Hi all,
European Digital Rights [1], the Share Foundation [2] and the Free
Knowledge Advocacy Group EU (lead WMDE and WMRS) invite you to join us on a
two day event [3][4] to create awareness for digital civil rights issues,
exchange experiences, transfer knowledge and network. I personally plan to
offer a "Copyright Advocacy Workshop" on day two. Open your calendars and
save the date:
*4-5 September 2014*
Looking forward to meeting you there!
*Where*
Parobrod
Kapetan Mišina 6a,
11000 Beograd, Srbija
[image: banner]
*Draft agenda*
*DAY ONE, 4 September*
13:00-13:15 Welcome session
13:15-14:15 Panel: Censorship in Serbia
14:15-14:45 Q&A
Workshops:
15:30-17:30 1. Policy workstream
15:30-17:30 2. Technical workstream
17:30-18:00 Reports of workshops in plenary
*DAY TWO, 5 September*
11:00-13:30 Self-organised workshops (CfP deadline: 8 August)
14:30-15:30 Capacity-building workshop(s)
15:30-16:00 Closing Session
[1]http://edri.org/
[2]http://www.shareconference.net/sh
[3]http://energise-network-mobilise.tumblr.com/
[4]https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/EU_policy/Engage#Networking_Meetings
Hi all,
The EFF and other organizations are putting together an international week
of action on August 25-29. The action week will focus on the 13 Principles
and be in preparation for the Internet Governance Forum that will be held
in Istanbul on September 2-5. It is modeled on the Copyright week that we
participated in at the beginning of this year.[1] For Copyright week, it
was great to have a number of community members join the action.[2]
We will prepare a blog post about User Notification, Transparency, and
Public Oversight. Once we have a draft, we will post it on meta to
hopefully get your feedback. :)
Let us know if you would like to blog about any of the topics from the
email below so that the 13 Principles organizations can help spread the
word about your posts.
Best,
Yana
[1]
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2014/01/wikipedia-shows-value-vibrant-public-…
[2]
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/01/15/the-wikipedia-library-strives-for-ope…https://blog.wikimedia.org/2014/01/15/wikimedia-and-open-access/http://blog.wikimedia.fr/wikipedia-illustre-la-valeur-dun-domaine-public-vi…http://www.wikimedia.org.il/%D7%95%D7%99%D7%A7%D7%99%D7%A4%D7%93%D7%99%D7%9…
--
Yana Welinder
Legal Counsel
Wikimedia Foundation
415.839.6885 ext. 6867
@yanatweets <https://twitter.com/yanatweets>
NOTICE: As an attorney for the Wikimedia Foundation, for legal/ethical
reasons I cannot give legal advice to, or serve as a lawyer for, community
members, volunteers, or staff members in their personal capacity. For more
on what this means, please see our legal disclaimer
<https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Wikimedia_Legal_Disclaimer>.
---------- Forwarded message ----------
From: Katitza Rodriguez <katitza(a)eff.org>
Date: Mon, Jun 23, 2014 at 3:39 PM
Subject: Week of Action: A World Without Mass Surveillance
To: Yana Welinder <ywelinder(a)wikimedia.org>
Dear Yana,
July 31th is the first anniversary of the 13 Necessary and Proportionate
Principles!
EFF would like to celebrate the Principles' anniversary by organizing a
week of action: A World Without Mass Surveillance. The goal is to raise
awareness of the most serious surveillance problem you are fighting
against in your own country and how that surveillance measure violates
one or more of the 13 Necessary and Proportionate Principles.
The Week of Action: A World Without Mass Surveillance seeks to explain
to the general public the Principles in normal language (for mom and
pop) while raising awareness of concrete surveillance cases in your own
country. The value-added proposition is that by doing this activity
jointly, we would drive some traffic to our causes globally.
We would love that Wikimedia join this week of Action with one blogpost
about how surveillance affects the Wikimedia community and why you
support one of the principles you are highlight in that post. The idea
is to explain the principle in an easier way.
