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Deutsch: EDRi feiert seinen 10. Geburtstag
From 2 to 4 March 2013, European Digital Rights (EDRi) will hold its Annual General Assembly and celebrate its 10th anniversary.
In early 2003, EDRi was registered as a non-profit organisation in Brussels in order to create an European organisation that defends and promotes human rights, initially formed by 10 NGOs dealing with digital civil rights in Europe.
EDRi's creation was mainly a response to the growing need for cooperation among digital rights organisations active in Europe – a need which continues to grow as more regulation is proposed by European institutions that has a direct effect on the fundamental rights of European citizens.
EDRi therefore invites all supporters to celebrate 10 years of campaigning for digital freedoms. The celebration takes place on
Saturday, 2 March
from 21:00 onwards
at London Calling, Place de Londres/Rue de Dublin 46, Brussels
1st floor: 11pm-1am: DJ MEP Ehrenhauser & friends
2nd floor (Club): DJs pEtEr Withoutfield, Tasmo & Cpt Pudding / Blogrebellen (also known from re:publica, 29c3) - Creative Commons sound only!
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Deutsch: EDRi Leitfaden zur Konsultation zum Urheberrecht
This is just a quick warning that you have until 30 March 2013 if you want to answer to the public consultation on the Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive (IPRED). The directive has been in force since 2004 and requires all Member States to apply remedies and penalties against those engaged in "commercial" infractions of intellectual property law. This is the Directive which is partly responsible for the heavy-handed injunctions that are being imposed by some courts.
The European Commission has recently launched this consultation in order to evaluate the efficiency of the current framework and the necessity of a revision. However, some parts of the questionnaire dangerously lead the reader to believe that Internet companies should be in charge of dealing with alleged infringements. This would seriously undermine freedom of expression online, the right to a fair trial and to privacy.
It is therefore absolutely crucial that the European Commission receives diverse input from citizens and organisations. This is a perfect occasion to tell the Commission that a comprehensive copyright reform is needed - instead of measures in the spirit of ACTA. However, since the Commission did not make it easy to respond, EDRi put together an answering guide to help you through the questionnaire. Here are the different steps you need to take to answer the consultation:
1. In order to get access to the consultation you need to register, by
providing your name and email address at
http://ec.europa.eu/yourvoice/ipm/forms/dispatch?form=IPRREGFORM
2. You will receive an email with the subject “IPM Invitation” by the Commission providing you with a unique access link so you can respond to the consultation. Please note that it can take some time before the registration is processed. There are also reports of slowness and time-outs at weekends and of Gmail filtering registration details as “spam”. Therefore, please be patient with the Commission's technology!
3. If you follow the invitation by clicking on the unique access link, you will be able to answer the questionnaire.
4. Our answering guide is here
http://edri.org/files/ipr-guide.pdf
Background information on the current consultation
http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/consultations/2012/intellectual-pr...
For more background information on IPRED and the copyright reform in
Europe you can check EDRi booklet “Copyright: Challenges of the digital era”
http://www.edri.org/files/paper07_copyright.pdf
(Contribution by Kirsten Fiedler - EDRi)
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Deutsch: Island: Innenministerium will Internetfilter einrichten
Ögmundur Jónasson, Iceland's Minister of Interior, intends to support an "anti-shield" against online pornography, that is Internet filters, to prevent Internet users from accessing certain sites.
Although Jónasson has until now promoted progressive legislation, he is now trying to introduce a law to stop the access to online pornographic images and videos by young people through computers, games consoles and smartphones, a legislation that would do great harm to freedom of expression and speech.
Iceland already has a law forbidding the printing and distribution of pornography which has not yet been updated to cover the Internet. The methods that are considered include blocking access to pornographic website addresses and making it illegal to use Icelandic credit cards to access pay-per-view pornography.
The bill that Jónasson supports has already created doubts and many companies are thinking seriously of whether to have their business hosted in Iceland because they fear the country's laws could lead to a full censorship system. The bill would put Iceland at the same level as Iran or China in terms of censorship.
