Press review
[Publico.es] La ley anti P2P de Francia aumenta la "piratería" un 3%
Un estudio muestra que la industria cultural podría perder el 27% de sus clientes en Internet
Hace tres meses, el ministro francés de Cultura, Frédéric Mitterrand, sacó pecho con su ley anti P2P, que prevé cortar la conexión a Internet a los usuarios que se descarguen sin pagar contenidos protegidos, y presumió de que ha impulsado a otros países europeos a reforzar "la protección de la propiedad intelectual y el desarrollo de la oferta legal en Internet". [...]
Para Jérémie Zimmermann, portavoz de La Quadrature du Net, una organización de defensa de los derechos ciudadanos en Internet, este informe no es ninguna sorpresa: "La industria siempre ha ido contra sus mejores clientes. En EEUU, las discográficas decían que la radio iba a matar la música, hasta que se demostró que los radioyentes compraban más discos".
http://www.publico.es/ciencias/300741/ley/anti/p/p/francia/aumenta/pirat...
[ElMundo.Es] España lleva a la UE un documento que mezcla propiedad intelectual con pornografía infantil y xenofobia
"¿Cómo combatir las violaciones de la propiedad intelectual y los contenidos xenófobos y racistas y de pornografía infantil en Internet?" Esta es la pregunta que la Presidencia española de la UE hace a sus socios comunitarios en un documento (PDF) que los ministros de Justicia de la UE van a discutir de manera informal hoy.
Las asociaciones de activistas de Internet Red SOStenible y La Quadrature du Net denunciaron ayer en un comunicado que España ha enviado al consejo de la Unión Europea un documento en el que "se equiparan a la brocha gorda la pedofilía, la propaganda fundamentalista y xenófoba y la vulneración de la propiedad intelectual".
http://www.elmundo.es/elmundo/2010/02/26/navegante/1267178120.html
[Publico.es] El texto que equipara pedofilia en la Red y el P2P es "desafortunado"
Fuentes diplomáticas reconoce que el texto recoge "temas sensibles que no tienen que ver entre sí" [...]
"Retroceso" La asociación La Quadrature du Net critica la frase en la que la presidencia española califica a Internet como "un instrumento de retroceso social" gracias al "anonimato que inicialmente proporciona" para difundir "contenidos racistas y xenófobos".
http://www.publico.es/ciencias/298113/ue/debatira/mismo/nivel/pedofilia/...
[ElEconomista.es] España compara la pedofilia con la vulneración de la propiedad intelectual
La presidencia europea española ha dirigido al consejo de la Unión Europea un documento en el que se equipara la pedofilía, la propaganda fundamentalista y xenófoba y la vulneración de la propiedad intelectual. [...]
La respuesta no se ha hecho esperar y el colectivo Red SOStenible y La Quadrature du Net ha elaborado un comunicado donde denuncian el texto por su "claro cariz propagandista y por el evidente intento de justificar a nivel europeo, a través de la burda criminalización, las operaciones de apoyo incondicional a los lobbies de la industria cultural que España quiere llevar a cabo dentro de su territorio a través de la DF1 de la LES".
http://ecodiario.eleconomista.es/internet/noticias/1940228/02/10/Un-docu...
[EurActiv.com] 2020 plan pins hopes on 'Digital Agenda'
High-speed Internet, lower prices and unlocking the potential of unused spectrum waves for new services all feature in the EU's new strategy for growth and jobs, dubbed 'Europe 2020', according to a leaked document seen by EurActiv. [...]
An NGO for a commercially neutral internet, La Quadrature du Net, warned Kroes not to use high-speed Internet as a "justification for abandoning net neutrality, which is an essential engine for growth and competition in the digital environment," according to a statement from the group's founder, Jérémie Zimmermann.
http://www.euractiv.com/en/infosociety/digital-agenda-put-eu-back-gear-n...
[di.Com.pl] ACTA: Parlament Europejski wyrazi sprzeciw?
Czterech europosłów przygotowało pisemne oświadczenie przeciwko ACTA. Jeśli podpisze się pod nim więcej niż połowa eurodeputowanych, to zostanie ono przyjęte jako oficjalne stanowisko Parlamentu Europejskiego. To dobra okazja, aby skontaktować się z polskimi europosłami i zwrócić im uwagę na niebezpieczny pakt tworzony za plecami obywateli.
Czytaj: ACTA: jest kolejny przeciek i krytyka EDPS
Teraz kolejny krok podjęli europosłowie. Jak informuje grupa La Quadrature du Net, czterech członków PE przygotowało oświadczenie pisemne sprzeciwiające się ACTA. Autorzy oświadczenia to: Zuzana Roithova (Czechy, EPP), Stavros Lambrinidis (Grecja, S&D), Alexander Alvaro (Niemcy, ALDE) oraz Françoise Castex (Francja, S&D).
