Publicpolicy May 2013

publicpolicy@lists.wikimedia.org

10 participants
6 discussions

[Advocacy Advisors] A Proposed Amendment to the United States Copyright Act
by Mathias Schindler 15 Jul '13

15 Jul '13

FYI. (it is my opinion that WMF should support any effort promoting such an amendment to the copyright act) https://law.resource.org/pub/edicts.html TEXT OF THE PETITION To promote access to justice, equal protection, innovation in the legal marketplace, and to codify long-standing public policy, the Copyright Act of the United States, 17 U.S.C., should be amended as follows: “Edicts of government, such as judicial opinions, administrative rulings, legislative enactments, public ordinances, and similar official legal documents are not copyrightable for reasons of public policy. This applies to such works whether they are Federal, State, or local as well as to those of foreign governments.” This language comes directly from Section 206.01, Compendium of Office Practices II, U.S. Copyright Office (1984). It reflects clear and established Supreme Court precedent on the matter in cases such as Wheaton v. Peters, 33 U.S. (8 Pet.) 591 (1834) and Banks v. Manchester, 128 U.S. 244 (1888). The law belongs to the people, who should be free to read, know, and speak the laws by which they choose to govern themselves. -- 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.

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Re: [Advocacy Advisors] [Wikimedia-l] SOPA related bill in Taiwan
by Stephen LaPorte 19 Jun '13

19 Jun '13

Hello Ted, I am cross-posting your email for the advocacy advisory group. On Tue, May 28, 2013 at 1:43 PM, Ted Chien <hsiangtai.chien(a)gmail.com>wrote: > My dear colleagues, > > Recently on May 21 the Taiwan Intellectual Property Office has announced > that they will amend the Copyright Act to demand local ISPs to block > illegal contents on foreign websites, just like the SOPA bill in USA last > year. For more information, you can read the following news reports: > > Focus Taiwan: > http://focustaiwan.tw/news/aall/201305210035.aspx > > ZDNet: > > http://www.zdnet.com/cn/taiwans-copyright-act-amendment-proposal-comes-unde… > > Now there are many Taiwan netizens protesting the bill: > > > http://globalvoicesonline.org/2013/05/26/netizens-fear-copyright-amendment-… > > But today we just see an news that TIPO just ignored these protests and > insist that this bill will not harm the net freedom and rights of general > users: > > http://newtalk.tw/news/2013/05/28/36854.html (it's in Chinese, you may use > Google translate to read the news.) > > Indeed we should protect the copyright, but to ask ISPs to block websites > is too over-reaction. > > We Wikimedia Taiwan is now against the bill and has just released an > Chinese announcement on our official website to explain why we against the > bill and ask the government to stop the act: > > http://bit.ly/ZbvTX0 > > We also started an discussion on zh.wp to ask the community if we could put > the announcement as an global site notice, we even think about blackout > zh.wp for 24 hours (the date is still in discussion): > > http://goo.gl/fXi8g > > This is because according to Alexa.com (http://Alexa.com), Wikipedia is > now > the top 10 website in Taiwan. To blackout Wikipedia in Taiwan should get > the attention of TIPO and has some effects. > > My questions are: > > * Could we ask for blackout Wikipedia (not just zh.wp) ONLY for Taiwan IP? > (Some users from China hope this blackout will not effect them) > * If we could not blackout Wikipedia only for Taiwan IP, could we ask to > blackout zh.wp? (from what we have discussed on zh.wp, the Chinese > community has agreed on such blackout, but the date is still on discussion) > * If we could implement such blackout, how soon it can be done? > * What suggestions from you that we should do as an local Chapter? > > Thanks and Regards, > Ted Chien > Chairman > Wikimedia Taiwan > -- > Blog: htttp://htchien.tw (http://htchien.tw/) > Facebook: http://facebook.com/htchien > Twitter: http://twitter.com/htchien > LinkedIn: http://linkedin.com/in/htchien > _______________________________________________ > Wikimedia-l mailing list > Wikimedia-l(a)lists.wikimedia.org > Unsubscribe: https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/wikimedia-l > -- 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.*

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[Advocacy Advisors] Fwd: WIPO - Vorbereitung der 25. Sitzung des IGC vom 15. bis 24. Juli 2013 in Genf - Frist: 27.06.2013
by Mathias Schindler 29 May '13

29 May '13

Hi there, here is another forward from WIPO regarding a draft for "The Protection of Traditional Cultural Expressions". It may have implications on copyright or copyright-like mechanisms. Mathias -- 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.