"Modern electronic commerce requires cryptography, and cryptography precludes centralised censorship, even of harmful material. The way to combat gender inequality and sexual exploitation is to increase public awareness and encourage open discussion, not stifle information flows and violate telecommunications privacy," said Smári McCarthy, the executive director of Iceland Modern Media Initiative.
Fortunately, it appears that the Iceland Parliament will not pass the bill and the parliamentary committee having the task to discuss the draft bill is looking into alternative ways to help parents to protect their children from online porn, mainly through free porn-filter software and educational means.
Iceland's internet 'porn shield' is misguided and unworkable (15.02.2013)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2013/feb/15/iceland-anti-porn-...
Iceland considers pornography ban (13.02.2013)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/iceland/9866949/Icela...
Efforts led by British Conservative Parliamentarian Emma McClarkin are under way to solve the problem of online child abuse, in a manner that would have been more appropriate in 2005.
She has circulated a draft “Written Declaration” to her colleagues. Such a “Written Declaration” becomes a European Parliament Resolution if it attracts the signatures of half of all Members of the European Parliament.
The text she is proposing (not yet published) starts by pointing out that child abuse is an abhorrent crime, before pointing oddly to the “universal belief” that it is a criminal act to traffic such content. It then states a second truism, that it is an international crime that needs international cooperation.
Oddly, the draft then says that “there is often a commercial dimension to the distribution of child sexual abuse content and as such the distribution of this content could be profitable for organised crime structures”. This is strange because the United Kingdom's Child Exploitation & Online Protection Centre prepared a report in 2010 for the European Financial Coalition which found that the web-based commercial exploitation of the images in question was dropping and that the profits are “actually quite low.” Surely, when designing statements about a crime as serious as online child abuse, a minimum level of research is the least one could expect, especially when, as the draft text points out, “behind every image or video of child sexual abuse there is a real victim”.
The draft Declaration calls on the Commission to develop its focus on international cooperation with developing countries “to deal with” the problem of online child sexual abuse content, pointing out that “the most effective way” of dealing with such content is to remove it at source. There is, as the text points out, “a real victim” behind all such content. It is exactly because there is a real victim behind each image that the most effective way of dealing with it is not simply to delete it. It is to investigate the crime, prosecute offenders and identify and rescue victims. It seems nothing short of reckless to suggest, even if due to bad drafting rather than bad intent, any other approach.
The text then calls on “the Commission and the Member States to support and promote the creation of child sexual abuse reporting mechanisms that meet acceptable standards with respect to transparency and freedom of expression in third countries”. The problem here is that McClarkin is a so-called “Champion of the Internet Watch Foundation” - the UK hotline which makes quasi-judicial rulings on what material “may be” illegal, leading to content being deleted and blocked by United Kingdom Internet providers (which led, for example, to Yahoo's Flickr photo sharing site being unavailable via several UK ISPs, as well as the infamous blocking of Wikipedia). It is difficult to tell if this is the “transparency and freedom of expression” that she wants to export to third countries.
The draft circulated in the European Parliament reads as follows:
Written declaration on the international dimension of the fight against online child sexual abuse content
The European Parliament, – having regard to Rule 123 of its Rules of Procedure,
A. whereas the nature of child sexual abuse content must be recognised as one of the most abhorrent forms of content available online and due to the universal belief that it is a criminal act to produce, distribute, disseminate, import, export, offer, sell or possess this content; B. whereas the cross-border nature of most cases relating to online child sexual abuse images and videos on the internet shows a need for further international cooperation; C. whereas there is often a commercial dimension to the distribution of child sexual abuse content and as such the distribution of this content could be profitable for organised crime structures; D. whereas behind every image or video of child sexual abuse there is a real victim;
1. Calls on the Commission to include developing as well as developed countries in its focus when establishing international cooperation to deal with the problem of online child sexual abuse content;
2. Points out that the most effective way to deal with child sexual abuse content is to remove the content at source;
3. Stresses therefore the importance of adequate reporting and take-down mechanisms for child sexual abuse content in every country;
4. Calls on the Commission and the Member States to support and promote the creation of child sexual abuse reporting mechanisms that meet acceptable standards with respect to transparency and freedom of expression in third countries;
5. Instructs its President to forward this declaration, together with the names of the signatories, to the Council, the Commission, the Member States, the Council of Europe and the United Nations.