Zgodnie z funkcjonującymi w PE zasadami nie więcej niż pięciu posłów może przedstawić pisemne oświadczenie dotyczące kompete
[EuObserver] EU privacy watchdog hammers secret anti-piracy talks
The European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS), Peter Hustinx, on Monday (22 February) issued a formal opinion concluding that the EU executive was endangering EU data protection rules and even internet users' fundamental rights by engaging in talks with the US, Canada, Japan and other powers on a new multilateral agreement to combat counterfeiting and piracy - the proposed Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (Acta).
"The EDPS regrets that he was not consulted by the European Commission on the content of an agreement that raises significant issues as regards individuals' fundamental rights, and in particular their right to privacy and data protection," Mr Hustinx' office said in a statement.
"Whereas intellectual property is important to society and must be protected, it should not be placed above individuals' fundamental rights to privacy and data protection," he said.
[ElPais] Estados Unidos quiere empujar Europa a imponer el filtrado de Internet
En la última reunión, en México, de los países que negocian secretamente el tratado del ACTA, contra la falsificación y para proteger la propiedad intelectual, Estados Unidos ha propuesto el filtrado de contenidos en Internet. Un documento filtrado, que se discutirá en la próxima reunión en Nueva Zelanda y redactado por Estados Unidos será la base de las discusiones. [...]
Numerama destaca que en una nota a pie de página se cita como ejemplo de esta política la llamada "respuesta gradual" que se aplica en Francia (cortar la conexión al infractor tras tres avisos). [...]
http://www.elpais.com/articulo/tecnologia/Estados/Unidos/quiere/empujar/...
[Internautas] Una filtración de ACTA confirma la amenaza y la incompatibilidad con la legislación de la Unión Europea
Un documento que podría ser la propuesta de capítulo de Internet de ACTA de EEUU [1] se ha filtrado. Caso de ser auténtico, el texto confirmaría los temores expresados por una amplia coalición de organizaciones de la sociedad civil[2] de que los operadores de Internet podrían convertirse en la policía privada de la Red. Los negociadores de la Unión Europea deben rechazar estas propuestas que ofenden la ley comunitaria y ponen seriamente en peligro los derechos y libertades de los usuarios de Internet. [...]
"Este documento muestra que ACTA impondría regulaciones a medida de las industrias del entretenimiento de los EEUU para Internet. Las sanciones civiles y penales podrían cambiar completamente el justo equilibrio de la actual ley europea sobre proveedores de Internet [3]. Los negociadores europeos deben oponerse a este rodeo de los procedimientos democráticos, dirigido a poner a Internet bajo una total vigilancia por actores privados." concluye Jérémie Zimmermann, portavoz del grupo de defensa de los ciudadanos, radicado en París, La Quadrature du Net.
[V3.co.uk] European Data Protection Supervisor slams ACTA
Peter Hustinx, the European Data Protection Supervisor (EDPS), spoke out today against the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), claiming that it could prove unworkable under current European Union data protection laws.
The ACTA is currently being hammered out in South Korea by the EU, US, Japan, Australia and several other countries in an effort to combat copyright infringement and the trade in counterfeit goods.
http://www.v3.co.uk/v3/news/2258275/european-protection-supervisor
[TheInquirer] World going barmy over copyright enforcement
IT IS NOT CLEAR how accurate it is yet but someone has posted a copy of what appears to be the crucial enforcement section of the secret copyright treaty that the publishing cartels want the world to accept. [...]
According to citizen advocacy group La Quadrature du Net the draft would constitute caving in to the entertainment corporations' demands and profoundly alter the structure of the Internet.
"This document shows that ACTA would impose regulations tailored by US entertainment industries to the Internet," said Jérémie Zimmermann, spokesperson of La Quadrature du Net. [...]
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1592981/world-barmy-copyright-e...
[ComputerWorld] Leaked ACTA draft reveals plans for internet clampdown
ISPs must snoop on subscribers or face being sued by content owners [...]
The US, Europe and other countries including New Zealand are secretly drawing up rules designed to crack down on copyright abuse on the internet, in part by making ISPs liable for illegal content, according to a copy of part of the confidential draft agreement that was seen by the IDG News Service. [...]
"Discussions still focus on clarification of different technical concepts, therefore, there was not much progress in terms of common text. The US and the EU agreed to make presentations of their own systems at the next round, to clarify issues."
The Commission official refused to comment on the content of the leaked documents.
