Recently IBM announced that their Watson natural language processing
system will be used for "utilization management" decisions in lung
cancer treatment by health insurance company WellPoint at Memorial
Sloan–Kettering Cancer Center.
I would like to urge everyone to review
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Utilization_management -- it seems very
likely that Watson will be making treatment decisions similar to those
which have colloqually been rerred to as "death panel" decisions in
the US over the past four years.
The IBM Watson team has frequently stated that they rely on Wikipedia
in essentially all of their interpretation and question answering
processing, more than any other source.
What are the legal liability issues involved with an artificial
intelligence system based on Wikipedia making life-or-death medical
decisions?
The draft bill introducing an ancilliary copyright for press
publishers in Germany (Leistungsschutzrecht, LSR) is now scheduled for
second and third reading in the plenary of the Germany parliament.
This means that by friday 10 o’clock a.m., Germany might launch the
most innovation hostile law out there in recent years and threatening
one of the most fundamental features of the internet, the ability and
right to link to third party content.
The German Parliament’s judiciary committee is going to vote on a
final recommendation on Wednesday in closed session, possibly altering
the text of the bill and then sending it to the plenary. This fast
tracking comes despite heavy criticism from the chairman of the
judiciary committee, Siegfried Kauder from the ruling Christian
Democratic Union, who both sees procedural and constitutional flaws in
this bill and who has announced to vote no in the final vote. He will
also call upon the German President Gauck to refuse signing this law
on constitutional reasons
(https://netzpolitik.org/2013/siegfried-kauder-leistungsschutzrecht/).
Despite all the procedural and constitutional objections to the
Leistungsschutz bill, there are also a couple of technical and
political ones. Critics (and there are plenty of them) raise concerns
that the collateral damage by this change in copyright will hurt
search engines, innovation in general and especially smaller press
publishers. They point to ambiguous language in the bill that will
cause legal uncertainty and lawsuits that will take years to be
settled. The German government and supporters of the bill have done
little to address these objections. On Saturday, I published an
advance copy of the answers by the government in response to a letter
of inquiry by the opposition Left Party
(https://netzpolitik.org/2013/bundesregierung-woher-zur-holle-sollen-wir-den…).
There is a continuing pattern in the government’s response referring
open questions to be settled by courts or simply by ignoring the
question.
One of the last opportunites to discuss the mechanisms of this
ancilliary right within the parliament lasted for 90 minutes today at
an expert hearing at the subcommittee for New Media (Unterausschuss
Neue Medien, UANM) at the German Parliament.
Public invitations for this hearing were sent out only a couple of
days ago, after two weeks of behind-the-curtain negotiation between
the governing factions in parliament (Christian Democrats (CDU/CSU)
and Liberal Democrats (FDP)) and the opposition factions (Social
Democrats, Left Party and Green Party). CDU/CSU and FDP had previously
refused to schedule another hearing next to the judiciary committee
hearing in January
(http://searchengineland.com/german-leistungsschutzrecht-146826)
telling that all questions could also be addressed in this expert
hearing. As it turned out, there were a couple of technical questions
that could not be addressed, due to the fact that none of the invited
experts in the judiciary committee hearing were experts in the field
of technology. How could anyone have known that there are at least to
kind of experts out there!
The subcommittee on New Media belongs to the committee on Culture and
Media and its power is much more limited compared to a full size
committee. However, the meeting today could address a couple of
criticisms that were raised after the January hearing:
The UANM meeting offered live streaming, a recording of this hearing
will be published in the parliament’s media archive
Among the four invited experts, this was the first hearing that
involved a representative from Google (who is the primary target of
this law)
This meeting’s focus was technology, especially the technology
involved to allow or restrict crawling and indexation of web content,
e.g. by press publishers
Invited experts were
* Dr. Wieland Holfelder, engineer at Google (there was a consensus
agreement by the committee members that he could pass non-technical
questions to legal counsel Arnd Heller from Google, who was sitting
behind him)
* Dr. Thomas Höppner, representative from the press publishers’ association BDZV
* Prof. Dirk Lewandowski, University of Applied Sciences, Hamburg
* Michael Steidl, International Press Telecommunications Council (IPTC), London
Two experts were invited by the majority factions (Höppner and
Steidl), two experts were invited by the opposition (Holfelder and
Lewandowski). The procedure was following the usual procedures: There
were three rounds of questions for members of parliament, two
questions from each faction to one expert or one question to two
experts. There was no opportunity for introductory statements by the
experts and no strictly enforced time limit on answers.
So, in order for an expert to be allowed to speak, he has to be given
a question from a member of parliament. An expert is not allowed to
ask questions or offer refutations to other experts directly. This
results in a strategy that each side is going to give softball
questions to their own experts and potentially compromising questions
to the experts from the other side. It has to be assumed at many
hearings that questions were exchanged before the meeting and that
there is some level of expectation on what the answer might be. This
is exceptionally true for partisan experts whose employers directly
benefit from or suffer by the outcome of this legislative process.
Some of the softball questions provided the experts the opportunity to
explain how robots.txt works (Holfelder) or explain the shortcomings
of robots.txt (Steidl and Höppner).
Holfelder introduced himself as engineer who implemented his own web
crawler 14 years ago. He distributed printouts of robots.txt examples
and the resulting snippets in the search engine results pages. He
explained additional meta-tags that Google uses to add or remove
content from the Google (or any other of the leading search engines).
To some extend, his presentation felt both verbose and strangely
elementary. In an ideal world, none of this information would have
been new to a subcommittee that specifically focusses on such topics.
Petra Sitte, (Left Party) had asked Holfelder to comment on ACAP, a
protocol that was proposed by a few publishers and has failed to get
any meaningful level of acceptance by the market. Holfelder provided a
few examples in which implementing ACAP will be prone to spammers, as
it mandates the way in which provided descriptions have to be shown.
