Last week, 30 authoritative scientists and software innovators from all over Europe signed a petition against the proposed new EU Directive on Patent Law. In their letter to members of the European Parliament they argue that allowing for patents on computer programs will seriously harm innovation in information technology and endanger the future of the European Union.
Literally they write: "Acceptance of patentability of algorithms, of principles of software, of information processing methods or of data structures is scandalous from the view point of ethics, economically unjustified and harmful, would impact adversely scientific and technical innovation, and puts democracy at danger."
The petition arrives just in time to influence the vote in the Parliamentary Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal Market (JURI), on 28 April. Previous votes in the parliamentary committee on Industry, External Trade, Research and Energy (ITRE) and the committee on Culture, Youth, Education, Media and Sport (CULT) showed a majority against the proposals from the European Commission. A previous petition for the public at large, organised by the Eurolinux Alliance, drew 140.000 signatures against patents on computer programs. Public consultation by the European Commission itself showed 90 percent of the answers against the proposal.
In spite of all that, a majority in the JURI committee seems to be in favour of the proposed new Directive, pushed hard by its rapporteur Arlene McCarthy. Members of the European Parliament are organising a hearing for owners of small and medium-size companies on 8 May, while Eurolinux and the German-based lobby group FFII are organising a very interesting conference, starting on 7 May with a keynote by Lawrence Lessig, followed by a dialogue with Brian Kahin.
Scientists petition (in Spanish, English and French, scroll to the bottom of the page!) Page also contains excellent multi-lingual references to the opinions of the different parliamentary committees
http://lists.debian.org/debian-user-catalan/2003/debian-user-catalan-2...
Eurolinux petition
http://petition.eurolinux.org/
Text of the proposed new directive (20.02.2003 - in English)
http://www.europa.eu.int/comm/internal_market/en/indprop/com02-92en.pd...
Parliamentary hearing and conference
http://swpat.ffii.org/events/2003/europarl/05/
According to research by World IT Lawyers, a majority of European websites violates EU directives protecting on-line consumers. More than half of the researched websites lacks essential information about the on-line buying procedure or the consumer right to cancel an order within 7 days. On top of that, almost half of the websites of companies and institutions lack a privacy policy. The research compares websites from France, Germany, the Netherlands, Portugal, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom.
Websites within the EU should comply with several EU directives, such as the Privacy Directives from 1995 and 1997, the E-Commerce Directive and the Directive on long-distance selling. 60 percent of the websites don't explain the exact buying procedure to consumers. An equal majority doesn't explain the right to cancel an order within 7 days, no matter what the reason is. Only in Great Britain a majority of companies complies with the obligation to explain the procedure. But less than 50 percent of these companies point to the right to cancel an order. In Switzerland, Portugal and the Netherlands, more than two-thirds of websites omit to tell about this crucial consumer right.
The researchers have also looked at the availability of the standard business terms (SBT). Almost 70 percent of the websites don't allow users to download these terms. And if they do, only in 6% of the cases they offer them in the freely available PDF-format. Germany even scores a saddening 0 percent on the availability in PDF.
A copy of the report is available via info at degier-stam.nl (refer to Louise de Gier).
On 11 April German parliament agreed on the implementation-proposal of the EU Copyright Directive (EUCD). Only the small liberal opposition party opposed. Public debate centered around new educational and scientific limitations on copyright. The new law allows teachers to make works available to a limited group of class members, e.g. in an intranet, for the sole purpose of teaching, or to a limited group of persons for their own scientific research to the degree necessary by a given purpose and only for non-commercial use.
Academic publishing houses feared that they would loose a major source of income, suggesting that libraries would purchase one copy of a book and make it available on the Internet to all the world. The law however limits the use to small parts of published works, works of small extent, and single articles from newspapers and magazines. Schoolbooks are excluded completely. In the first two years after the start of the exploitation, film works may be used only with the consent of the rightsholder.
The law translates all the obligatory provisions of the EUCD into German copyright law. Authors are granted a new exclusive 'right of making available', i.e. the right to control the on-line use of their works. 'Technical measures', i.e. digital rights management systems (DRM) are protected against circumvention. Following the EUCD in its strictest form, there is not a single exception in which circumvention would be legal. Circumvention for non-commercial personal use however, does not incur criminal or penal charges, as is the case for commercial use, but rightsholders can sue for damages.
The limitations on copyright in the public interest that existed in German copyright law before, have also been translated into the digital realm. Two new limitations for transient copies and for the benefit of people with a disability have been added from the catalogue of the EUCD.