The next meeting of ACTA negotiators will take place in New Zealand in April.
http://computerworld.co.nz/news.nsf/news/leaked-acta-draft-treaty-reveal...
[ZeroPaid] France Edges Closer to Filtering the Internet
National Assembly approves law requiring ISPs to block access to list of banned websites in the name of fighting child pornography, but critics point out that purveyors of this obscene material long ago turned to encrypted P2P methods to deliver content, making filtering efforts pointless and jeopardizing free speech in the process. [...]
A study by journalist Fabrice Epelboin on the business of child pornography notes that most already use encrypted P2P networks to distribute content. [...]
“We are seeing a whole series of lapses and rights limitations,” says Jean-Pierre Dubois, president of the French League of Human Rights. [...]
http://www.zeropaid.com/news/88105/france-edges-closer-to-filtering-the-...
[CNet] Skype in a struggle to be heard on mobile phones
BARCELONA, Spain--Josh Silverman, the chief executive of Skype, the voice over Internet phone service, could tick off the names of mobile phone operators that block his company's service.
But for Silverman, a 41-year-old Michigan native, it is quicker to name those that allow it, no strings attached.
"The two operators that have really embraced us are 3 in Europe and Verizon Wireless in the United States," Silverman said Wednesday at the Mobile World Congress, the industry's annual convention, in Barcelona. "But we are making progress, and operators are beginning to change their attitudes." [...]
"Such practices illustrate how operators' business models based on control and discrimination of data flows really harm competition as well as the fundamental freedom of communication allowed by Internet," said Jérémie Zimmermann, the director of La Quadrature du Net, a group in Paris that opposes efforts to control public access to the Internet. [...]
http://news.cnet.com/Skype-in-a-struggle-to-be-heard-on-mobile-phones/21...
[NYTimes] Skype in a Struggle to Be Heard on Mobile Phones
BARCELONA, Spain — Josh Silverman, the chief executive of Skype, the voice-over-Internet phone service, could tick off the names of mobile phone operators that block his company’s service. [...]
However, the barriers to Skype and similar Internet calling services, like Google Voice, are coming under increasing scrutiny as the Internet goes mobile. By 2013, the number of Internet-ready mobile phones will surpass the number of computers in the world for the first time, according to Gartner, a research firm.
“Such practices illustrate how operators’ business models based on control and discrimination of data flows really harm competition as well as the fundamental freedom of communication allowed by Internet,” said Jérémie Zimmermann, the director of La Quadrature du Net, a group in Paris that opposes efforts to control public access to the Internet.
[ArsTechnica] Move over, Australia: France taking 'Net censorship lead
Critics of government-mandated filtering schemes contend that such programs first focus on "child pornography" because it's such an unobjectionable target for censorship—but once the program is in place, it's much easier to extend it to more controversial areas, such as copyright protection. At least the French have the decency to admit that this is what's happening.
The French lower house, the National Assembly, has just passed a security bill known as LOPPSI2, [...]
As for France, plenty of heated opposition can be found there as well. Jérémie Zimmermann of Internet rights group La Quadrature du Net said last week, "Protection of childhood is shamelessly exploited by Nicolas Sarkozy to implement a measure that will lead to collateral censorship and very dangerous drifts. After the HADOPI comes the LOPPSI: the securitarian machinery of the government is being deployed in an attempt to control the Internet at the expense of freedoms."
Censorship... it's not just for authoritarian states anymore. Such issues are increasingly part of the discourse in democracies, including Indonesia, the most populous Muslim-majority democracy. [...]
http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/news/2010/02/move-over-australia-fran...
[V3.Co.Uk] Iceland set for boost to online freedoms
A document will be submitted to the Icelandic parliament tomorrow that has the potential to bring the country's inhabitants stronger online freedoms than anywhere else in Europe.
"In the UK a letter from a lawyer can cause any content to be removed from a web site, but if this initiative is adopted in Iceland a legal letter would have to be sent to a judge before any web site content is taken down," said Jérémie Zimmermann, co-founder of citizens' rights group La Quadrature du Net.
Zimmermann pointed to the contrast between Iceland's move to online transparency and the UK's attempt to ban illegal downloaders from the internet.
http://www.v3.co.uk/v3/news/2257909/iceland-set-europe-strongest
[TheInquirer] France falls under Internet censorship
THE FRENCH PARLIAMENT has buckled under pressure and approved the Sarkozy government's authoritarian plans to censor the Internet.
The government opposed all objections to its plans to filter Internet sites, which have been controversial throughout French society. Today La Quadrature du Net, a French openness group, said that the action would give the government total control over its citizens' access to the Internet. It added that Nicholas Sarkozy was using excuses to clear a path for his rules, which ultimately would come at the expense of liberty.