Konstantin von Notz (Green Party) asked Holfelder whether it was
possible for a search engine provider to detect whether specitic
content on a web site is covered by this LSR or not. This is - in my
opinion - one of the most important questions of this bill because it
outlines the potential for huge collateral damage or legal uncertainty
over the coming years.
The ancilliary copyright is awarded to a press publisher (a press
publisher is defined as anyone who does what press usually does) for
his press product (a product of what a press publisher usually does).
It exists next to copyright awarded to the author who can license
his/her content to anyone else. It means that it is not the text
itself that defines whether conent is covered by the LSR. Here is an
example: A journalist maintains his personal web site in order to
advertise for his services as a freelancer. He has a selection of half
a dozend of his articles on his web site that help to inform potential
customers on his journalistic skills. These articles are of course
protected by copyright. They will not, however, be covered by the
ancilliary copyright because he is not a press publisher. The very
same texts on the web site of a magazine’s web site will be covered by
the LSR. How can a search engine determine if text on a web site is
subject to both copyright *and* LSR?
Holfelder replied that Google has a couple of heuristics to determine
whether a certain page is provided by a press publisher. However, this
law has no provisions for “honest mistakes”. If Google failes to
detect LSR content and does not receive prior permission to index such
content, Google faces legal consequences. There is no such things as a
“warning shot” or an obligation by the press publisher to proactively
inform a search engine whether it things a certain page is LSR
covered. This is the legal equivalent of a minefield.
Holfelder stated that a search engine would in this scenario tend
towards overblocking in order to avoid a lawsuit for violating the
LSR.
Höppner, the press publishers’ expert spent his time mocking a
comparison about this bill that involves taxis and restaurants. He
then stated how services such as Google News substitute visiting the
original pages, with some rambling about a Google service called
“Google Knowledge”. It was hard to tell whether he meant the failed
Google Know project or the Google Knowledge Graph in the standard
Google search.
His main argument on robots.txt was a passive-aggressive one.
Publishers do not like robots.txt per se, they merely use it to fight
for the last crumbs that search behemoths like Google have left them.
In other words, if a press publisher is providing meta description
text (such as http://support.google.com/webmasters/bin/answer.py?hl=de&answer=79812
or twitter cards https://dev.twitter.com/docs/cards), this should not
be seen as some kind of agreement to actually use this text in order
to build snippets in a search engine. I severely doubt that this
position would hold in court or among the motivation of press
publishers.
Prof Lewandowski’s contribution to the hearing was an interesting one
as he is the first expert in a long time who does not seem to have an
agenda with respecto to the LSR. His viewed were balanced, nuanced
ones, highlighting both the high level of acceptance of robots.txt and
some of its shortcomings. He pointed out that at least at Google News,
the limited amount of sources and the opt-in-meachnism (yes, it’s more
complicated than that) of Google News would permit running such a
service in an LSR world.
Steidl used his time to explain IPTC’s contribution to the world of
standards and mentioning the RightsML project which is in active
development. He criticised robots.txt for being without a governing
organisation and for failing to express rights on a sub-article level.
Both Google and the press publishers were not very eager to present
actual numbers in Google News usage or how visitors are directed to
third party web sites. In round two, Google’s legal counsel Haller was
asked how Google will react to this bill if enacted. He replied that
Google does not know the final version of this bill (as there might be
amendments by Wednesday’s judiciary committee session) and that Google
has not decided yet on how to implement it. He pointed out that his
companry would have to not only deal with publishers from Germany but
from the entire European economic area who could exercise their own
LSR rights against Google.
--
Mathias Schindler
Projektmanager
Wikimedia Deutschland e.V.
web: http://www.wikimedia.de
mail: mathias.schindler(a)wikimedia.de
Ceterum censeo opera officiales esse liberandam -
http://urheberrecht.wikimedia.de/
Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e.
V. Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts
Berlin-Charlottenburg unter der Nummer 23855 B. Als gemeinnützig
anerkannt durch das Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin,
Steuernummer 27/681/51985.
Hello all,
You may be interested in the Fair Access to Science and Technology Research
Act of 2013 ("FASTR"). Among other items, it would require agencies to make
research publicly accessible and evaluate release under an open license.
More information:
http://openaccess.commons.gc.cuny.edu/2013/02/15/its-alive-frpaa-revived-as…http://www.infodocket.com/2013/02/14/fair-access-to-science-and-technology-…
--
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.*
Forwarding from Wikimedia-l in case someone not watching there...
- Sent from my mobile device.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: "Jan Engelmann" <jan.engelmann(a)wikimedia.de>
Date: Feb 19, 2013 7:06 PM
Subject: [Wikimedia-l] Big Fat Brussels Gathering
To: <wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
tl;dr Issues like copyright are crucial for us. So let’s join forces
in Brussels to make a difference. All we need is a bunch of smart
people.
Dear fellow Wikimedians,
it’s been quite some time since we have talked on various occasions
about the need for the European Wikimedia chapters to join their
forces in the political arena. Regarding the threats for Free
Knowledge which derive from harmful legislation, it just might be the
right moment to reassess our current practices and take a huge step
forward, as a loose combination of chapter representatives and
volunteers.
An according EU policy project is already being prepared. User:Dimi z
[1], a Wikimedian currently based in Brussels, versed and active in
political affairs, did the hard job to gather the required amount of
information to finally get started. He created a document on Meta [2]
which might serve as a starting point to exchange and develop ideas.
== What’s at stake? ==
Concerning European regulations, we have to develop a clear and
unified position on major legislative and political changes affecting
our mission, which is to create a better environment for Free
Knowledge. Building upon the tremendous efforts of Brussels-based NGOs
like EDRI [3] and La Quadrature Du Net [4], we should take the job to
speak for the Wikimedia movement and its particular role in, let’s
say, the ongoing Copyright Wars.