The private copy limitation states that single reproductions of a work by a natural person for private non-commercial use on any, i.e. including digital, medium are permitted. This like most other limitations is bound to the condition that rightsholders receive fair compensation, i.e. a levy paid on copying devices and empty media to a collecting society. But on the internet, the right to make a private copy is completely left to the will of the copyright owners. According to the European Directive, they are free to prevent any specific usage through Digital Rights Management. German government apparently did not put much hope in voluntary industry action, introducing a fine of 50.000 Euro for companies that don't honour the limitations on copyright. But they specifically exclude this enforcement mechanism for works marketed on-line. Without that enforcement, the digital fair use copy for personal purposes, though explicitly guaranteed, is thus in fact abolished.
(Contribution by Volker Grassmuck, co-initiator privatkopie.net)
Overview of the state of implementation of the Copyright Directive
throughout Europe
http://wiki.ael.be/index.php/EUCD-Status
The controversy in the UK around the introduction of an 'entitlement card' was stirred up again last week by the Home Office (the Ministry of Internal Affairs for England and Wales). The Sunday Telegraph reported that Home Secretary David Blunkett (the minister) intends to charge people 35 - 43 euros for the cards. Thus he hopes to win over the Treasury department who balked at the estimated cost of 2.3 billion euros. Blunkett seems convinced that people's concerns over terrorism and immigration would mean that they would not object to the cost of the card.
Another issue raised in the consultation was the type of identity verification that would be used on the card. The Home office proposed the use of iris scans while opponents believed that such a technology was not sufficiently developed for large scale implementation and that people would resist the idea of having their eyes scanned. Despite these concerns iris recognition is still being considered.
Identity cards are seen as a highly contentious issue within the UK where no scheme has existed since 1957. A conservative Government evaluated a modern scheme in the mid 1990s but was unable to garner sufficient public support as people's privacy concerns outweighed the perceived advantages of an identity card. Following the events of 11 September Blunkett revived the initiative to combat terrorism, illegal immigration, benefit fraud and identity theft.
In July 2002 the Home Office initiated a public consultation about introducing an 'entitlement card'. Up to the beginning of January 2003 the Government had received 2000 responses to the consultation. It claimed that these were broadly in favour of the scheme though critics argued that many of these submissions were from companies hoping to benefit from the implementation of a card system. During January 2003 civil rights groups including STAND.org and EDRI-member Privacy International raised the profile of the debate within the mainstream press. This activity meant that a further 5000 comments were submitted before the end of the consultation exercise on 31 January. Many of these submissions are expected to be critical of the Governments proposals. Concerns include 'function creep' with the card being required for more purposes over time, the vulnerability of a central database, the likelihood of a card addressing the issues given for its introduction and the cost of implementing such a large project.
Article in the Sunday Telegraph (20.04.2003)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/main.jhtml?xml=%2Fnews%2F2003%2F04%2F2...
UK Government consultation pages
http://www.homeoffice.gov.uk/comrace/entitlements/index.html
Privacy International's UK entitlement card pages
http://www.privacyinternational.org/issues/idcard/uk/
(Contribution by Matthew Postgate, FIPR)
During a meeting of the Freedom of Speech Committee of the Parliament and Council of Europe on 18 April, Privacy Ukraine presented a report on Internet censorship in Ukraine. Though the Ukrainian parliament has organised several hearings on censorship, and earlier this month even adopted legislation clarifying the term 'censorship', the overall perspective is bleak.
Freedom of speech is one of the most vulnerable freedoms in Ukraine. The list of annual illegal actions against journalists in Ukraine (the so called 'Freedom of Speech Barometer') is long. Traditional media such as TV and broadcasting in most cases depend on the official pro-presidential propaganda. The official position of the President Kuchma and his entourage with regard to Internet on the whole and e-media in particular deletes any hope for progress in the field until the collapse of the regime.
The report describes 3 censorship incidents in detail.
On 27 June 2001 the private apartment of Mr. Yeltsov, the editor-in-chief of e-media 'Ukraina Kriminalna' (Criminal Ukraine), was seized by SBU. The criminal proceedings were instituted because of the on-line publication of secret documents and an article titled 'From the Life of Derkatch's Family' about the activity of former chief of SBU Leonid Derkatch and his son, a member of Ukrainian Parliament, describing their business relations with Ukraine's oligarchy.
On 19 February 2002 the premises of the on-line political newspaper 'Obkom' were searched by tax administration officials even though they only had a warrant to search a bank situated on the floor below. The officials seized computer equipment and archives. Although the tax authority later said the search had been done 'by accident', the computers were never returned. The on-line version of the edition recommenced nearly a year after the incident, on January 8, 2003. The complaints issued by 'Obkom' were considered by the court, but Kyiv City Regional Prosecutor Office refused to initiate criminal proceedings against officials due to the 'lack of legal grounds'.
On 24 October 2002 the editorial premises of the on-line newspaper 'Antiterror' of the Regional Department of the Ministry of Internal Affairs in Lviv City were searched and computers seized by policemen. On-line publication of the text of the indictment against President Kuchma issued by the judge of the Kyiv Appeal Court was the reason for these measures. The contracts with all editorial staff of this on-line medium were terminated in a few days.