This is the idea:
Every day, each of us can write one (or more) blogposts on our own site
about one or two of the principles of the day. We can then aggregate the
links in one single page at the the N&P site (where we plan to generate
a big media splash):
necessaryandproportionate.org/a-world-without-mass-surveillance
I'm borrowing this idea from the IP activist community, who did
something similar for Copyright Week: https://www.eff.org/copyrightweek
To make a big splash, we need many groups as possible committed to write
at least one blog post (if not more) about the fight that you are having
on the Principles. We will add the logos of everyone who is committed to
join this world action, and we can aggregate all the links at N&P. If
you are interested, please do let me know!
Here are the list of principles grouped by themes and how we might focus
on each.
Legality & Legitimate Aim
LEGALITY
Limits on the right to privacy must be set out clearly and
precisely in laws, and should be regularly reviewed to make sure privacy
protections keep up with rapid technological changes.
LEGITIMATE AIM
Communications surveillance should only be permitted in
pursuit of the most important state objectives.
(An example of a topic: how UK surveillance law protections failed to
take into account the rise of social media hosted in the US, recently
revealed by Privacy International's case before the Investigatory Powers
Tribunal , or economic/serious crime exemptions in local law)
Necessity, Proportionality, and Adequacy
NECESSITY
The State has the obligation to prove that its communications
surveillance activities are necessary to achieving a legitimate objective.
ADEQUACY
A communications surveillance mechanism must be effective in
achieving its legitimate objective.
PROPORTIONALITY
Communications surveillance should be regarded as a highly
intrusive act that interferes with the rights to privacy and freedom of
opinion and expression, threatening the foundations of a democratic society.
Proportionate communications surveillance will typically require prior
authorization from a competent judicial authority.
(Examples: NSA mass surveillance -- necessary and unproportional? EU
Data retention decision?)
User Notification, Transparency, and Public Oversight
USER NOTIFICATION
Individuals should be notified of a decision authorising surveillance of
their communications and be provided an opportunity to challenge such
surveillance before it occurs, except in certain exceptional circumstances.
TRANSPARENCY
The government has an obligation to make enough information publicly
available so that the general public can understand the scope and nature
of its surveillance activities. The government should not generally
prevent service providers from publishing details on the scope and
nature of their own surveillance-related dealings with State.
(Examples: Transparency reports from companies: but where is the other
side of this equation? Which countries publish reports?)
PUBLIC OVERSIGHT
States should establish independent oversight mechanisms to ensure
transparency and accountability of communications surveillance.
Oversight mechanisms should have the authority to access all potentially
relevant information about State actions.
(Example: A look into the failings of parliamentary oversight?)
Integrity of Communications and Systems
INTEGRITY OF COMMUNICATIONS AND SYSTEMS
Service providers or hardware or software vendors should not be
compelled to build surveillance capabilities or backdoors into their
systems or to collect or retain particular information purely for State
surveillance purposes.
(Example: The recent successful push of an amendment in the US Congress?
Backdoors, lawful interception)
Safeguards
SAFEGUARDS FOR INTERNATIONAL COOPERATION
On occasion, States may seek assistance from foreign service providers
to conduct surveillance. This must be governed by clear and public
agreements that ensure the most privacy-protective standard applicable
is relied upon in each instance.
(Possible example: Access's MLAT project update? Spotlight on the the
Five Eyes agreement?)
SAFEGUARDS AGAINST ILLEGITIMATE ACCESS
There should be civil and criminal penalties imposed on any party
responsible for illegal electronic surveillance and those affected by
surveillance must have access to legal mechanisms necessary for
effective redress. Strong protection should also be afforded to
whistleblowers who expose surveillance activities that threaten human
rights.
(Possible example: EFF's Ethiopia case?
Wikileaks recent investigation similar to what Dinah from Human Rights
Watch)
-- Katitza Rodriguez International Rights Director Electronic Frontier
Foundation
--
Katitza Rodriguez
International Rights Director
Electronic Frontier Foundation
Hi all,
This is simply an FYI that me and Mathias just had a rather lengthy
discussion with the Atomium (yes the Brussels landmark) about copyright.
You gotta love a 21st century where you can discuss intellectual property
rights with your favourite building :D
https://storify.com/dimi_z/atomium-and-freedom-of-panorama
It's a bit long - several pages - but toward the end many more people
joined the discussion and also Commissioner Kroes (this time her name
without typo) was included.
Finally, the Atomium agreed that Freedom of Panorama would "make its life
easier". Before admitting that it doesn't know what it is talking about.