To build a sustainable model for advocacy it is necessary to
* monitor EU policy proceedings and initiatives
* comprehensively inform the participating chapters and communities
about EU dossiers
* initiate discussions about what is desirable or might be risky for
Wikimedia
* take action where necessary
* reach out to like-minded projects and communities
== OK, point taken. But HOW shall we do this? ==
Firstly, we are dedicated to a culture of sharing and a significant
level of transparency. So we need to work in Brussels in accordance to
our principles which differ remarkably from the “black box” approach
usually applied by industry representatives.
Secondly, we are searching for an organizational basis that follows
our capacities. So let’s come up with a smart, inclusive structure
that ensures easy access and leaves enough space for latecomers or
people that engage only occasionally.
Thirdly, we need someone on site. Since we have to give established
institutions and public officials a face, a name, and a direct way to
contact us, a specific contact person in Brussels would be more than
useful. S/he needs to know everything about the drafting process of
relevant directives and regulations, find access to political parties
and hangs out in the preferred bars of staff members working for
Neelie Kroes, Michael Barnier or Androulla Vassiliou.
== In a nutshell: Imagine a working group, which ==
* does lobbying - but in full disclosure, on the open stage
* seeks strategic alliances, but not only with affiliated organizations
* partly consists of full-time-employees, but heavily relies on
volunteer-engagement
== Interested in being a part of it? ==
Let’s get started and talk about this challenge! Your input and ideas
on the aforementioned Meta page are highly appreciated. To discuss the
working methods of an EU Policy Group and develop a project plan
together, we suggest to meet face-to-face in Brussels for one day and
a half. Wikimedia Deutschland would be happy to organize this
kick-off-gathering in March/April. We’d like to ask interested
Wikimedians to join us there. Please use the doodle below to identify
the most suitable date:
http://doodle.com/ntiz6gup7z49e7p5
(Please choose either a friday/saturday or saturday/sunday option.)
Looking forward to seeing you all in Brussels,
Jan Engelmann
[1] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/User:Dimi_z
[2] http://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/EU_Policy
[3] http://www.edri.org/
[4] http://www.laquadrature.net/
--
Jan Engelmann
Leiter Politik & Gesellschaft
-------------------------------------
Wikimedia Deutschland e.V.
Obentrautstr. 72
10963 Berlin
Telefon 030 - 219 158 26-0
www.wikimedia.de
Stellen Sie sich eine Welt vor, in der jeder Mensch an der Menge allen
Wissens frei teilhaben kann. Helfen Sie uns dabei!
http://spenden.wikimedia.de/
**** Helfen Sie mit, dass WIKIPEDIA von der UNESCO als erstes
digitales Weltkulturerbe anerkannt wird. Unterzeichnen Sie die
Online-Petition! http://wikipedia.de ****
Wikimedia Deutschland - Gesellschaft zur Förderung Freien Wissens e. V.
Eingetragen im Vereinsregister des Amtsgerichts Berlin-Charlottenburg
unter der Nummer 23855 Nz. Als gemeinnützig anerkannt durch das
Finanzamt für Körperschaften I Berlin, Steuernummer 27/681/51985.
_______________________________________________
Wikimedia-l mailing list
Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org
Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l
Many of these topics are probably of interest, especially the discussion on
ancillary copyright law in Germany.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: <edri-news-request(a)mailman.edri.org>
Date: Fri, Feb 15, 2013 at 4:42 AM
Subject: EDRi-news Digest, Vol 119, Issue 1
To: edri-news(a)mailman.edri.org
Send EDRi-news mailing list submissions to
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When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
than "Re: Contents of EDRi-news digest..."
Today's Topics:
1. EDRi-gram newsletter - Number 11.3, 13 February 2013 (EDRi-gram)
----------------------------------------------------------------------
Message: 1
Date: Wed, 13 Feb 2013 23:07:53 +0200
From: EDRi-gram <edrigram(a)edri.org>
Subject: EDRi-gram newsletter - Number 11.3, 13 February 2013
To: edri-news(a)edri.org
Message-ID: <511C00A9.2060702(a)edri.org>
Content-Type: text/plain; charset=windows-1252; format=flowed
======================================================================
EDRi-gram
biweekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe
Number 11.3, 13 February 2013
=======================================================================
Contents
=======================================================================
1. Copyright: challenges of the digital era
2. Most Internet users would use DNT settings if easily available
3. US privacy groups believe US officials lobby to weaken EU privacy
4. Dutch government maintains private copying-exception for downloading
5. Denmark: Government postpones the data retention law evaluation
6. Ancillary copyright law under discussion in Germany
7. Human rights orgs ask OECD to investigate surveillance companies
8. Big Brother Awards 2013 Bulgaria
9. ENDitorial: Licences for Europe and fight club... only one rule
10. Recommended Action: support your privacy rights
11. Recommended Reading
12. Agenda
13. About
=======================================================================
1. Copyright: challenges of the digital era
=======================================================================
EDRi has freshly launched a booklet that overviews the challenges that
copyright is facing in the digital environment.
For the past twelve years, the European Union has discussed how to
support, develop and protect creation in the digital environment. Two
months ago, the College of Commissioners recognised the necessity that
copyright ?stays fit for purpose? in the digital economy.
Until now, the focus point has been on the enforcement of pre-existing
legislative norms not only within the rule of law but also through
private policing via internet service providers. However, despite all
these efforts, there is still an ubiquitous lack of respect for copyright.
The booklet looks at the reasons for this profound gap that has emerged
between citizens and the law. Following a brief introduction to the
logic behind granting monopoly rights, the booklet lists some reasons
that lead to difficulties in respecting copyright law, ranging from
excessive penalties for breaching the law to legally-protected
restrictions on citizens' rights to use digital products they paid for.
It then focuses on the impact of rigid and outdated copyright law on
legitimate businesses. Finally, it gives a glance at the wide range of
excessive enforcement measures that underline the deterioration of
copyright leading to unreasonable and wrongful practices.