Politicians “pledge” support to child sexual abuse Hotline (28.11.2012)
http://www.iwf.org.uk/about-iwf/news/post/337-politicians-pledge-suppo...
Wikipedia ban lifted by Internet Watch Foundation (10.12.2008)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/technology/news/3700396/Wikipedia-ban-lifte...
Wikipedia blocking in UK
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Censorship_of_Wikipedia
(Contribution by Joe McNamee - EDRi)
The Swedish Court of Appeal has referred to ECJ (European Court of Justice) a case involving the question of whether publishing a hyperlink to content can be considered a communication to the public and, implicitly, a breach of the creator’s copyright (in case the hyperlink is published without the author’s consent), under the European law.
The case in question is that of Svensson, a Swedish journalist who wrote an article published by a Swedish newspaper both in print and on the newspaper’s website and who claimed that Retriever Sverige AB, a subscription service providing links to articles that can be found online, had made links to his article available to the public, without his permission, and, therefore, for this he should be compensated.
But Retriever refused to pay Svensson any money arguing that just linking to a copyright work and displaying the resulting content within a frame did not constitute infringement.
Having in view the importance of the issue, a European scholars and academic NGO with 17 law professors and intellectual property experts - European Copyright Society (ECS) considered it should offer its assessment: “As Tim-Berners Lee, who is regularly accredited as being an inventor of the World Wide Web, has explained, a standard hyperlink is nothing more than a reference or footnote, and that the ability to refer to a document is a fundamental right of free speech”.
“Hyperlinks are not communications because establishing a hyperlink does not amount to ‘transmission’ of a work, and such transmission is a pre-requisite for ‘communication’. Even if transmission is not necessary for there to be a ‘communication’, the rights of the copyright owner apply only to communication to the public ‘of the work’, and whatever a hyperlink provides, it is not ‘of a work’,” explains ECS.
However, ECS is clear in noting that individuals and companies aren’t necessarily free to link to any online content they like with impunity. ECS reveals that there are cases when linking may lead to certain liabilities such as linking which leads to a deliberate facilitation of access to copyright infringing material, unfair competition, moral rights and circumvention of technological measures.
ECS’s opinion is that “the Court needs equally to consider the effect of its ruling. If hyperlinking is regarded as communication to the public, all hyperlinks would need to be expressly licensed. In our view, that proposition is absurd.”
Hyperlinking Is Not Copyright Infringement, Scholars Say (18.02.2013)
http://torrentfreak.com/hyperlinking-is-not-copyright-infringement-sch...
Case C-466/12, Svensson – hyperlinks and communicating works to the
public (20.01.2013)
http://eulawradar.com/case-c-46612-svensson-hyperlinks-and-communicati...
European CopyrightSociety - Opinion on The Reference to the CJEU in
Case C-466/12 Svensson (15.02.2013)
http://www.scribd.com/doc/125738263/European-Copyright-Society-Opinion...
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Deutsch: Patentgerichtsbarkeit: EU-Minister unterzeichnen umstrittene Vereinbar...
After in December 2012 the European Parliament approved the proposal for a flawed unified patent court system that will put innovation at risk, on 19 February 2013, the Ministers from 24 EU member States backed the proposal by signing the agreement.
If officially ratified by at least 13 national parliaments (which must include the UK, France and Germany), the system will be used for resolving disputes on the validity and infringement of new unitary patents. In this context, a new central division of the unified patent court will be located in London and two other central divisional courts will be based in Paris and Munich.
