopped by Britain's new coalition Government.
Papers Please! - Statistics on UK travel surveillance and control
(20.05.2010)
http://www.papersplease.org/wp/2010/05/20/statistics-on-uk-travel-surv...
Outrage at secret probe into 47,000 innocent flyers (16.05.2010)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-1278782/Outrage-secret-probe-4...
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Deutsch: EK-Verhandlungsmandat für Datenschutzabkommen zwischen der EU und den...
On 26 May 2010, the European Commission (EC) announced having drafted a mandate for the negotiation of a data protection agreement with the US in view of ensuring a high level of protection of personal information, such as passenger data or financial information transferred within the transatlantic police and judicial co-operation in criminal matters.
"Fundamental rights must be protected and respected at all times. I want an EU-US agreement that protects personal data rights while fighting crime and terrorism", said Viviane Reding, European Commission Vice President for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship.
The proposal of the Commission comes after the European Parliament rejected in February 2010 the interim EU-US banking data exchange agreement for tracking terrorism, due to the lack of proper data privacy safeguards.
According to EC's statement, the data protection agreement would "enhance" the EU citizens' right to access, rectify or delete data where appropriate and it would give independent public authorities a stronger role in helping people exercise their privacy rights and in supervising transatlantic data transfers.
"Under the Commission's proposal the transfer or processing of personal data by EU or US authorities would only be permitted for specified, explicit and legitimate purposes in the framework of fighting crime and terrorism," said the Commission statement. "There would be a right to access one's personal data and this would be enforceable in courts. (....) There would be a right to have one's personal data corrected or erased if it is found to be inaccurate and there would be an individual right of administrative and judicial redress regardless of nationality or place of residence."
Also, according to the proposal, the European Parliament will be informed at all stages of the negotiations and will have to give its consent to the result of the negotiations.
Presently, a new "Terrorism Financing Tracking Programme" (TFTP) is being negotiated by EC with the US. The negotiations are supposed to end in a few months time which means that the TFTP will probably be agreed upon before a data protection agreement has been concluded. Such an agreement will need at least a year to be negotiated as it has to be approved by the European Parliament.
According to the EC, in case the TFTP proves later on to show inconsistencies with the data protection agreement, it "would need to conform to the new agreement, following a transitional period."
The draft mandate is to be presented by Commissioner Reding to the EU's current Spanish Presidency and the European Parliament. On 3-4 June the EU justice ministers are to meet in Brussels to discuss the Commission proposal.
EU moves on data protection deal with US (27.05.2010)
http://euobserver.com/9/30144/?rk=1
European Commission seeks high privacy standards in EU-US data protection
agreement (26.05.2010)
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/10/609&...
European Commission proposes ground rules for data transfers to US
authorities (26.05.2010)
http://www.out-law.com//default.aspx?page=11064
EU seeks transatlantic privacy rules (27.05.2010)
http://www.euractiv.com/en/justice/eu-seeks-transatlantic-privacy-rule...
EDRi-gram: EU bank data transfer on the table of the EU institutions
(27.04.2010)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number8.8/data-transfers-us-eu-discussion...
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Deutsch: Wie viele Webseiten sperrt die Türkei?
That information hasn't been updated since May 2009. This is why Prof Yaman Akdeniz, who teaches Internet law at Istanbul's Bilgi University, has initiated a trial, based on the Turkish law on access to public information.
In May 2009, the number of websites blocked was already 2601, with a huge increase since May 2008 when the number was only 433. No further public information was provided by the High Council for Telecommunications (TIB), who is the authority in charge of enforcing the blocking under Turkish Law on cyber-crime.
Yaman's action is publicly supported by Reporters without Borders that commented: "The TIB provides information about the content on the blocked websites but omits the most important information, the number of websites that have been blocked. This deliberate lack of transparency is disturbing and we call on the authorities to reveal and explain the scale of the current censorship."
Earlier this year, the OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) Media Freedom representative asked the Turkish Government to change their Internet law in order to observe OSCE commitments and other international standards protecting freedom of expression.
A survey commissioned by OSCE has shown that the Turkish authorities were able to block the access to Internet of about 3700 websites, including foreign websites such as YouTube, Geocities, DailyMotion and Google.
Telecom authority accused of concealing blocked website figures (19.05.2010)
http://en.rsf.org/turkey-telecom-authority-accused-of-19-05-2010,37511...
Trial against High Council for Telecommunications for "providing
information" (only in French, 26.05.2010)
http://www.ifex.org/turkey/2010/05/26/information_censored/fr/
EDRi-gram:OSCE asks Turkey to change the laws allowing Internet blocking
(27.01.2010)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number8.2/turkey-internet-blocking-osce
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Deutsch: Österreich erhöht Druck auf Google Street View
Austrian Data Protection Authority (DSK) placed a temporary ban on Google's Street View cars, The DSK intends to sanction the collection of private data from unencrypted wifi networks and therefore wants to see changes to the EU data protection directive in this regard.