In short, this booklet presents a simplified overview of the
difficulties facing public support for copyright. EDRi hopes that it
will have a positive impact on the current debate regarding the
necessity of reforming copyright law and adapting the current system to
the digital age, allowing the achievement of the digital single market,
removing existing barriers and giving citizens a better access to their
culture.
Copyright: challenges of the digital era (02.2013)
http://www.edri.org/files/paper07_copyright.pdf
Commission agrees way forward for modernising copyright in the digital
economy (5.12.2012)
http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_MEMO-12-950_en.htm
Report from the Commission on the application of Directive 2004/48/EC
(22.12.2010)
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2010:0779:FIN:EN:…
(Contribution by Marie Humeau - EDRi)
=======================================================================
2. Most Internet users would use DNT settings if easily available
=======================================================================
According to a survey by IT service analysts Ovum, 68% of the Internet
users would use ?do-not-track? (DNT) settings to restrict the use of
their personal data, if such a tool was "easily available?.
Websites and third-parties, such as advertisers, may record Internet
users? behaviour in order to serve targeted, personalised ads. Such
user-specific data can be collected by several means, including the use
of cookies. The information thus stored can be passed on by operators to
advertisers for behavioural adverts, based on the users' activity and
declared interests.
Yet, lately, consumers have become more aware of the fact that their
personal information can be used as merchandise. Ovum?s survey has shown
that only 14% of consumers believe Internet firms are honest about the
way they use their consumers' personal data. "Unfortunately, in the gold
rush that is big data, taking the supply of ?little data? ? personal
data ? for granted seems to be an accident waiting to happen," said Mark
Little, principal analyst at Ovum who added: "However, consumers are
being empowered with new tools and services to monitor, control, and
secure their personal data as never before, and it seems they
increasingly have the motivation to use them."
In Little?s opinion, the Internet companies would have to change their
attitudes towards their customers. The operators should make privacy
tools available to consumers and use ?a new set of messages to change
consumers? attitudes. These messages must be based on positive direct
relationships, engagement with consumers, and the provision of genuine
and trustworthy privacy controls.? Although EU Commissioner Neelie Kroes
had previously asked for a new DNT standard to enable Internet users to
indicate their consent for the use of their personal data in a manner
that would comply with the EU's Privacy and Electronic Communications
Directive, last year she indicated that she would accept a DNT
standard that would only partially meet the requirements under the
Directive. Under the EU's amended Privacy and Electronic Communications
Directive, storing and accessing information on users' computers is only
lawful "on condition that the subscriber or user concerned has given his
or her consent, having been provided with clear and comprehensive
information ? about the purposes of the processing".
The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) has been working on developing a new
DNT controls system which, in its opinion, should not be switched on by
default but require an explicit instruction to operate. Firefox has
already implemented it since 2011.
Microsoft, on the other hand, has developed its own DNT tool for its new
Internet Explorer 10 web browser. The DNT setting is automatically
activated and the users have to change the settings in case they wish to
let websites and advertising networks track their online activity. This
has obviously crossed advertising companies and the system does not
actually guarantee that all companies would respect it. Yahoo! for
instance, has stated that it would not "recognise IE10?s default DNT
signal".
Google introduced the DNT standard in November 2012, with the launching
of its Chrome 23, but warned that the results could be variable. "The
effectiveness of such requests is dependent on how websites and services
respond, so Google is working with others on a common way to respond to
these requests in the future," wrote Google engineer Ami Fischman on the
company?s blog.
Most consumers would activate do-not-track privacy settings if they were
'easily available', according to Ovum survey (6.02.2013)
http://www.out-law.com/en/articles/2013/february/most-consumers-would-activ…
The data black hole that could suck the life out of the internet economy
(8.02.2013)
http://www.zdnet.com/the-data-black-hole-that-could-suck-the-life-out-of-th…
Google's Chrome finally embraces Do Not Track, but with a warning
(7.11.2012)
http://www.zdnet.com/googles-chrome-finally-embraces-do-not-track-but-with-…
=======================================================================
3. US privacy groups believe US officials lobby to weaken EU privacy
=======================================================================
A coalition of 18 US privacy groups sent a letter on 30 January 2013 to
US politicians such as the Attorney General Eric Holder, Secretary
of State John Kerry and the Acting Secretary of Commerce Rebecca Blank,
asking for assurances that US policy makers in Europe "advance the aim
of privacy" and do not hinder the European data law proposals.
The European Union is considering the data protection regulation that
could give the citizens significant control over the use of their
personal data by websites and marketing companies. Several proposals
would require companies to obtain permission before collecting personal
data and specify exactly what information will be collected and how it
will be used.
One proposal refers to the so-called ?right to be forgotten? that
obliges companies like Facebook to delete all information about users
who want to do that. The coalition shows concern over the fact that, as
the new EU Data Protection Regulation is under discussion and debate,
Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) have lately reported that US
policy makers are "mounting an unprecedented lobbying campaign to limit
the protections that European law would provide."
The privacy groups believe that U.S. policymakers, politicians and
bureaucrats are undermining the work of the European Parliament. "The
U.S. should not stand in the way of Europe's efforts to strengthen and
modernize its legal framework," the letter states. Jeff Chester,
Executive Director of the Center for Digital Democracy told ZDNet that
despite President Obama?s pro-privacy speeches, his administration is
"working to protect the U.S. data lobby."
He added: "One of the U.S.' few growth areas is stealing other peoples
data. So, the U.S. is arguing that the EU should not enact strong
baselines rules requiring citizens to provide affirmative consent for
such critical uses as profiling, and adopt its weak industry friendly
approach based primarily on industry self-regulation."
EU Justice Commissioner Viviane Reding said in 2012 that the lobbying
effort had been "absolutely fierce" and unprecedented in scale.