In the opinion of the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) this system will diminish the role of the legislator and will only be used as duel ground for confrontations between larger industrial corporations.
"The Unitary Patent dossiers are driven by a very active patent microcosm and its vested interests. I call on Commissioner Barnier to first harmonise patent legislation in the single market. We need legal certainty what is patentable or not. Cryptocracy is no alternative to a democratic process in these substantive matters," said FFII vice president Rene Mages.
Spain and Poland were the only countries which refused to sign the agreement while Bulgaria is expected to sign in the near future.
"All the necessary decisions (designation of committees, budget, appointment of judges and president, recruitment of staff, facilities etc.) should be adopted in a timely manner so as to enable the first registration of a European patent title with unitary effect in spring 2014," the Council said.
However, in FFII’s opinion the launch in 2014 is unlikely for legal reasons, one of them being a reform of the Brussels I package (EC 44/2001) and another, the pace of a formal ratification process.
Ministers signed Unitary Patent Court agreement (20.02.2013)
https://press.ffii.org/Press%20releases/Ministers%20signed%20Unitary%2...
Unified patent court agreement signed by most EU countries (20.02.2013)
http://www.out-law.com/en/articles/2013/february/unified-patent-court-...
Patent court agreement signed (19.02.2013)
http://www.europeanvoice.com/article/2013/february/patent-court-agreem...
EDRi-gram: Innovation at risk in EU - the EU unitary patent adopted by
EP (19.12.2012)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number10.24/unitary-patent-adopted-eu
The Court of Appeal of England and Wales decided on 14 February 2013 that Google could be considered liable for comments posted on its Blogger platform unless it reacts promptly to a complaint.
Reversing a previous ruling in March 2012 of the High Court which considered that Google, in its platform provider role, should not be treated as a publisher, the Appeal Court ruled that the company could be liable for the content published on its blogging platform if it allowed content (in this case comments on a specific blog hosted at Blogger) to remain after having received complaints that the respective content was defamatory. The main argument of the court was that the Blogger platform is available on Google's terms which can remove or block access to any notice that does not comply with those terms.
The ruling came as a result of a case brought to court by a former Conservative party local council candidate who complained in July 2011 to Google about eight comments posted on the London Muslim blog, which he considered as defamatory to him. Google passed on the complaints to the blogger and the respective comments were taken down after about five weeks, period which was considered too long by the court.
Although the Court considered that any damage resulting from the publication was too trivial and dismissed the appeal, EDRi member Article 19 believes the judgement is a serious step back for free speech online.
Agnes Callamard, Executive Director of Article 19, stated that "the court's judgement effectively endorses a problematic 'notice and takedown' system, which encourages intermediaries like Google to remove potentially defamatory material immediately upon notification despite the fact that the material complained about may not be unlawful. This creates a worrying chilling effect on freedom of expression, as intermediaries might censor perfectly legitimate speech."
The group is also concerned by the fact that the Appeal Court did not make any reference to the freedom of expression, a right protected by the UK Human Rights Act.
United Kingdom: Ruling on Google's liability is bad news for free speech
online (15.02.2013)
http://www.article19.org/resources.php/resource/3611/en/united-kingdom...
Google must act quickly on libellous Blogger posts, says appeal court
(15.02.2013)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/2013/feb/14/google-libel-blogger-posts
The Italian police imposed on 13 February 2013 the blocking of domain name 25.media.tumblr.com, which was actually one of the Amazon cloud computing server that contains all the images loaded on the tumblr website. The domain blocking was based on an alleged child pornography content on the site. This domain name blocking was lifted one day later.
Therefore, for two days, the Italian visitors could not see many images hosted on tumblr website, unless they knew how to add alternative name servers in their computer.
CNCPO (National Centre for the Fight against Online Pedopornography) is the Italian agency which manages a black list of websites deemed to host child pornographic material. Any website suspected by the police of containing such type of content is added to this list, on the basis of evidence, without previous court authorization. Further on, ISPs are notified to block access to the related domain. Later jurisdictional review is however admitted.