"If there is no EU legislation, we are planning a national law," stated State secretary for media Josef Ostermayer.
This reaction comes after Google failed to observe the deadline of 27 May imposed by Germany's Hamburg data protection authority to hand over such data that the company admitted to have gathered accidentally by its Street View system.
Google missed the deadline imposed by the German regulator arguing it needed more time to consider the possible legal fall-out for sharing such private data with the government.
DSK said that all collection of data or use of previously gathered information by Google Street View in Austria would be banned until it received from Google "a precise technical description of its data-collection activities by 7 June 2010," as well as an answer to a detailed questionnaire.
Google is presently under investigation by German prosecutors for "unauthorised interception of data", and inquiries have been initiated by several European regulators while Australia and the US have also initiated similar probes.
Three U.S. congressmen sent a letter to Google CEO Eric Schmidt asking to know how much personal data the Internet search engine has gathered with its Street View project and how it plans to use that information: "We are concerned that Google did not disclose until long after the fact that consumers' Internet use was being recorded, analyzed and perhaps profiled."
Austria wants sanctions for data gathering after Google 'accident'
(28.05.2010)
http://euobserver.com:80/9/30161/?rk=1
Austria bans Google's street view cars over privacy (28.05.2010)
http://www.google.com/hostednews/afp/article/ALeqM5gqQOUMhV02OGk0LeYEc...
Google refuses to hand over German Street View data (28.05.2010)
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/technology/10172146.stm
U.S. Congressmen want more Google Street View information (26.05.2010)
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/news/technology/us-congressmen-want-mor...
EDRI-gram: Google: We have collected information sent over the WiFi via
StreetView (19.05.2010)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number8.10/street-view-wifi-data-google
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Deutsch: Das Ende der Anonymität von Bloggern in Frankreich?
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Macedonian: Крај за анонимноста на блогерите во Фр...
The French senator Jean-Louis Masson submitted on 3 May 2010 a draft law that would end anonymity of bloggers who, according to the text, would have to provide on their blogs identification data such as name, phone number and address.
The proposed legislation would prohibit the use of pseudonyms for bloggers and would apply the same regulation as for the written press.
The senator justified his proposal with the argument of protecting Internet users from deceit, lies or defamation. In an interview for France 3, the senator stated he wanted bloggers to take the responsibility of their statements. In his opinion, a person who does not reveal his identity has something to hide, while generally bloggers choose anonymity out of reasons related to their professional or personal life.
An appeal addressed to the French deputies and senators was signed by several Internet hosting sites such as Wikio, OverBlog, Blogspirit and Canalblog and organisations such as Reporters sans Frontieres and La Quadrature du Net.
The appeal asks the French Parliament to reject the draft law as it would not serve the declared purpose of the protection against defamation which is already covered efficiently by the present legislation. The French law implementing the E-commerce directive already stipulates that hosting sites must immediately suppress any litigious publications at a simple request and notify to the authorities the blogger's identity if applicable. Therefore there is no need for an additional law that would only harm the freedom of expression on the Internet.
A law proposition puts again in question bloggers' anonymity (only in
French, 26.05.2010)
http://fr.rsf.org:80/france-une-proposition-de-loi-remet-en-26-05-2010...
Call for the Defence of the right to anonymity on the Internet (only in
French, 25.05.2010)
http://www.wikio.fr:80/article/appel-defense-droit-anonymat-internet-1...
Anonymat of bloggers : Jean-Louis Masson persists and signs (only in French,
25.05.2010)
http://www.numerama.com/magazine/15792-anonymat-des-blogueurs-jean-lou...
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Deutsch: ENDitorial: Rechtsausschuss des EP verabschiedet inkohärenten Urheber...
This week, the Legal Affairs Committee of the European Parliament adopted a far-reaching, contradictory and, at times, fundamentalist non-legislative report on enforcement of intellectual property rights. The Committee report takes some quite extreme, apocalyptic and sometimes almost comically absurd views of intellectual property infringements, claiming that they "constitute a danger" for health and safety and even endanger "our economies and societies", before making dire warnings about the "fade-out of innovation in the EU" and demands for criminal sanctions for infringements.
However, the text also contains some incongruous positive aspects. For example, regarding file sharing, one potentially mitigating amendment was adopted saying that online infringements should treated differently from offline counterfeiting. More importantly, one oral amendment that was adopted neatly sums up the folly of most of the text. That amendment attacks the alienation created by disproportionate and counterproductive enforcement of intellectual property and argues that "efforts to tackle infringement of copyright must enjoy public support in order not to risk eroding support for intellectual property rights amongst the citizens". It is a sign of the intellectual paucity and confused nature of the report adopted by the Committee that the MEP that tabled that amendment felt obliged to vote against the final text.