On 3 February 2013, the head of a big pan-European industry group
revealed "intensifying pressure from U.S. lobbyists on behalf of
Google and Facebook," as reported the Financial Times. Jacob
Kohnstamm, the chairman of the EU's Article 29 Working Party also said
European lawmakers were "fed up" of U.S. lobbying.
The letter of the coalition notes that updating the U.S. Electronic
Communications Privacy Act (ECPA), under which authorities need only a
subpoena approved by a federal prosecutor, rather than a judge, to
obtain electronically stored messages six months old or older, would be
a good start for the U.S. officials to bring the country in compliance
with international human rights standards.
The US lobby has shown its practical results after several newspapers
and websites have pointed out that MEPs in the EP's Internal Market and
Consumer Committee (IMCO) have included copy-paste amendments written by
Amazon, eBay or the American Chamber of Commerce (AmCham EU).
Privacy groups call on U.S. government to stop lobbying against EU data
law changes (4.02.2013)
http://www.zdnet.com/privacy-groups-call-on-u-s-government-to-stop-lobbying…
The E.U. could approve a new privacy policy later this year. Europe
Moves Ahead on Privacy (3.02.2013)
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/02/04/opinion/europe-moves-ahead-on-privacy-law…
Lobby groups take CTRL+V of data protection proposal (11.02.2013)
http://edri.org/lobbyplag-eudatap
LobbyPlag
http://www.lobbyplag.eu/
=======================================================================
4. Dutch government maintains private copying-exception for downloading
=======================================================================
The Dutch government announced that it wouldn't prohibit the
unauthorised downloading of copyrighted material.
It did so on 4 February 2013 in a letter to the Parliament, putting an
end to a heated debate that lasted for years. As a result, the
Netherlands remains one of the few countries in Europe where downloading
without permission of the rightsholders is allowed under the private
copying-exception. Dutch digital rights organisation Bits of Freedom
urged that this should be the first step in a long overdue modernisation
of the copyright system.
The Dutch government responded to a resolution by the Dutch Parliament
earlier this year. In this resolution, the Parliament called on the
government to maintain the application of the private copying-exception
to downloading. It did so after the government did not respond to a
similar resolution one year earlier, instead continuing its plans to
abolish the private copying-exception for downloading. Now, however, it
admitted defeat in the face of enduring opposition.
Bits of Freedom hopes that this decision paves the way for the
modernisation of the copyright system. Past political endeavours focused
on the criminalisation of sharing by individual internet users. This is
counterproductive and does not address the real challenge: ensuring that
knowledge and culture is shared as widely as possible while remunerating
rightsholders. The Dutch government should start together with the
Parliament exploring remuneration models which support this goal.
Letter of government to parliament (only in Dutch, 04.02.2013)
https://www.bof.nl/live/wp-content/uploads/briefTeeven040213.pdf
Resolution of Dutch parliament (only in Dutch, 11.12.2012)
https://www.bof.nl/2012/12/11/parlement-spreekt-zich-uit-tegen-downloadverb…
Blog Bits of Freedom: Download Prohibition finally buried (only in
Dutch, 05.02.2013)
https://www.bof.nl/2013/02/05/downloadverbod-eindelijk-begraven/
(Contribution by Ot van Daalen - EDRi member Bits of Freedom Netherlands)
=======================================================================
5. Denmark: Government postpones the data retention law evaluation
=======================================================================
In the coming months, the Danish Parliament will conduct an evaluation
and revision of the Danish data retention law which implements directive
2006/24/EC. The review process has been postponed twice on earlier
occasions (2010 and 2012), and the Danish government wants another
two-year extension, officially in order to coordinate with any changes
in the directive at the EU level.
The Danish law exceeds the requirements of the data retention directive
in several respects, especially as far as Internet logging is concerned.
The Danish law contains a requirement for session logging which includes
data about every Internet packet being transmitted.
Specifically, the following information must be retained: source and
destination IP address, source and destination port number, transmission
protocol (like TCP and UDP) and timestamps. The contents of the
Internet packets are not being logged, but the IP addresses will contain
information about visits to websites of political parties (that is, in
effect, registration of political preferences) and the online news
services that the citizen reads. Last year in the Danish Parliament,
there was considerable debate about the Danish over-implementation of
the data retention directive, in particular Internet session logging.
The Parliament instructed the Danish government to produce an evaluation
report with special focus on session logging. The Danish Ministry of
Justice published this report in December 2012.
The evaluation report contains detailed descriptions of nine police
cases where telephone logging was useful, or maybe even critical, to the
Danish police. These cases are taken from an earlier report submitted to
the EU Commission. All nine cases are about serious and violent crimes
such as murder, armed robbery and organized narcotics smuggling.
For Internet logging there are only three police cases. Moreover, one of
the three cases is really about telephone logging since location data
from a mobile device is used by the police. The location registration
just happens to be triggered by "data calls" from a smartphone. This
leaves two police cases to demonstrate the value of internet logging,
and only one case uses session logging. Both cases involve economic
crimes (fraud) on a relatively minor scale. There is a huge discrepancy
between the nature of the police cases involving telephone and Internet
logging.
The report confirms the EDRi member IT-Pol suspicion that Internet
logging, and especially Internet session logging, is rarely used by the
Danish police. Quite interestingly, the Ministry of Justice formally
states in their own evaluation report that session logging was
implemented in a way that made it useless for the police (the
implementation is according to the requirements of the law). Before
September 2007, the Danish Internet service providers repeatedly warned
the Ministry of Justice that session logging would be useless for the
police.
The Danish Ministry of Justice report (only in Danish, 12.2012)
http://www.ft.dk/samling/20121/lovforslag/l142/bilag/2/1213533.pdf
Danish government wants to postpone the evaluation of the data retention
law for the third time (12.02.2013)
http://www.itpol.dk/notater/Danish-data-retention-evaluation-Feb13
EDRi-gram: Key privacy concerns in Denmark 2007 (30.01.2008)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number6.2/privacy-denmark-2007
(Contribution by Jesper Lund, EDRi member IT-Pol Denmark)
=======================================================================
6. Ancillary copyright law under discussion in Germany
=======================================================================
The Judiciary Committee of the German Bundestag held on 30 January 2013
an expert hearing on the proposed ?Leistungsschutzrecht? (LRS, known
also as ?ancillary copyright?) law for news publishers which will
require search engines and others to ask permission from news publishers
to link to their content or even give summarize news content.