For the domain name in question, the measure has led to lots of licit content being blocked as well, besides the deemed illicit content. This is yet another case which brings into discussion the entire question of the proper measures to fight online child pornography.
European ISPs, digital rights groups as well as IT specialists have been arguing, for a long time now, that website-blocking is not an appropriate instrument against child pornography first of all because, technically, it can be easily circumvented. Moreover, web-blocking would only lead to collateral, significant damages due to blocking access to licit content uploaded in the same website.
Fight against online paedo-pornography: to-do and not-to-do list
(15.02.2013)
http://radiobruxelleslibera.wordpress.com/2013/02/15/fight-against-onl...
Tumblr targeted by the Italian anti paedo-pornography (only in Italian,
14.02.2013)
http://punto-informatico.it/3717068/PI/News/tumblr-nel-mirino-dell-ant...
Screenshot of the blocked domain
http://i.imgur.com/18rnQXo.png
Also Tumblr is a victim of CNCPO (only in Italian, 14.02.2013)
http://blog.bofh.it/id_430
The British Phonographic Industry (BPI) continues its offensive against torrent websites that are accused of copyright infringement.
Based on the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act from 1998, the group obtained in 2012, from the High Court, the blocking of Newzbin2 and The Pirate Bay through several big UK ISPs and in October 2012, asked again six ISPs (BT, Sky, Virgin Media, O2, EE and TalkTalk) to begin blocking three more leading BitTorrent sites, Fenopy, H33t and Kickass Torrents.
The ISPs have agreed to block these sites, but only on the basis of a court order. Therefore, BPI has filed this case to the High Court which is expected to decide shortly and to issue the blocking orders. Apparently, the ISPs will not contest the orders.
“Website blocking is an extreme response. There are growing fears this precedent will make it too easy and quick to block sites. Time needs to be taken to consider the legitimate use of the sites. There needs to be a more specific and adequate definition of the precise URL or IP address to be blocked to prevent mistakes,” says EDRi member Open Rights Group.
While the sites can be blocked by ISPs only by court order, copycat sites with similar names can be blocked directly without the need of a court intervention and without transparency.
“Once a site is blocked, its alleged clone sites can also be blocked, but in this case, BPI will be able to practice this without a court order. The decisions would be made between BPI and ISPs and will not be published,” stated Open Rights Group.
Another major concern is that the blocking is indefinite. If the list of blocked sites is growing, there might be a large number of sites hidden from the public.
BPI set to block three more BitTorrent sites (18.02.2013)
http://www.openrightsgroup.org/blog/2013/bpi-fenopy-block
BPI wants to block more music download sites (25.02.2013)
http://www.pcpro.co.uk/news/380074/bpi-wants-to-block-more-music-downl...
BitTorrent Site Admin Hits Out at UK Music Industry Site Blocking Demand
(24.02.2013)
http://torrentfreak.com/bittorrent-site-admin-hits-out-at-uk-music-ind...
EDRi-gram: UK High Court orders ISPs to block The Pirate Bay (9.05.2012)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number10.9/high-court-isps-uk-tpb
This article is also available in:
Deutsch: ENDitorial: Europäische Finanzkoalition gegen den sexuellen Missbrauc...
In 2009, the Swedish Presidency of the European Union helped launch the “European Financial Coalition against Child Pornography”. The initiative was based on the pre-existing US “Financial Coalition against Child Pornography,” involved the same companies and addressed the same websites. The only perceptible difference between the EU and US coalitions was that the EU coalition was funded by taxpayers' money – to do what the companies were already doing.
Interestingly (and laudably, it must be said), the EU project produced a detailed analysis of the problem after its first year of operation. The outcome of this analysis was a report which produced some interesting findings. These include: - Commercial sites are generally not high profit; compared to other areas of online criminality, profits are actually quite low; - There has been a significant decrease in the number of active commercial sites that can be identified; - The producers of abuse images are likely to use small, secure areas of the internet that are password-protected to share the images for free.
