Hello everyone,
For your reading pleasure, here is our fourth issue of our newsletter. Here
is what has happened in public policy in February and early March 2017:
Policy Issue Highlights
Supporting collaboration across borders
On March 14, along with 50 other organizations, we signed an amicus brief
in State of Hawaii v. Trump before the United States District Court of
Hawaii to support the issuance of a temporary restraining order against a
new executive order that imposes restrictions on travel and immigration
based on national origin. Judge Derrick K. Watson granted the temporary
restraining order after the first hearing, and we are happy with this
outcome. We believe that international collaboration for free knowledge
benefits from people’s ability to travel without undue restrictions. We
will share more as the case proceeds.
See the amicus brief:
https://wikimediafoundation.org/wiki/File:Tech_Amici_Curiae_Brief,_Hawaii_v…
Read our blogpost for more context:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/03/15/amicus-brief-us-travel-restrictions/
See also our blogpost about the amicus brief we joined against a similar
executive order in early February:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/02/06/amicus-brief-immigration-travel-restr…
Transparency Report
In February, we released the transparency report for the second half of
2016. The report sheds light on the requests we receive to alter or remove
content from the Wikimedia projects, or provide nonpublic information about
users. Between July and December 2016, we received 13 requests for user
data, including six from government entities. We produced data in only one
of those cases. In the same time period, we received 187 alteration or
take-down requests, including two from government entities. And we are
proud to say that we granted none of them.
We believe in protecting the privacy of Wikimedians and in the importance
of freedom of expression on the internet. They are critical values for the
Wikimedia movement, and through the transparency report, we document the
kinds of threats they face and the work we do to defend them.
Read the whole transparency report:
https://transparency.wikimedia.org/
Read the blogpost about the transparency report:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/02/13/sixth-transparency-report/
EU Copyright Reform
In September 2016, the European Commission presented its Proposal for a
Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market. Now, the Committees of
the European Parliament have published their draft opinions. We are closely
following the debate and observing at least two positive trends: the
proposal to require internet platforms to implement automatic content
detection systems (Art. 13) is getting some serious pushback in both the
draft opinion of the Internal Market Committee and Rapporteur Comodini’s
draft report. In addition, the Culture and Education Committee’s draft
opinion proposes Freedom of Panorama, albeit only for non-commercial use.
MEP Julia Reda has commissioned a study about the compatibility of Art. 13
with the current legal framework of the EU. The study finds that the
proposed norm is in conflict with EU copyright law, the e-commerce
directive, and three fundamental rights protected by the Charter of
Fundamental Rights. The author of the study, Dr. Christina Angelopoulos of
the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law at Cambridge,
suggests deleting the norm altogether.
We are in close contact with Dimi, who does amazing work on the ground in
Brussels and also regularly sends updates about his work to this list, and
optimistic about positive changes to European copyright law.
Follow the legislative procedure here:
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/oeil/popups/ficheprocedure.do?reference=2016/…
Read the study on Art. 13:
https://juliareda.eu/2017/03/study-article13-upload-surveillance/
See also EFF’s blogpost on the draft report of the Legal Affairs Committee:
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/03/leaked-report-slams-european-link-tax…
Comments to the U.S. Copyright Office about Sec. 512 (second round)
In addition to our support of free knowledge in the EU copyright reform, we
are also engaging in a consultation by the U.S. Copyright Office about the
rules for intermediary liability in the Digital Millennium Copyright Act
(DMCA). In February, we submitted our comments on improvements to the safe
harbor of Sec. 512 and addressed questions about diversity of platforms,
public interest, measures for the effectiveness of the current rules,
tackling abuse of the system, and the need for additional educational
resources for users. Broadly speaking, we believe that any changes to the
current system need to take into account the diversity both among service
providers and creators. In our comments, we point out how Sec. 512 has
promoted the growth of the internet and diversity among service providers
and voice our concerns over a “notice-and-staydown” system that would
require automatic content detection.
We look forward to seeing more empirical research around Sec. 512 and hope
that the Copyright Office will base its recommendations for changes to the
law on this evidence.