Jérémie Zimmermann, a spokesperson for La Quadrature du Net, said that any censorship should have been trialled before being approved, explaining, "The refusal to enact Net filtering as an experimental measure is a proof of the ill-intended objective of the government. Making Net filtering a temporary measure would have shown that it is uneffective to fight child pornography."
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/news/1591582/france-falls-internet-c...
[ComputerWeekly] Google slams French plans to tax online news aggregators
A French proposal to tax online advertising revenues to subsidise struggling newspapers and music companies has drawn fire from the internet community.
The proposal was contained in a government-sponsored research paper following claims that news aggregators such as Google, Microsoft, AOL, Yahoo and Facebook are profiting from their work without paying for it.
Internet activist Quadrature du Net said the tax would make all taxpayers pay for "out of date businesses".
In a separate response to a European Commission consultation on creative content in the digital age, it said the authorities should seek to "reorganise the internet-based creative economy around the emancipatory practices enabled by new technologies, such as the sharing and re-use of creative works."
http://www.computerweekly.com/Articles/2010/01/08/239869/Google-slams-Fr...
[Guardian.co.uk] Opposition to digital economy bill grows
Government's proposed 'three strikes' rule would damage business, say hotels and public institutions [...]
Opposition to the government's digital economy bill has increased sharply, with strong criticism in the House of Lords for its failure to offer "due judicial process" to people accused of illicit filesharing under the proposed "three strikes" rules of the bill. [...]
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2010/feb/05/digital-economy-bill
[Publico.es] España impulsará una ley europea antiP2P
La presidencia española de la UE pretende homogeneizar las legislaciones de la propiedad intelectual en Internet. De la Vega asegura que se tendrá en cuenta a "todos los sectores" en la nueva regulación [...]
http://www.publico.es/ciencias/275646/espana/impulsara/ley/europea/antip/p
[EurActiv] Brussels denies rumours of secret anti-piracy treaty
An upcoming global trade agreement on copyright and counterfeiting, known as ACTA, will not rewrite EU rules on the liability of internet service providers, a leading European Commission official told EurActiv, denying media reports that suggest otherwise. [...]
La Quadrature du Net, a web pressure group, maintains that ACTA will create legal uncertainty for ISPs, which will start to self-censor what happens on their networks and "bend under the pressure of the entertainment industries". [...]
"By creating legal uncertainty for the internet operators, ACTA will force them to bend under the pressure of entertainment industries. ACTA will compel internet service providers to filter and remove content and services, turning them into private police and justice auxiliaries. We cannot tolerate that restrictions to fundamental rights and freedoms be imposed by private actors. Such a modification of criminal law by governments themselves, in total opacity, shows how much the people behind ACTA hate democracy," according to Jérémie Zimmermann, spokesperson for citizens' advocacy group La Quadrature du Net.
http://www.euractiv.com/en/infosociety/brussels-denies-rumours-secret-an...
[TheWashingtonPost] ACTA absurdity continues, may only get worse
The saga of the misleadingly named "Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement" has only gotten more ridiculous since I decried it in November.
For those of you whose eyes (understandably) glaze over at any mention of multilateral trade agreements, ACTA is an attempt by the United States and dozens of other countries to write new rules to combat counterfeiting of trademarked goods, as its name suggests, and to stop copyright violations as well, a goal left out of its moniker. (If you've got a spare 90 minutes, you can watch a video of a panel discussion I led about ACTA at Google's Washington offices last month.) [...]
Now remember that the discussion about ACTA is just getting warmed up. I can only imagine what will happen when the more... motivated Tea Party types start paying attention to stories with headline descriptions like "SECRET COPYRIGHT TREATY." Care to take a guess at how the debate will turn at that point?
http://voices.washingtonpost.com/fasterforward/2010/02/acta_absurdity_co...
[IPWatch] ACTA Negotiators Report No Breakthroughs On Transparency
Offering no details - as is their standard - government negotiators for a global anticounterfeiting treaty this week declared a commitment to make efforts to find ways to increase transparency and inclusion of public input in the secretive talks. But they stopped short of actually committing to increased transparency and inclusion, or explaining the continued need for secrecy. [...]
http://www.ip-watch.org/weblog/2010/01/31/acta-negotiators-make-no-break...
[FT.Com] Secret deal aims to scuttle internet pirates.
Persistent illegal downloaders face having their internet links disconnected under a secret trade deal being negotiated by developed nations this week, according to activists and industry groups.
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/0/aeecd740-0c55-11df-8b81-00144feabdc0.html?ncli...