Have fun!
Dimi
Great news, Dimi! Thank you for sharing.
Regards,
John
- - - -
John Andersson
Wikimedia Sverige
Project Manager
Phone: +46(0)73-3965189
Email: john.andersson(a)wikimedia.se
Skype: johnandersson86
Be sure to follow us on Twitter at @WikiEuropeana and @WikimediaSE
Would you like to support free knowledge and Wikipedia? Please consider becoming a member of Wikimedia Sverige! We need your support.
> From: advocacy_advisors-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> Subject: Advocacy_Advisors Digest, Vol 25, Issue 3
> To: advocacy_advisors(a)lists.wikimedia.org
> Date: Thu, 3 Jul 2014 12:02:27 +0000
>
> Send Advocacy_Advisors mailing list submissions to
> advocacy_advisors(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>
> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy_advisors
> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
> advocacy_advisors-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>
> You can reach the person managing the list at
> advocacy_advisors-owner(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>
> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of Advocacy_Advisors digest..."
>
>
> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. Re: Hungarian Constitutional Court holds content providers
> responsible for unmoderated comments (Tisza Gergő)
> 2. Commissioner on copyright reform and FoP
> (Dimitar Parvanov Dimitrov)
> 3. Re: Commissioner on copyright reform and FoP (Stevie Benton)
> 4. Re: Commissioner on copyright reform and FoP
> (Dimitar Parvanov Dimitrov)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2014 22:32:57 -0700
> From: Tisza Gergő <gtisza(a)gmail.com>
> To: Advocacy Advisory Group for Wikimedia
> <advocacy_advisors(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [Advocacy Advisors] Hungarian Constitutional Court holds
> content providers responsible for unmoderated comments
> Message-ID:
> <CACiqbVwkfU1h2sZ2BNFG8UcdQrvR4sCPeYhGZVp78dXrM5xPTw(a)mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> On Mon, Jun 30, 2014 at 1:45 AM, Dimitar Parvanov Dimitrov <
> dimitar.parvanov.dimitrov(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Thanks, Tisza, for the update! So I guess this cements it then? Any chance
> > anybody can change the rule in Hungary from now on?
> >
>
> IANAL, but as I understand it the lower-level courts based their decision
> on certain laws, and the Constitutional Court was asked to say whether that
> is unconstitutional due to freedom of speech, and they said it was not;
> they did not say the responsibility of content providers follows directly
> from the constitution. So if the laws in question (2001/CVIII e-commerce
> act + civil code) are changed, that could affect the situation. (And of
> course the constitution could be changed - the current ruling party has
> supermajority and does that quite frequently.)
>
> Given that the current government has so far always changed laws towards
> less freedom of speech, not more, I wouldn't hold my breath, though.
>
What is Neelie Kores doing next?
On 3 July 2014 13:02, <advocacy_advisors-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org> wrote:
> Send Advocacy_Advisors mailing list submissions to
> advocacy_advisors(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>
> To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit
> https://lists.wikimedia.org/mailman/listinfo/advocacy_advisors
> or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to
> advocacy_advisors-request(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>
> You can reach the person managing the list at
> advocacy_advisors-owner(a)lists.wikimedia.org
>
> When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific
> than "Re: Contents of Advocacy_Advisors digest..."
>
>
> Today's Topics:
>
> 1. Re: Hungarian Constitutional Court holds content providers
> responsible for unmoderated comments (Tisza Gergő)
> 2. Commissioner on copyright reform and FoP
> (Dimitar Parvanov Dimitrov)
> 3. Re: Commissioner on copyright reform and FoP (Stevie Benton)
> 4. Re: Commissioner on copyright reform and FoP
> (Dimitar Parvanov Dimitrov)
>
>
> ----------------------------------------------------------------------
>
> Message: 1
> Date: Wed, 2 Jul 2014 22:32:57 -0700
> From: Tisza Gergő <gtisza(a)gmail.com>
> To: Advocacy Advisory Group for Wikimedia
> <advocacy_advisors(a)lists.wikimedia.org>
> Subject: Re: [Advocacy Advisors] Hungarian Constitutional Court holds
> content providers responsible for unmoderated comments
> Message-ID:
> <
> CACiqbVwkfU1h2sZ2BNFG8UcdQrvR4sCPeYhGZVp78dXrM5xPTw(a)mail.gmail.com>
> Content-Type: text/plain; charset="iso-8859-1"
>
> On Mon, Jun 30, 2014 at 1:45 AM, Dimitar Parvanov Dimitrov <
> dimitar.parvanov.dimitrov(a)gmail.com> wrote:
>
> > Thanks, Tisza, for the update! So I guess this cements it then? Any
> chance
> > anybody can change the rule in Hungary from now on?