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[Advocacy Advisors] EU Policy Monitoring Report - May
by Dimitar Parvanov Dimitrov 29 May '13

29 May '13

Hi, gang! Sorry for crossposting if you are on eu-policy-announce, but we'd like to encourage comments or questions on this, so I believe it makes good sense if we also post the reports on Advocacy Advisors. Dimi * * *tl;dr* The first monitoring report on EU Policy strives to give a brief overview over current legislative debates in Brussels that might be of interest to the Wikimedia movement. We have five topics: 1. Collective Rights Management and Online Use 2. EU-US Trade Agreement 3. Stakeholder Dialogue on Copyright 4. EU Data Protection 5. Network Neutrality *#CRM* *Collective Rights Management and Online Use of Music Works * *What’s going on?* The European Commission’s directive proposal *on collective management of copyright and related rights and multi-territorial licensing of rights in musical works for online uses in the internal market *[1]* *has entered the next stage of the legislative process by being submitted to the European Parliament and the Council of the European Union. The reform aims to tweak the current legislation by making collecting societies more transparent and ensuring cross-border compatibility of licenses on the internal market, especially when it comes to online use of works. *Why should we care?* The directive intends, although vaguely, to introduce non-commercial uses (read: Creative Commons licenses) as an option for creators in the collective management system. As the Commission proposal is anything but clear on this, there is currently a push and pull within the Parliament as to how far this should go. Industry proponents argue for a “minimum harmonisation approach”, which means that no exact measures will be specified. At the same time, the Parliament’s Culture Committee says that authors should be given the right to remove some of their works from the collective management system and publish them under a free license. Currently collecting societies in the EU don’t allow their clients to make parts of their work generally available (e.g. One song of an album to be released under a CC license). In Germany, there is simultaneously a strong effort to build up a non-exclusive collecting society.[2] *Game plan?* The first reading in the Parliament is forecasted for the 19.11.2013. The four non-leading committees have already published their draft opinions. Until then the lead committee (Legal Affairs - Rapporteur Marielle Gallo, EPP) will publish its report and amendment proposals can still be tabled. There is also a mandatory consultation with the Economic and Social Committee. ----------------- ----------------- *#IPRTTIP* *Intellectual Property Regulation in EU-US Trade Agreement* *What’s going on?* Both the EU and the US have expressed their intent to include an IPR chapter in TTIP, though its final scope will be subject of negotiations. *Why should we care?* Remember ACTA? We cannot be generally for or against this motion yet, since the content is not even discussed yet. We do however, as many other stakeholders, have an interest that the negotiations are public and transparent so that “surprise packages” (such as a more rigorous liability regime for providers) can be avoided. *Game plan?* Some MEPs are currently organising dialogues and meetings to hear about the fears and hopes of the stakeholders. Generally speaking, an involvement of the Parliament in the negotiations would make the process more predictable. Currently a group of digital rights organisations are trying to motivate DG Trade to release the texts, an effort not met warmly within the Commission (and the Parliament Committee on Trade for that matter). A vote on this treaty could happen well before the EP elections in 2014. ----------------- ----------------- *#Licenses4Europe* *Stakeholder Dialogue on Copyright Reform* *What’s going on?* The European Commission has launched a stakeholder dialogue in four working groups with the intention to discuss current licensing issues and come up with a reform proposal. *Why should we care?* - Although this does not seem to be turning out as the major copyright reform originally claimed, its general intention to address “user-generated content” should make us alert and calls for keeping an eye on the whole process. - After some early signals from the Commission that new Fair Use exceptions be introduced, there has been silence on this issue as none of the current participants want or can bring it up. - Another possibility is that cross-border compatibility of licenses is addressed, which could improve or worsen some of the issues with our content across Europe. - Simultaneously there might be a move towards stronger copyright enforcement and more restrictive use of content online *Game plan?* The working groups will conduct regular meeting until the end of this year. The Commission plans to table a legislative proposal early 2014. ----------------- ----------------- *#EUdataP* *EU Data Protection* *What’s going on?* The European Commission originally wanted to guarantee a high level of data protection to all of its citizens online. This has turned into real trench warfare of several accounts. The topics discussed include: - The “right to be forgotten” - Definition of "personal data" - Should pseudonymous data be exempt from regulation - Should there be a “justifiable interest” exception allowing companies to not ask for consent - Who is going to control it and will there be fines *Why should we care?* While we are currently complying with even the stricter proposals, as website operators, administrators and editors we need to be aware of what is legal and what is coming. There was some fear that the “right to be forgotten” might force us to delete information from our websites, but it currently looks like this risk is off the table. There are currently no inherent or apparent risks for us in this although we do care deeply about the topic. *Game plan?* The Lead Comittee’s (LIBE) vote is expected before the summer break 2013. After that the dossier will move to the 1st plenary hearing and a vote in the Council, where significant changes are highly unlikely. ----------------- ----------------- *#netneutrality* *Network Neutrality* *What’s going on?* The European Commission originally expressed support for an “open” and “neutral” internet, yet has never acted to inscribe this into law. In the past months telecoms in Germany and internet service providers in France have stopped or limited access to services from competitors in their networks. This has lead to considerable outrage among digital rights groups. Neelie Kroes (Commissioner for Competition), who was originally in favour of the idea decided not to act upon the restrictions in France, saying that packaging or throttling access is a product labelling issue, rather than worrisome.[3]* * *Why should we care?* We are interested in a open and free internet guaranteeing each user the right to access all the websites. Otherwise clients might be charged extra money to access servers from outside their country (i.e. in Virginia) or have different packages for different types of websites (sports/news/multimedia) which would not be advantageous to us. On the other hand, such a legislation would disallow zero access projects, which might hinder free access to educational and other content, even in cases with non-commercial intentions. *Game plan?* The Commission is currently planning to release non-binding recommendations. There is a considerable debate going on whether there should be binding legislation on the matter and whether the EU shouldn’t leave this issue to the member states. Slovenia and the Netherlands have already codified net neutrality as part of their national legislations. ----------------- ----------------- [1] http://www.europarl.europa.eu/document/activities/cont/201303/20130306ATT62… [2]http://c3s.cc/index_en.html [3]http://blogs.ec.europa.eu/neelie-kroes/netneutrality/