The report correctly points out that reliable data is not available to assess the scale of IPR infringement (neatly confusing all IPR infringements, thereby endangering the fight against life-threatening drug counterfeiting by putting this on the same level as unauthorised downloading of music). However, this recognised absence of reliable data did not inhibit the Committee from stating with complete certainty that unauthorised downloading was inhibiting the creation of legal music offerings. Continuing its efforts to create its own reality, the Committee also deleted a proposed amendment stating the fact that graduated response schemes were rejected in the telecoms package. Similarly, it also rejected an amendment recognising "the potential usefulness of authorised sharing between individuals of copies for non-commercial use." Having rejected the concept that citizens should be able to use and share data that they have obtained legally, the Committee then went on to adopt a text saying that consumers should be "educated" so that they could better understand intellectual property and how to respect it.
Astonishingly, however, the Committee adopted a text which re-enforced the Parliament's opposition to the scope of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, which has been so far willfully misinterpreted by the European Commission. Echoing the Parliament resolution adopted in March of this year, the text "calls on the Commission to ensure that its efforts to further the negotiations on the multilateral Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) with a view to improving the effectiveness of the IPR enforcement system against counterfeiting are continued with full account being taken of the Parliament's position." This reinforces the Parliament's position of March of this year which insisted on the limitation of ACTA to counterfeiting (and not, for example, ISP liability). Since March, the Commission has blatantly ignored that position, with the apparent expectation that, once ACTA is completed, enough pressure can be brought to bear in the Parliament for it to cave in and adopt a text that contradicts its own stated views.
The report will be voted on at an upcoming plenary session of the European Parliament. Due to the confused, contradictory and incoherent nature of the Legal Affairs Committee text, it appears likely (and necessary, for the Parliament's credibility) that more consistent alternative texts will be tabled by one or more political groups prior to the vote. We can only hope that the Committee will learn the lesson that slavishly following the lobbying of certain entrenched, antediluvian industries serves only to undermine its credibility and the confidence of citizens in the European Parliament.
European People's Party press release on the vote
http://www.eppgroup.eu/Press/showpr.asp?PRControlDocTypeID=1&PRCon...
(Contribution by Joe McNamee - EDRi)
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Deutsch: Lesestoff
Austrian Study - A Practical Attack to De-Anonymize Social Network Users -
presented at the IEEE Symposium on Security and Privacy in Oakland,
California.
http://www.financialexpress.com/news/marketers-threaten-net-history/62...
http://www.iseclab.org/papers/sonda-TR.pdf
This article is also available in:
Deutsch: Agenda
8-9 June 2010 - Funchal, Portugal
4th International Workshop on RFID Technology - Concepts, Applications,
Challenges - IWRT 2010
http://www.iceis.org/Workshops/iwrt/iwrt2010-cfp.htm.
25-27 June 2010, Cluj, Romania
Networking Democracy?
New Media Innovations in Participatory Politics
http://www.brisc.info/NetDem/
28-30 June 2010, Torino, Italy
COMMUNIA 2010 Conference: University and Cyberspace
Reshaping Knowledge Institutions for the Networked Age
http://www.universities-and-cyberspace.org
28 June - 2 July 2010, Nantes, France
4th World Forum on Human Rights
http://www.spidh.org/en/home/index.html
9-11 July 2010, Gdansk, Poland
Wikimedia 2010 - the 6th annual Wikimedia Conference
http://wikimania2010.wikimedia.org/wiki/Main_Page
25-31 July 2010, Meissen, Germany
European Summer School on Internet Governance
http://www.euro-ssig.eu
29-31 July 2010, Freiburg, Germany
IADIS - International Conference ICT, Society and Human Beings 2010
http://www.ict-conf.org/
2-6 August 2010, Helsingborg, Sweden
Privacy and Identity Management for Life (PrimeLife/IFIP Summer School 2010)
http://www.cs.kau.se/IFIP-summerschool/
13-17 September 2010, Crete, Greece
Privacy and Security in the Future Internet
3rd Network and Information Security (NIS'10) Summer School
http://www.nis-summer-school.eu
14-16 September 2010, Vilnius, Lithuania
Internet Governance Forum 2010
http://igf2010.lt/
8-9 October 2010, Berlin, Germany
The 3rd Free Culture Research Conference
Call for Papers - Abstract Deadline: 7 June 2010
http://wikis.fu-berlin.de/display/fcrc/Home
28-31 October 2010, Barcelona, Spain
oXcars and Free Culture Forum 2010, the biggest free culture event of all
time
3-5 November 2010, Barcelona, Spain
The Fifth International Conference on Legal, Security and Privacy Issues in
IT Law. Call for papers deadline: 10 September 2010
http://www.lspi.net/
17 November 2010, Gent, Belgium
Big Brother Awards 2010 Belgium
http://www.winuwprivacy.be/kandidaten