> >
>
> IANAL, but as I understand it the lower-level courts based their decision
> on certain laws, and the Constitutional Court was asked to say whether that
> is unconstitutional due to freedom of speech, and they said it was not;
> they did not say the responsibility of content providers follows directly
> from the constitution. So if the laws in question (2001/CVIII e-commerce
> act + civil code) are changed, that could affect the situation. (And of
> course the constitution could be changed - the current ruling party has
> supermajority and does that quite frequently.)
>
> Given that the current government has so far always changed laws towards
> less freedom of speech, not more, I wouldn't hold my breath, though.
>
Wikimedia and the EU
June Report
tl;dr
A draft of the White Paper on copyright was leaked and looks very vague. A
court decision confirmed that caching when browsing the internet does not
constitute a copyright infringement.
This and past reports: https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/EU_policy/Monitor
ToC
1. Leaked White Paper on Copyright
2. Meltwater Case CJEU Decision
3. EU Libraries May Digitise Books Without Asking Permission
4. Next Steps in Brussels - Parliamentary Groups, Committees and
Commissioners
-----------------
-----------------
#copyright #DGmarkt #whitepaper
1. Leaked White Paper on copyright remains vague
Why is this relevant?
A White Paper is an action proposal by the European Commission. [1] They
are the usual phase before a legislative proposal, although this is not an
automatic step.
What happened?
Following the copyright consultation by the European Commission and several
studies released in the intellectual property field, a white paper was
announced for June and then July. While we’re still waiting for the
officially published version, a draft was leaked to the public.[2][3]
The draft looks quite elaborate, so that I wouldn’t expect major changes of
direction in the final version, but some nuanced might still be refined.
The basic position is that they recommend action to be taken in the
2014-2019 period, but don't want to say whether this should legislative or
other. The positions range from harmonising exceptions (teaching, persons
with disability) to basically refraining from any binding steps (in the
cases of user-generated content, e-lending).
It clearly underlines, that the Commission sees copyright first and
foremostly as an economic tool, which means that we need to be able to
bring our points across using economic arguments.
In its current form, the white paper doesn’t really talk about the major
copyright issues (fragmented rules across 28 Member States and the
uneconomic length of copyright terms), but leaves the door open for some
harmonisation of exceptions and limitations. Whether the opening will be
large enough to push our issues firmly onto the agenda will partly depend
on tonality and nuancing of the final version.
What comes next?
We need to wait for the official text and see how it will be perceived by
the Council and Parliament. The white paper needs to be also read in
combination of the impact assesment, which is to be released in parallel by
the Commission. A leaked version of this also available. [4]
The actions that follow will depend heavily on the new Commissioner, who is
expected to take office in November. A great opportunity to make copyright
a crucial agenda topic over the coming five years is the new Commissioner’s
hearing in the European Parliament in September/October. One way to make
sure this happens is to get in touch with the relevant committees and MEPs
that will conduct the hearing.
-----------------
-----------------
#meltwater #CJEU
2. CJEU confirms that browsing is no copyright infringement
Why is this relevant?
It is part of both, the fundamental structure of the internet and copyright
law. The question was whether technical copies (caching) made while
accessing websites are copyright infringements and thus need permission by
the rights owner.
What happened?
The UK Newspaper Licensing Agency (NLA) sued a service called Meltwater
News based on the conviction that temporary, on-screen cached copies of
newspaper articles on end-users’ computers made while accessing websites
constitute copyright infringement.
The UK Supreme Court referred [5] the case to the CJEU to clarify whether
temporary copies may be made without authorisation of the copyright holder,
according to the 2001 InfoSoc Directive, Article 5. [6]
The Court of Justice ruled [7] that in this case copies are temporary, part
of the technical process and incidental, so that no permission needs to be
cleared for them.
What comes next?