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[Advocacy Advisors] repost from wikimedia-l re IEEE 802.16 WiMAX/MeFi in whitespaces
by James Salsman 28 May '13

28 May '13

Kul Wadhwa wrote: > Microsoft with other partners has also been working on bringing broadband > to Kenya (and ultimately other African countries) via white spaces.... > However, every party has their own agenda so hopefully competition lowers > prices and gives people more choices. And having many entities working to > get people internet access (esp those that really need it) is what we need > to see more of... ...The FCC has been performing successful IEEE 802.16 WiMAX/MeFi whitespaces tests in at least three metropolitan areas since 2006. However, these pilots are actively opposed by carriers who lobby the FCC, states and municipalities, the FTC, and even hardware manufactures trying to stave off adoption because as soon as the correct approvals get rubber stamped, municipalities will be able to offer telephony services in competition with the mobile carriers. Would someone please create an advocacy RFC about this?

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[Advocacy Advisors] Diplomatic Conference to Conclude a Treaty to Facilitate Access to Published Works by Visually Impaired Persons and Persons with Print Disabilities
by Mathias Schindler 22 May '13

22 May '13

Hi everyone, WIPO is currently negotiating a treaty to introduce a new limitation/exception to copyright. The German ministry of justice is keeping us posted with the current wording of the (still not finalized) treaty. Wikimedia Deutschland has not been participating in any efforts on this matter. We indicated to the ministry early on that we believe every person should be allowed to transform a published work to make it fit his or her current needs and that such copyright limitation/exception should not be restricted to visually impaired persons. Mathias -- 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.

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Publicpolicy May 2013