Read our submission for this second round of comments to the U.S. Copyright
Office:
https://policy.wikimedia.org/wp-content/uploads/2017/02/wikimedia-foundatio…
See also our blogposts from 2016 about the first round of comments:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/04/06/save-safe-harbors-open-web/
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2016/06/16/copyright-law/
Further reading:
https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20170222/11214836767/why-dmcas-notice-tak…
https://blog.archive.org/2017/02/23/the-internet-archive-pushes-back-on-not…
https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2017/02/eff-copyright-office-safe-harbors-work
Update on
IMDb.com, Inc. v. Harris
In our previous newsletter, we told you about the amicus brief that we
joined in support the right to publish truthful information, in IMDB.com’s
case against a new law in California, AB 1687, that would require websites
like IMDB that offer employment services to remove information about an
actor's age or birthday upon request. Recently, a United States District
Court Judge issued a preliminary injunction to temporarily suspend the law
while the lawsuit is pending. Opponents of the law have voiced concerns
over its restrictions on freedom of expression. And indeed, Judge Chhabria
found that “it’s difficult to imagine how AB 1687 could not violate the
First Amendment.” While this is a positive sign and the law remains on
hold, there will still be further hearings before the case is resolved.
Read the amicus brief:
https://www.eff.org/files/2017/01/13/026-1_amicus_curiae_brief_of_eff_fac_m…
Further reading:
http://www.natlawreview.com/article/ninth-circuit-court-order-suggests-it-m…
http://www.lexology.com/library/detail.aspx?g=39fa9cb4-6d09-4cfd-ba2b-3d327…
Met releases 375,000 images under CC Zero license
Early last month, the Metropolitan Museum of Art in New York (“The Met”)
released 375,000 images under a Creative Commons Zero dedication. The
release is part of the world-renown museum’s open access policy, “which
makes images of artworks [the Met] believes to be in the public domain
widely and freely available for unrestricted use, and at no cost [...]”.
The WikiProject Metropolitan Museum of Art will add these images to
Wikimedia Commons and document the artworks with metadata on Wikidata.
We are very happy to see this initiative coming from such a high-profile
museum and hope that others will follow the Met’s example. Promoting the
use and enjoyment of works in the public domain -- rather than locking them
up -- is good for creators and everybody’s participation in our cultural
heritage.
Read the blogpost:
https://blog.wikimedia.org/2017/02/07/the-met-public-art-creative-commons/
The Met’s announcement:
http://metmuseum.org/press/news/2017/open-access
The Met’s open access policy and images:
http://metmuseum.org/about-the-met/policies-and-documents/image-resources
WikiProject Metropolitan Museum of Art
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Wikipedia:GLAM/Metropolitan_Museum_of_Art
Misc.
Tackling harassment to increase access to knowledge
We work to support a welcoming environment on the Wikimedia projects and
the larger web to promote diversity and inclusivity. Reducing harassment
increases the number of people who can actively and safely participate in
free knowledge. In its project Detox, the Wikimedia Foundation’s research
team has used machine learning models to develop tools that can detect
toxic comments in discussions on talk pages and measure their prevalence.
Jigsaw, the Google-owned company who was part of that research project,
recently launched the Perspective API, which allows websites to give users
real-time feedback on the comments they are writing.
We support new ways of improving community health that are mindful of
freedom of expression and access to knowledge. Tools like Detox or
Perspective can help to make discussions and conversations productive and
fruitful and ensure that everybody is able to contribute to free knowledge.
Read more about Detox:
https://meta.wikimedia.org/wiki/Research:Detox
Find more information about Perspective:
https://www.perspectiveapi.com/
Your Input
We would love to hear from you! If you have any feedback or would like us
to include things that you see happening in your country or elsewhere,
please fill out this form
<https://docs.google.com/a/wikimedia.org/forms/d/1-_XXZ3CC0tqX0vRQyU2cHjXxf3tnJavXBOQ53Yb4MV0/edit?ts=58c82e3b>
or follow up with me by email at <jgerlach(a)wikimedia.org>rg>.
All the best,
Stephen and Jan
==
Jan Gerlach
Public Policy Manager
Wikimedia Foundation
149 New Montgomery Street, 6th Floor
San Francisco, CA 94105
jgerlach(a)wikimedia.org