Hello everyone,
For your reading pleasure, here is the sixth issue of our newsletter.
If you’d like to stay engaged with you us on a more regular basis, please follow us on Twitter: @wikimediapolicy.
We would love to also include things that you see happening in your country or elsewhere. If you have any feedback or want to let us know about an issue, please fill out this form or follow up with me by email at jgerlach@wikimedia.org.
Policy issue highlights
Amicus Brief in support of freedom to travel and collaborate
As we previously shared, on April 21, the Wikimedia Foundation signed an amicus brief in support of two separate challenges to an executive order that would restrict immigration and travel to the US. The brief in State of Hawaii v. Trump (before the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals) and the similar case of International Refugee Assistance Project v. Trump (before the Fourth Circuit Court of Appeals) explains how the order would impact the international operations of the signatories and outlines legal problems with the order’s provisions and proposed implementation.
This is the third time this year that we, along with many other companies and organizations, have filed an amicus brief in support of a challenge to a U.S. executive order’s restrictions on international travel and immigration. These travel restrictions would harm our ability to collaborate with community members and stakeholders across the globe.
On May 8, oral arguments took place before the Fourth Circuit, during which government lawyers were questioned about the order’s underlying rationale. On May 15, arguments took place before the Ninth Circuit. An injunction against an earlier executive order was upheld in similar case, State of Washington v. Trump, in March; we are hopeful about the outcome of these hearings as well. We will keep you posted on the progress of these cases.
Read the amicus brief:
Read the updated blog post:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/03/15/amicus-brief-us-travel-restrictions/
Amicus Brief in support of intermediary immunity and community oversight
On Friday, May 12, the Wikimedia Foundation joined the Electronic Frontier Foundation and others in filing an amicus brief in support of intermediary immunity under the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) in Mavrix Photographs, LLC v. LiveJournal, Inc. Photo agency Mavrix has filed a copyright infringement lawsuit against LiveJournal, claiming that one of the blogs on LiveJournal featured some of its photographs and that the presence of volunteer moderators, who prescreened content before it was posted, made LiveJournal ineligible for the safe harbor granted by section 512(c) of the DMCA.
We are joining a brief to United States Court of Appeals for the Ninth Circuit to argue that it would be counter to the legislative intent behind the DMCA to impose liability on intermediaries if there is a screening process in place. If courts weaken these immunities for websites, they will have less legal leeway to defer to user judgement. Moderation, and enforcement of content policies by users, can help ensure that content is legal, accurate, and safe. The Wikimedia Foundation relies on the DMCA safe harbor to ensure that if infringing content ever appears on the Wikimedia projects, it can be handled by admins and community processes. We believe that the Wikimedia projects can thrive thanks to the safe harbor protection that lets the Foundation respect community self-governance.
Read the amicus brief:
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/File:WMF,_et._al._Amicus_Brief_in_Mavrix_v._LiveJournal.pdf
Wikipedia blocked in Turkey
As most of you will know, on Saturday, April 29 all language versions of Wikipedia were blocked in Turkey. We filed an objection to the order to block Wikipedia on Tuesday, May 2, which was denied, and then we filed a petition with the Turkish Constitutional Court seeking a ruling to restore access to Wikipedia users in Turkey.
Read the full blog post here:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/04/30/turkish-authorities-block-wikipedia/
18 NGOs file intervention in support of freedom of expression in France
In 2016, French data protection authority CNIL decided to implement the right to be forgotten worldwide, rejecting a compromise offer by Google and requiring the search engine to respond to delisting requests by removing corresponding search results from all of its domains. The case, CNIL v. Google, is now before the French Supreme Court (Conseil d’Etat). Late last year, we filed a petition to the Court and partnered with Wikimedia France to publish an op-ed encouraging lawmakers to consider the importance of public access to knowledge in the context of the right to be forgotten.
In February, the Conseil d’Etat has asked the European Court of Justice (CJEU) to issue a preliminary ruling on the matter. Until that happens, the case in France has come to a halt.
Now, a group of 18 non-governmental organizations from around the world have jointly filed an intervention before the Conseil d’Etat. Internet Freedom Foundation, the Software
Freedom Law Center (India), Association for Progressive Communications, Institute of Technology and Society of Rio, Red en Defensa de los Derechos Digitales, and others have written to France’s highest court, urging it to annul CNIL’s order. The NGOs express their concern over the negative implications the order has on freedom of expression and the precedent this would set for censorship by governments in the developing world. We welcome the intervention by this impressive group of organizations working for freedom of expression around the world and will keep you updated when new developments occur.
Read the intervention:
http://www.doughtystreet.co.uk/documents/uploaded-documents/Google_CNIL_FINAL_RELEASE_19.04.17.pdf
Read our op-ed in Le Monde here (in French):
Read about our own petition:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/10/19/petition-right-to-be-forgotten/
Read the Conseil d’Etat’s press release about the request to the CJEU:
http://english.conseil-etat.fr/Activities/Press-releases/Right-to-be-delisted
Events
Creative Commons Global Summit
During the last weekend of April, we and a few other Wikimedians participated in the 2017 Creative Commons Global Summit in Toronto. The summit brought together people from around the world who work for free and participatory culture and access to knowledge. We contributed to discussions of public policy advocacy for the CC and free culture communities, and on reimagining the CC tools (licenses, deeds, website, etc.) for the current needs of users. In addition, Chuck from the Wikimedia Foundation led a workshop on strategies to address the issues of reusers not providing proper CC attribution and of creators sending reusers legal threats in response to improper attribution.
At the summit, Creative Commons presented their latest State of the Commons report, which shows that more than 1.2 Billion works are now freely licensed! The report also includes an inspiring story about a medical doctor, whose university students actively edit 42 Wikipedia articles on health-related topics.
Read the State of the Commons report:
https://stateof.creativecommons.org/
Thanks for reading this newsletter!
All the best,