The draft law was criticized by civil society groups as well as the
German association of Internet economy which pointed out the lack of
clarity of the terms used in the text and the negative effects that the
law may bring by restricting the diversity of information on the
internet. Moreover, the legislation is superfluous as publishers are
already protected by copyright provisions. If this bill is enacted
as-is, search engines would be allowed to display snippets only after
having received permission which may involve or not some payment to the
news publishers.
In some cases, a press publisher might pay a search engine to be
included in its searches. The important issue is that a search engine,
and maybe even social networks, will be obliged to ask permission to
provide snippets from a news publisher. The law has several unclear
areas. For instance, it is not clear whether blogs will be considered as
press products due to the vague definition of the term. The expert
hearing was not focused on technological expertise but rather
on how such a law might fit into the current legal framework.
A representative from the publishers? associations asked for a
technical language to express conditions such as temporal, topical or
size restrictions, payment requirements and other conditions but did not
succeed in presenting a proper way of how this could be implemented. All
experts in the hearing agreed the law would create a period (estimated
at about 5 years) of legal uncertainty, requiring a series of lawsuits
before realizing who will actually be within the sights of the LRS. This
uncertainty also applies when we talk about Facebook or Twitter. It is
not yet clear whether the law will cover only search engines such as
Google or it will extend to social networks. MP Siegfried Kauder of the
Christian Democrats party stated that in his opinion, after hearing the
experts, there seemed to be no reason for the promotion of the law as,
it appeared to be unlikely the law would help in actually producing new
income for news publishers.
In the meantime, in France, Google seems to give in under similar
pressure. Eric Schmidt, Executive Chairman of Google made a statement on
the company blog on 1 February 2013, in an attempt to point out that the
search engine had generated ?billions of clicks each month? for news
publishers, ?and our advertising solutions (in which we have
invested billions of dollars) help them make money from that traffic.?
But Schmidt also stated that on the same date, he, together
with President Hollande of France, announced two new initiatives ?to
help stimulate innovation and increase revenues for French publishers.?
One was the creation of a 60 million euro Digital Publishing Innovation
Fund financed by Google ?to help support transformative digital
publishing initiatives for French readers.? The second initiative is to
increase the partnership with French publishers ?to help increase their
online revenues using our advertising technology.?
German Parliament Hears Experts On Proposed Law To Limit Search Engines
(31.01.2013)
http://searchengineland.com/german-leistungsschutzrecht-146826
Google creates ?60m Digital Publishing Innovation Fund to support
transformative French digital publishing initiatives (1.02.2013)
http://googleblog.blogspot.co.uk/2013/02/google-creates-60m-digital-publish…
EDRi-gram: Ancillary copyright madness in Germany and France (26.09.2012)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number10.18/ancillary-copyright-proposal-madne…
=======================================================================
7. Human rights orgs ask OECD to investigate surveillance companies
=======================================================================
In the beginning of February 2013 several human rights organisations,
including Privacy International, the European Center for
Constitutional and Human Rights, the Bahrain Center for Human Rights,
Bahrain Watch and Reporters without Borders, filed formal complaints
against surveillance software firms Gamma International and Trovicor.
The OECD (Organisation for Economic Cooperation and Development)
National Contact Point (NCP) in the UK was asked to investigate Gamma
International regarding the company?s potential complicity in serious
human rights abuses in Bahrain and in Germany, the complaint was
directed against Munich-based Trovicor.
In the opinion of the complainants, there are grounds to believe that
the surveillance products and services provided by the two companies
have led to human rights abuses in Bahrain, including arbitrary
detention and torture, violations of the right to privacy, freedom of
expression and freedom of association. It appears that the information
gathered from intercepted phone and internet communications have been
used to detain and torture bloggers, political dissidents and activists
and to extract confessions from them. If the investigation concludes
that the complaints have a real basis, the companies are likely to be
found in breach of the OECD Guidelines for Multinational Enterprises
which sets out principles and standards for responsible business conduct.
?The failure of governments to properly control exports of surveillance
technology has left companies like Gamma and Trovicor regulated
exclusively by their own moral compasses. Unfortunately, these compasses
seem to have malfunctioned and directed companies towards some of the
most dangerous and repressive regimes in the world. We very much hope
the OECD process will persuade Gamma and Trovicor to take a long hard
look at their current and future clients, and to think carefully about
the role their products play in the targeting and torture of activists
and the suppression of pro-democracy voices,? stated Eric King, Head of
Research at Privacy International.
Miriam Saage-Maa?, Vice Legal Director at ECCHR, said: ?By maintaining
permanent business relations with the state of Bahrain and maintaining
their surveillance software, both companies have accepted the risk that
they may be accused of abetting torture and other grave human rights
violations. If true, such actions would amount to a violation of the
OECD Guidelines.?
These are not the only companies involved in providing surveillance
equipment to countries where freedom of expression is oppressed. Many
suppliers, besides the two companies in question, such as Nokia Siemens
Networks, Hacking Team and Bull / Amesys have supplied equipment to
Libya, Egypt, Syria, Bahrain, Morocco and many more countries that have
violated human rights during the last years.
