Paris, February 3rd, 2012 – Sharing: Culture and the Economy in the Internet Age is out! Philippe Aigrain, co-founder of La Quadrature du Net, in collaboration with Suzanne Aigrain, describes the creative contribution, a financial model designed to sustain an expanding creative economy in a context where sharing is recognized as a right.

Paris, November 17th, 2011 – The European Parliament today massively adopted its resolution on Net neutrality, calling on the EU Commission to protect the open Internet, which is put at risk by an increasing number of restrictions imposed by telecoms operators. This overall positive resolution urges EU Commissioner Neelie Kroes to depart from her failed wait-and-see approach by rapidly assessing the need for further regulation to keep the Internet open and free. This votes represent a political commitment by the European Parliament to protecting the Internet from any form of restriction or censorship.

The European body of telecommunications regulators has launched a consultation on its draft guidelines on "Net neutrality and transparency". Quite shockingly, these guidelines have actually nothing to do with Net neutrality, and instead readily accept that telecom operators can restrict access to the Internet as long as users are informed. They only prove that mere transparency and competition will not prevent operators from violating Net neutrality.

La Quadrature du Net has written to two key committees of the European Parliament regarding the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA). As the EU Parliament engages in preparatory works in view of its upcoming consent vote on ACTA, La Quadrature stresses that the Parliament must fully assess the dangers of this agreement for innovation, competition and competitiveness of EU businesses, but also for human rights.

La Quadrature has sent its response to the consultation1 on online gambling organised by the European Commission. Citizens and NGOs should join our effort in urging the EU public authorities to ban any form of website blocking.

• 1. See http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/consultations/2011/online_gambling_e...

With the EU Commission's announcement of the upcoming release of a memo regarding the signature and ratification of ACTA by the European Union, La Quadrature has sent a letter to Christine Lagarde, French Minister of Economic Affairs. The citizen advocacy group solemnly asks France not to sign this dangerous and illegitimate agreement and encourages citizens from all the negotiating countries to do the same.

The signatories of this statement are representatives of civil society from around the world working towards the promotion of Internet freedom, digital rights, and open communication.

What if Internet users were more than just users? Given the possibility of taking up the airwaves, they could become not just content providers, but also access providers. We would then be more than mere consumers, and the Internet's acentered and multipolar architecture would be preserved.

As the European Commission's consultation on the revision of the anti-sharing directive (IPRED) is coming to an end, let's look at a hearing that took place in January at the European Court of Justice. At issue is the injunction pronounced by a Belgian judge forcing an Internet Access Provider (IAP) to implement broad filtering mechanisms to block all unauthorized transmissions of copyrighted works. In this case, the Commission is pushing forward a pro-copyright industry approach by calling for more repression. Such increased repression is also promoted through the upcoming revision of IPRED. It has to be stopped.

La Quadrature du Net sent its response (in French) to the pre-report prepared by the French Parliament's working group on Net neutrality.

Paris, February 8th 2011 – Yesterday afternoon, the French Parliament voted the LOPPSI bill whose 4th article1 enables administrative censorship of the Internet, using child protection as a Trojan horse. Over time, such an extra-judiciary set-up will enable a generalized censorship of all Internet content. Consistent with Nicolas Sarkozy projects for a “Civilized Internet”, administrative censorship of the Internet opens the door to dangerous abuse while leaving pedophiles and pedo-pornography to prosper.

• 1. “When the necessities of the fight against the distribution of images or representations of minors relative to the dispositions of article 227-23 of the Penal Code justify it, the administrative authority notifies the persons mentioned at 1[online access providers] of the Internet addresses to which these persons must at once block access to.”
  “A decree specifies the terms of application of the above paragraph, including those according to which online access providers are compensated, if necessary, for the additional costs resulting from the obligation made to said online access providers.”; Translated from the official text.

On January 26th, two members of the European Parliament1 wrote to the Commission to ask about the ongoing “Stakeholder's Dialogue on Online Copyright Infringements” organized by the EU Commission (DG Internal Market2). For more than a year, the Commission has been convening regular meetings with the copyright lobbies and Internet Service Providers (telecoms operators, hosting platforms and search engines) in order to foster “cooperation” between them. But under the guise of “cooperation”, and under the threat of legislation, the Commission and rights-holders are pressuring ISPs to become the private copyright police of the Internet.

• 1. Stavros Lambrinidis and Françoise Castex
• 2. Internal Market Directorate General, headed by Commissioner Michel Barnier, whose portfolio includes “intellectual property”