In other words, the assumptions on which the European Financial Coalition was based were incorrect – the profits being made are quite low, the number of sites is falling “significantly” and the problem is now small and secure, non-commercial services. Unsurprisingly, the project did not receive further funding and became inactive (apart from the work that the US coalition was doing, which the EU coalition was only duplicating, in any case).
Then, in November 2012, the Financial Coalition was launched again, helpfully providing an activity for the European Cybercrime Centre to occupy itself with. The new “Financial Coalition” has re-invented itself to take account of the fact that a Financial Coalition is not actually needed.
The press release launching the initiative talks obtusely about “opaque online environments” but with no clear view beyond a drive to ensure that private companies become involved in law enforcement. For example, the press release talks about involving private stakeholders in supporting “international law enforcement investigations”, not where “necessary” but where “possible” - suggesting that participation of private companies in law enforcement actions is an end in itself.
It is disappointing that, yet again, regardless of what the problem is in the online environment, the answer from the European Commission is to throw money at ill-defined projects whose only unifying theme is the privatisation of law enforcement in the hands of (uniquely American in this case) private companies.
Swedish Council Presidency Conclusions (2.09.2009)
http://register.consilium.europa.eu/pdf/en/09/st11/st11456-re02.en09.p...
Financial Coalition report 2010
http://www.ceop.police.uk/documents/efc%20strat%20asses2010_080910b%20...
European Financial Coalition
http://www.europeanfinancialcoalition.eu/
US Financial Coalition
http://www.icmec.org/missingkids/servlet/PageServlet?LanguageCountry=e...
(Contribution by Joe McNamee - EDRi)
This article is also available in:
Deutsch: Lesestoff
Industry Committee scrapes together a majority for a disastrous data
protection opinion (20.02.2013)
http://edri.org/itre-eudatap
Hadopi and Internet Intermediaries: No to a French ACTA! (27.02.2013)
https://www.laquadrature.net/en/hadopi-and-internet-intermediaries-no-...
Google raises privacy fears as personal details are released to app
developers (25.02.2013)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2013/feb/25/google-privacy-fears-...
Google declares open war on Europe’s privacy rights (20.02.2013)
http://www.privacysurgeon.org/blog/incision/google-declares-open-war-o...
API, PNR, threat assessments, and data-mining: Member States push for
access to travellers' personal data for customs authorities (02.2013)
http://www.statewatch.org/news/2013/feb/12customs-pnr1.htm
French Publishers Forge Deal With Google, Breaking Ranks With Europe
(18.02.2013)
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/18/technology/a-first-step-on-continent...
This article is also available in:
Deutsch: Agenda
21-22 March 2013, Malta
Online Privacy: Consenting to your Future
http://www.onlineprivacyconference.eu/
6-8 May 2013, Berlin, Germany
re:publica 2013
http://re-publica.de/en/
20-21 June 2013, Lisbon, Portugal
EuroDIG 2013
http://www.eurodig.org
25-26 June 2013, Barcelona, Spain
9th International Conference on Internet Law & Politics: Big Data:
Challenges and Opportunities.
http://edcp.uoc.edu/symposia/idp2013/?lang=en
25-26 June 2013, Washington, DC, USA
23rd Computers, Freedom and Privacy Conference (CFP)
CfP by 1 March 2013
http://www.cfp.org/2013
31 July – 4 August 2013, Geestmerambacht, Netherlands
Observe. Hack. Make. - OHM2013
CfP by 1 March 2013
https://ohm2013.org/
14-15 September 2013, Vienna, Austria
Daten, Netz & Politik 2013 - DNP13
https://dnp13.unwatched.org/
23-26 September 2013, Warsaw, Poland
Public Voice Conference 2013
35th International Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners conference
http://www.giodo.gov.pl/259/id_art/762/j/en/