Human rights organisations filed formal complaints with the OECD against
surveillance companies (4.02.2013)
http://en.rsf.org/bahrein-human-rights-organisations-file-04-02-2013,44016.…
Briefing note on OECD Complaints against Gamma International and
Trovicor in the UK and Germany (02.2013)
http://www.statewatch.org/news/2013/feb/oecd-complaint.pdf
Human rights organisations file formal complaints against surveillance
firms Gamma International and Trovicor with British and German
governments (3.02.2013)
https://www.privacyinternational.org/press-releases/human-rights-organisati…
EDRi-gram: Export Controls for Digital Weapons (19.12.2013)
http://edri.org/edrigram/number10.24/export-controls-digital-weapons
EDRi-gram: German government intends to use FinFisher Spyware (30.01.2013)
http://edri.org/edrigram/number11.2/germany-finfisher-spyware
=======================================================================
8. Big Brother Awards 2013 Bulgaria
=======================================================================
EDRi member ISOC Bulgaria and the Access to Information Program
organized the Big Brother Awards for 2012. This year the "winners" are
the Council of Ministers of the Republic of Bulgaria - for lack of
action in changing the way special investigative resources (wiretapping)
is being used with regards to data traffic, which should ensure high
protection of privacy.
For private companies, the "winner" is Toplofikatsia (Central Heating)
for collecting and processing private data of its customers.
The BBA awards have been given in Bulgaria since 2003, and usually the
worst governmental institution to deal with privacy is either the
Council of Ministers, or the Ministry of Interior. Among private company
winners have been also mobile operators, advertising companies and power
distributing companies.
Details about the Bulgarian Big Brother Awards 2013 (only in Bulgarian,
28.01.2013)
http://bg.bigbrotherawards.org
(Contribution by Veni Markovski - EDRi member ISOC Bulgaria)
=======================================================================
9. ENDitorial: Licences for Europe and fight club... only one rule
=======================================================================
There was a moment in November 2012 when even the most cynical observers
of the European Commission were hopeful of an effective reform of
copyright. Commissioner Barnier gave a speech where he demonstrated that
he understood the problems. He explained that ?the digital revolution
has not yet lived up to expectations in the European context? and
described some barriers to cross-border access to content as
illegitimate. Finally, the problems had been identified. And recognising
a problem is a first step to solving it.
Then, in December 2012, the Commission was even more explicit. It
explained that the following would be addressed: territoriality in the
Internal Market; harmonisation, limitations and exceptions to copyright
in the digital age; fragmentation of the EU copyright market; and how to
improve effectiveness and efficiency of enforcement while underpinning
its legitimacy in the wider context of copyright reform.
So far, all that has actually happened is the launch of the Commission's
?licences for Europe? initiative. Or rather, the Commission's launched
industry's initiative... or... well, whoever it is that owns it, was
launched. The last line of Commissioner Barnier's speech at the opening
event was very telling. ?The ball is in your court,? he said. He didn't
explain who ?you? are ? the overwhelming majority of participants
(industry lobbyists), the tiny minority of civil society... or society
in general?
Actually, we know that ?you? is not society in general. The first rule
of fight club ...?licences for Europe? is... you do not talk about
?licences for Europe?. No web streaming of the working groups, ?Chatham
House Rules? that forbid the attribution of statements to particular
participants or their organisations. The public at large is kept firmly
outside of the process. After the lack of transparency that helped bring
down ACTA, we now have closed doors and ?Chatham House Rules? for
?licences for Europe?. And no problem definition for the working groups
to work on.
Barnier's subsequent comment that ?it is incomprehensible that Europeans
are coming up against obstacles online which they have been dismantling
in the physical world for more than 50 years,? hovers somewhere between
tragedy and comedy. This statement comes from a Commissioner who
inherited a demonstrably failed 2001 Copyright Directive but has not
acted to fix it. This is the Commissioner that inherited a demonstrably
failed 2004 IPR Enforcement Directive, but has not acted to fix it.
After four years of inaction on licensing and four years of inaction on
exceptions and limitations to copyright, Commissioner Barnier demanded
action... by everyone in the room except himself, to ?meet together to
find fast, specific solutions to problems arising in the here and now?.
Fast? Faster than what?
So, what now? Well, we will have months of working group meetings,
carefully shielded from the public by the opaque walls of the European
Commission, bringing us closer and closer to the end of this
legislature, at which time Commissioner Barnier can hand over the
dossier to the next incumbent of the ?Internal Market? portfolio.
Instead of less red tape and fewer licences, licences ?for? Europe are
likely to generate new barriers and new bureaucracy.
For example, one of the working groups is on ?user-generated content?.
User-generated content is... well... how can this be explained...? It is
user-generated and should not require licensing. Obviously? In many
European countries, users can generate content that avails of exceptions
to copyright for parody/pastiche, for incidental use, uses of minor
importance etc., without licences. However, none of these exceptions are
mandatory, so there is a lack of harmonisation across Europe caused by a
European Directive which the Commission has no obvious intention of
resolving. So, if harmonisation is not possible by the removal of
licensing obligations in those countries which don't have appropriate
exceptions... what will the ?working group? be ?working? on? Adding
voluntary ?licensing? to remove rights that citizens currently have?
The speech from Commissioner Kroes was not much more inspiring. She said
that she was not ?too keen on heavy-handed legislative measures. They
aren't always needed.? This is true. The question is: when you've
already got heavy-handed legislative measures that are not fit for
purpose ? do you repeal or reform them, or do you farm the problem out
to an ad hoc collection of industry lobbyists in order to make it seem
that the problem is being solved?
It normally takes at least 9-12 months for the European Parliament to
adopt a legislative text. The next elections are in 15 months. Is there
no hope for a real reform in the next two years?
Licenses for Europe
https://ec.europa.eu/licences-for-europe-dialogue/en
Commissioner Kroes speech: Digital technology and copyright can fit
together (4.02.2013)
http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-13-96_en.htm
Commissioner Barnier speech: Making European copyright fit for purpose
in the age of internet (7.11.2012)
http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-12-785_en.htm
Commissioner Barnier speech: Licences for Europe: quality content and
new opportunities for all Europeans in the digital era (4.02.2013)
http://europa.eu/rapid/press-release_SPEECH-13-97_en.htm
(Contribution by Joe McNamee - EDRi)
=======================================================================
10. Recommended Action: support your privacy rights
=======================================================================
EDRi together with other civil rights and data protection organisations
launched on 5 February 2013 the European campaign portal
Privacycampaign.eu in support of better protection for European
citizens' rights to privacy and data protection.