Temporary and technical copies are an important part of the debate around
copyright and the internet and such decisions will be taken into account
for the white paper on copyright as well as any further steps proposed by
the European Commission.
-----------------
-----------------
#digitisation #libraries
3. Advocate-General says libraries may digitise books without permission
Why is this relevant?
In a forthcoming ruling the Court of Justice of the European Union needs to
decide in which cases libraries will be allowed to digitise books in their
collection and how they’ll be allowed to grant access to them. This is an
important decision that directly influence how knowledge can be legally
digitised and distributed.
What happened?
A German publisher sued the Technical University of Darmstadt, because it
digitised one of its books - which was part of the university’s library
collection - without asking for an additional permission first. While the
system didn’t allow the number of people accessing the digital version to
exceed the number of copies the library owned, the on-premise terminals
gave students the opportunity to print copies or save them on USB sticks.
[8]
The case was referred to the CJEU by the German court asking for guidance.
The Advocate-General of the CJEU released an opinion on this case [9]
stating that it is up to Member States to allow libraries to digitise books
in their collections without the rights-holders’ consent. Further it says
that copying the digitised version is a copyright infringement as far as
the InfoSoc Directive is concerned, but printing the book should be
permissible, since this may be considered a private copy.
What comes next?
The final ruling of the Court of Justice of the EU doesn’t always follow
the Advocate-General’s opinion, so we will need to wait for a few more
months to have legal certainty of what is permissible.
-----------------
-----------------
#EP #committees #NewParliament
4. Next steps in Brussels: Parliamentary groups, committees and
Commissioners
Why is this relevant?
It helps knowing who we will be working with over the next 5 years and
which political ecosystem this partnership will be set in. Talking
specifically about copyright, the crucial European Parliament Committees
are JURI (Legal Affairs) and IMCO (Internal Market and Consumer
Protection), while the most relevant Commissioner will be the one
responsible for the Internal Market (DG MARKT).
What happened?
With the first plenary session scheduled for the 1-3 July in Strasbourg,
the parliamentary groups seem to have formed. The new composition of the
major looks as follows [10]:
-
European Peoples Party 211 (conservative/industry-driven copyright
views)
-
Socialists&Democrats 191 (conflicting views on copyright, but very
pro-education)
-
European Conservatives&Reformists 70 (conflicting views, but British
Tories pro single market)
-
Liberals&Democrats 67 (pro-market but also supporting strong civil and
user rights)
-
Radical Left 52 (supporting a major copyright overhaul)
-
Greens/EFA 50 (group comprises the Pirate MEP and has supported a vast
copyright reform)
What has changed is the strengthened position of radical-right groups and
independents. This has shifted the majority coalitions needed. In the last
legislative period it used to be possible to get a majority with the
Socialists, Greens and the Radical Left or with Peoples Party and Liberals.
Now both combinations won’t reach the required number of votes meaning that
finding majorities will become even harder and necessary compromises might
water down most legislative texts.
What comes next?
The groups will be appointing MEPs to the committees ahead of the first
plenary now. A lot of names are already known as these nomination were
part of the forming of the groups, but the final lists are expected to be
released on 3 July (the first plenary in Strasbourg will take place 1-3 of
July) or on the 7th when the first committee meetings will be held.
The committees will then also be in charge of handling the hearings of the
proposed new commissioners in September and October. The new Commission is
expected to step into office in November.
-----------------
-----------------
[1]http://europa.eu/legislation_summaries/glossary/white_paper_en.htm
[2]
http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/2014/06/super-kat-exclusive-heres-commissions.…
[3]
https://www.dropbox.com/s/0xcflgrav01tqlb/White%20Paper%20%28internal%20dra…
[4]
http://statewatch.org/news/2014/may/eu-draft-impact-assessment-copyright-ac…
[5]
http://www.twobirds.com/en/news/articles/2014/global/cjeu-decision-in-meltw…
[6]http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=CELEX:32001L0029
[7]
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/HTML/?uri=CELEX:62013CJ0360&q…
[8]
http://eulawradar.com/case-c-11713-technische-universitat-darmstadt-introdu…
[9]
http://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2014-06/cp140078en.…
[10]
http://europedecides.eu/2014/06/whos-going-where-tracking-the-musical-chair…