Electronic mass-media: the last bulwark of democracy in Ukraine?
http://internetrights.org.ua/pages.php?text=news&date=2003-04-18
Freedom of Speech Barometer (English and Ukrainian)
http://en.imi.org.ua/
(Contribution by Andriy Pazyuk, Privacy Ukraine)
Early in April, the Dutch Lower House silently approved of a change of the Telecommunication Law that lowers access barriers to personal data substantially. All 40.000 policemen will have the right to demand the name and address data of all telephony and internet subscribers. There is no need for the user to be a suspect, requests can be made in the general context of investigating serious crime.
Currently, access to the central database with the data of telephony subscribers is limited to the 500 public prosecutors (and the secret service). Internet providers in the Netherlands are not yet obliged to store the Name Address data of their users in this central database, but might become very eager to do so in the future, when faced with countless requests from police officers with little or no knowledge of internet.
The proposal also lowers the access barriers on traffic data. Public prosecutors no longer need judicial approval for demands to hand over traffic data or orders to analyse traffic data to produce the proper identity of a user.
Currently, there is no general legal obligation in the Netherlands to retain traffic data. There is only 1 specific measure obliging telephone companies to retain the location data of mobile telephony users for 3 months. New obligations however, can be introduced any time, without parliamentary approval.
A Spanish judge last month dismissed charges against a website accused of hyperlinking to illegal material. The website www.ajoderse.com (which means 'fuck off') was accused based on the article 17 of the LSSICE (the Spanish version of the European E-Commerce Directive). The site includes hyperlinks to websites which, supposedly, describe techniques to descramble TV satellite signals, to get pay TV for free.
The judge gave 2 reasons to dismiss the case:
A) It was not properly stated in court that the linked pages where indeed illegal. B) It was not clearly shown that the owners of ajoderse.com were aware of the illegal nature of the linked webpages.
Without proof of these two prerequisites the judge would not apply article 17.
Nevertheless, article 17 could still turn out to be a powerful instrument for digital censorship. It is easy for the Spanish government to declare some site illegal, make it public in a newspaper, and then ask for the closure of every annoying web with hyperlinks to the now illegal site.
The sentence is important because it is the first application of the LSSICE, and it shows how this legislation differs from the European directive it is supposed to mimic, as the last one has no provisions about linking to illegal pages.
Text of the sentence (in Spanish) (07.03.2003)
http://www.bufetalmeida.com/sentencias/ajoderse.html
(Contribution by David Casacuberta, CPSR)
The human rights group Privacy International (PI) has announced that it will this year host the first international Big Brother Awards. The Awards, which started in the UK in 1998, were established to 'name and shame' the most relentless government and private sector privacy invaders. They have now become an annual event in fifteen countries. More than thirty national BBA ceremonies have taken place over the past five years.
Privacy International will be staging the awards as an annual event in London on 25 June, on the hundredth birthday of George Orwell, whose novel Nineteen Eighty-Four inspired the name of the award. A panel of more than a hundred experts from thirty countries will decide on the most significant and dangerous global privacy threats.
PI Director, Simon Davies, said his organisation decided to host the international event because of the vast influence of regional and global initiatives and institutions. "The threat posed by these unaccountable and powerful bodies cannot be overstated", he said. "The international influence of the US and the growth of international cooperation between governments is rapidly undermining national protections". Davies says the inaugural global award will take place during a celebration dinner to mark Orwell's 100th. "We are taking this initiative very seriously, and hope to attract many of the world's noted advocates to the event."
"The national awards have been a crucial step in raising public awareness. We feel these important ceremonies must be complemented by an initiative that crosses national boundaries."
Places at the awards are strictly limited. Anyone interested in attending should contact Simon Davies at simon at privacy.org.
The Big Brother Awards
http://www.privacyinternational.org/bigbrother/
Very readworthy booklet published by the Organisation for Security and Co-operation in Europe (OSCE).
Experts from UNESCO and the Council of Europe as well as journalists and internet service providers contributed their papers from a one-day workshop on freedom of the media and the Internet that was held in Vienna in November 2002.
The topics of the papers include universal access to Cyberspace; Council of Europe activities regarding new information and communication technologies; the diminishing importance of constitutional rights in the Internet age; the importance of the public domain for creativity, innovation, and culture; and censorship and intellectual property rights in an international context.
In his contribution 'Burning the village to roast the pig', Felipe Rodriquez (founder of NL internet provider XS4ALL) outlines different approaches to censorship and technical means of escaping it. Optimistically he concludes: "Implementing any kind of on-line censorship is a technological battle, any censorship technology can, and will, be defeated."
From quill to cursor: freedom of the media in the digital era (14.04.2003)
http://www.osce.org/documents/rfm/2003/04/41_en.pdf