?This is our one opportunity to develop a strong legal framework,
building trust and removing unnecessary red tape for business. We need a
framework that is guided by clear, predictable legal principles and
strong enforcement. Instead, we have an unprecedented wave of
ill-informed, ill-advised and destructive corporate lobbying. Democracy
needs to be injected back into this debate in order to protect the
rights of European citizens? says Joe McNamee, Executive Director of
European Digital Rights.
The joint campaign launched by European Digital Rights (representing 32
organisations), Privacy International, The Julia Group, La Quadrature du
Net and Access aims at creating a counterweight to the massive lobbying
by the US government, trade associations and big internet business on
the data protection reform.
The organisations believe that without a successful reform of the data
protection framework European citizens will be left with a series of
legal loopholes and a range of unpredictable enforcement gaps where
nobody, neither citizens nor business, knows what law will be enforced.
The action of the European citizens is even more needed after the recent
news that prove that MEPs in the Internal Market and Consumer Committee
(IMCO) have adopted amendments written by Amazon, eBay or the American
Chamber of Commerce (AmCham EU) ? to the detriment of European citizens
and their fundamental rights to privacy and data protection.
Privacy Campaign - European Campaign Portal for the Data Protection Reform<
http://www.privacycampaign.eu/
Lobby groups take CTRL+V of data protection proposal (11.02.2013)
http://edri.org/lobbyplag-eudatap
LobbyPlag
http://www.lobbyplag.eu/
=======================================================================
11. Recommended Reading
=======================================================================
EU: Protection of human rights in the EU "rarely a priority", says
Human Rights Watch (02.2013)
http://www.statewatch.org/news/2013/feb/03hrw-eu-report.htm
EU cyber security directive considered harmful (8.02.2013)
http://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/2013/02/08/eu-cyber-security-directive-c…
=======================================================================
12. Agenda
=======================================================================
14-15 February 2013, Vienna, Austria
Internet 2013 - Shaping policies to advance media freedom
http://www.osce.org/event/internet2013
21-22 February 2013, Washington DC, USA
Intellectual Property and Human Rights Conference and Roundtable Discussion
Webcasted live and archived
http://www.wcl.american.edu/pijip/go/blog-post/intellectual-property-and-hu…
22 February 2013, Warsaw, Poland
ePSIplatform Conference: "Gotcha! Getting everyone on board"
http://epsiplatform.eu/content/save-date-22-february-2013-epsiplatform-conf…
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/
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/
============================================================
13. About
============================================================
EDRi-gram is a biweekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe.
Currently EDRi has 32 members based or with offices in 20 different
countries in Europe. European Digital Rights takes an active interest in
developments in the EU accession countries and wants to share knowledge
and awareness through the EDRi-gram.
All contributions, suggestions for content, corrections or agenda-tips
are most welcome. Errors are corrected as soon as possible and are
visible on the EDRi website.
Except where otherwise noted, this newsletter is licensed under the
Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 License. See the full text at
http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/
Newsletter editor: Bogdan Manolea <edrigram(a)edri.org>
Information about EDRi and its members:
http://www.edri.org/
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End of EDRi-news Digest, Vol 119, Issue 1
*****************************************
--
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 all,
Here is a ruling in New York about fair use for legal briefs and other
court filings:
http://newsandinsight.thomsonreuters.com/Legal/News/2013/02_-_February/Copy…
Does anyone know of any recent on-wiki discussions about fair use analysis
of court documents?
--
Stephen LaPorte
Legal Counsel
Wikimedia Foundation
*This message might have confidential or legally privileged information in
it. If you have received this message by accident, please delete it and let
us know about the mistake. 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 all,
Fight for the Future has sent an update on CISPA, a bill from last year
that would make it easier for internet service providers to share private
information with the U.S. government.
More information is below, as well as Fight for the Future's website:
http://www.cispaisback.com/
---------- Forwarded message ----------
> From: Tiffiniy Cheng <info(a)fightforthefuture.org>
> Date: Sun, Feb 10, 2013 at 9:27 AM
> Subject: It's official: CISPA is back
>
We just got the official word that CISPA is back.
> <http://nt.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=%2BKij29IBDih7CnXvbe3Ps3dnxN2wY…>
> CISPA would let corporations share all of your private, personal
> information with the government... with no restrictions.
>
> Last year the bill passed the House in a whirlwind, before any of us had
> time to mount a real opposition. We ended up stopping it in the Senate, but
> we can't make the same mistake twice! Congress needs to hear a strong,
> clear message from Internet users. Immediately.
>
> Click here to sign the petition to Stop CISPA!<http://nt.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=cF3Icb%2F764h7CnXvbe3Ps3dnxN2wY…>
> Just as important as signing, share this petition on twitter and facebook:
> *<http://nt.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=M4f%2BVKAG9xV7CnXvbe3Ps3dnxN2wY…> <http://nt.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=AOwXTQ27JwN7CnXvbe3Ps3dnxN2wYqYH>
> *
> This email, your love letters, your secrets and private conversations,
> your search and email history, what you say and do anywhere on the web....
> All these things could become a part of a government file on you that
> everyone from the IRS to local police would have access to.
> Sign the petition to Congress now.<http://nt.salsalabs.com/dia/track.jsp?v=2&c=p4fvOv2%2F1Rx7CnXvbe3Ps3dnxN2wY…>And forward this email to your friends, we all need to do everything we can
> to get the word out to stop this.
>
> Thank you for helping!
> -- Tiffiniy
> Fight for the Future
--
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.*