Hi Stephen,
Can you clarify what kinds of questions or feedback you are seeking in regards to posts that you make to the Advocacy Advisers list? While I find the information useful and interesting, I'm not sure what discussion or feedback would be useful to WMF.
Thanks,
Pine
Hello all,
On Friday, the Republican Study Committee released a policy brief on "Three
Myths about Copyright Law and Where to Start to Fix it". The paper
discusses four potential policy solutions: (1) reform statutory damages;
(2) expand fair use; (3) punish false copyright claims; and, (4) limit
copyright terms and have heavy disincentives for renewal.
A copy of the report is attached, and "Infringement Nation" (Tehranian
2007) is available here:
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=1029151
On Saturday, the executive director of the RSC sent out a letter
withdrawing the brief:
From: Teller, Paul
Sent: Saturday, November 17, 2012 04:11 PM
Subject: RSC Copyright PB
We at the RSC take pride in providing informative analysis of major policy
issues and pending legislation that accounts for the range of perspectives
held by RSC Members and within the conservative community. Yesterday you
received a Policy Brief on copyright law that was published without
adequate review within the RSC and failed to meet that standard. Copyright
reform would have far-reaching impacts, so it is incredibly important that
it be approached with all facts and viewpoints in hand. As the RSC’s
Executive Director, I apologize and take full responsibility for this
oversight. Enjoy the rest of your weekend and a meaningful Thanksgiving
holiday....
Paul S. Teller
Executive Director
U.S. House Republican Study Committee
Paul.Teller(a)mail.house.gov
http://republicanstudycommittee.com
More coverage:
* http://www.politico.com/news/stories/1112/84018.html?hp=r5
*
http://www.volokh.com/2012/11/16/republicans-repudiate-40-years-of-tougher-…
*
http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20121116/16481921080/house-republicans-cop…
Best,
Stephen
--
*For legal reasons, I may only serve as an attorney for the Wikimedia
Foundation. This means I may not give legal advice to or serve as a lawyer
for community members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal
capacity.*
Google updated their transparency report, showing an increase in government
requests in January-June 2012. They report 1,791 requests to remove content
(from 1,048 in the last half of 2011) and 20,938 requests to disclose user
data (from 18,257 in the last half of 2011).
Announcement:
http://googleblog.blogspot.ca/2012/11/transparency-report-government-reques…
The full report: http://www.google.com/transparencyreport/
--
Stephen LaPorte
Legal Counsel
Wikimedia Foundation
*For legal reasons, I may only serve as an attorney for the Wikimedia
Foundation. This means I may not give legal advice to or serve as a lawyer
for community members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal
capacity.*
Dear Stephen:
Thank you for your requests and the information you have been sending.
It is deeply appreciated. I agree with the Italian and Philippines'
protest, and I wonder why the protest in Russia is not much stronger.
What if someone asked Putin about specific instances of blacklist
leakages and the scandals which resulted from those? In any case, I
have several more questions:
Does the Foundation intend to take a position on the Bradley Manning
case? A plea of not guilty for lack of scienter is unavailable in
military court. Does the Foundation support his attempt to enter that
plea? Does the Foundation believe that Manning's likely conclusion
given the evidence available to him was that he was upholding the
spirit of the law while deliberately violating the letter? Does the
Foundation support Manning's motion to dismiss for lack of a speedy
trial?
Will the Foundation please ask the Secretary of Defense to declare
that patents which adversely affect national security including the
security inherent in computer programming education as necessary to
perform computer security audits must be available under reasonable
and non-discriminatory license terms?
Will the Foundation please support pro-education policies such as
class size reduction, pay equality by increased pay for women, tuition
subsidies for gross fixed capital formation, and evaluation of
publication impact by readership as well as reputation?
Will the Foundation please support general devolution of power to
people equally? For example: http://j.mp/amendmentact
Best regards,
James Salsman
On Fri, Nov 2, 2012 at 12:51 PM, Stephen LaPorte <slaporte(a)wikimedia.org> wrote:
> The BBC has a story on the law that the Russian Wikipedia community
> protested:
>
> If the websites themselves cannot be shut down, internet service providers
> (ISPs) and web hosting companies can be forced to block access to the
> offending material.
>
> The list of banned website will be managed by Roskomnadzor (Russia's Federal
> Service for Supervision in Telecommunications, Information Technology and
> Mass Communications). It is meant to be updated daily, but its contents are
> not available to the general public.
>
>
> http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20096274
Worth noting:
http://rapsinews.com/news/20121112/265322007.html
---o0o---
Lurkmore, a popular Russian online encyclopedia, was added to the register
of websites containing banned information, after which its IP address was
blocked, Lurkmore's Twitter account has announced.
Lurkmore is a popular resource similar to Wikipedia, though, unlike the
latter, it focuses on collecting information on various Internet memes,
popular figures, Internet resources and subcultures. As with Wikipedia,
users write and edit the articles themselves.
[...]
If a site contains child porn, suicide or drug making instructions, it can
be shut down even before a trial. As regards other prohibited information,
the decision on whether to close the website will be taken on the basis of
the court ruling.
---o0o---
Hello,
The Tagalog Wikipedia community is considering a blackout in protest of
the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012. Here is an English translation of
the notice:
NOTE: Please encourage all the community to join Wikipediang Tagalog talk
about the proposed pagsasansala (blackout) of Wikipediang Tagalog against
Republic Act No. 10175, or the Cybercrime Prevention Act of 2012. Please
participate in the ongoing conversation in the Cafe. Thank you.
The notice:
https://tl.wikipedia.org/w/index.php?title=MediaWiki:Sitenotice&oldid=11441…
Discussion:
https://tl.wikipedia.org/wiki/Usapang_Wikipedia:Kapihan#Iminungkahing_pagsa…
--
Stephen LaPorte
Legal Counsel
Wikimedia Foundation
*
*
*For legal reasons, I may only serve as an attorney for the Wikimedia
Foundation. This means I may not give legal advice to or serve as a lawyer
for community members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal
capacity.*
The U.S. Copyright Office posted a general inquiry on mass digitization and
orphan works:
Please comment on potential orphan works solutions in the context of
mass digitization. How should mass digitization be defined, what are the
goals and what, therefore, is an appropriate legal framework that is fair
to authors and copyright owners as well as good faith users? What other
possible solutions for mass digitization projects should be considered?
https://www.federalregister.gov/articles/2012/10/22/2012-25932/orphan-works…
Comments are due on February 4, 2013.
--
Stephen LaPorte
Legal Counsel
Wikimedia Foundation
*For legal reasons, I may only serve as an attorney for the Wikimedia
Foundation. This means I may not give legal advice to or serve as a lawyer
for community members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal
capacity.*
Hello,
The Italian Senate is debating the defamation bill that the Italian
Wikipedia community previously protested. The community is discussing their
response here:
http://it.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:Bar/Discussioni/Oggi_il_Senato_vota_…
Here is a Google translation of some proposed banner text:
Dear readers,
once again the independence of Wikipedia is under threat.
In these hours, the Italian Senate is debating a bill on defamation ( DDL
n. 3491 ) which, if approved, would require each site (including Wikipedia)
the correction or deletion of your content on simple request those who
considered damaging to their image or their privacy, and provides for the
criminal conviction and fines of up to € 100,000 in the case of failure to
remove. Similar initiatives are not new , but this time their approval
seems imminent.
Wikipedia recognizes the right to the protection of the reputation of each
and volunteers that contribute for free already strive daily to ensure it.
The approval of this standard, however, be obliged to alter the content
regardless of their veracity . Such a requirement would distort the
fundamental principles of Wikipedia, would be an unacceptable restriction
of its autonomy and a grave threat to the activity of its 15 million
volunteers around the world, who would be inclined to stop dealing with
specific topics or characters, even only "no problems."
Wikipedia is the largest collective work in the history of the human race
in 12 years has become part of the habits of millions of Internet users in
search of a knowledge-neutral, free and above all free. The Italian edition
has almost a million entries, receiving 16 million visits every day, but
this rule may obscure them forever.
The Encyclopedia is the heritage of all. We will not allow it disappears.
The BBC has a story on the law that the Russian Wikipedia community
protested:
If the websites themselves cannot be shut down, internet service providers
(ISPs) and web hosting companies can be forced to block access to the
offending material.
The list of banned website will be managed by Roskomnadzor (Russia's
Federal Service for Supervision in Telecommunications, Information
Technology and Mass Communications). It is meant to be updated daily, but
its contents are not available to the general public.
http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-20096274