From John Palfrey's weblog relating to "i-law 2004":
What do iLaw participants think are the pressing issues?
For me, a long-awaited session. What do the participants think are the Pressing Issues in internet law?
* Peer production: does it really matter to those of us who aren't interested in developing Apache? Charlie Nesson pushes back to Yochai Benkler: what is this freedom that you think we want, and what do you think that we want to do with it? Why do we care? When we want something else, this is the way to get it? Charlie wants to know what the "it" is. Yochai says it's blogging, it's being more engaged with the world around us in creative rather than passive ways, it's having more platforms to do other things we want to do -- like earning money.
* We can test propositions over and over again. Scientists should love it. We can change the world through experiments. We will fix things like no longer boiling trees to make paper.
* Jay McCarthy: people are already doing the things that Yochai says we will want to do, like blogging and making movies.
* Charlie really wants to know: To what new creative endeavors will this new mode of production be applied? Larry says it's work as play, or play as work (someone says it's Ender's Game). Just experiment. You might learn, and learn to be able to do, new and incredible things.
* Yochai: most of the great peer production examples are hybrids, not pure plays (Wikipedia is probably the closest thing to the pure play).
* Dave Winer: You panel guys should move off the stand. Practice what you preach. Make it an un-conference. Let's do peer production. [A "hum" from the audience reveals no consensus: about 50/50. So two guys move off into the audience, two guys stay up there. Heh.]
* National security: a pressing issue, with a cool back-and-forth on the Pentagon Papers, but no resolution on the point.
* Media literacy: learning how in the context of making a film that you can radically alter how people understand a series of events. Our kids are far ahead of us. They are learning how to be creators, not just users. They are re-mixers. Pew says that 44% of people had "contributed something to the Internet", which is huge -- huge in terms of people becoming creators. But most of what these kids are doing is illegal -- perhaps criminal under today's law.
Headline for today: Lessig: "All of us should aspire to become 'just bloggers.'" (A great side effect of the conference is new bloggers.)
* Terry raises the K-12 Initiative problem: it turns out to be very possible to get digital versions of textbooks put online and accessible to children with disabilities that make it harder to read (blind, e.g.). There's a trade group representing these publishers who are focused on this issue -- with some trepidation, but also with a sense of the promise. The law is convoluted in this area, and is holding things back at this point. There's movement, with the likely adoption soon of an XML DTD that's standard for these publishers. But the economics, law, technologies, administrative aspects of this issue are extraordinarily complex.
* Rebecca MacKinnon, (one can hear Ethan Zuckerman making the same point, from afar), draws our attention to developing countries. She knows what she's talking about: her NKZone weblog is an important idea. Ben from OSIWA (in Dakar, Senegal); Phillipp from Bridges.org, Heather Ford (a representative from Creative Commons-South Africa), a Latin American, others question some of the immediate relevance of the theory discussed here and focus us tightly on IPR issues. Free culture is essential, most seem to agree.
* Alex Tarkowski: worries about free-riding upon the system generally, and cites the peer production of term papers. (Alex, to his credit, has pursued the translation of Creative Commons licenses into Poland).
Monday, May 31, 2004
Friday, May 21, 2004
freedominfo.org
Update, May 20, 2004
Ecuador Enacts 'Transparency and Access to Information Law'
http://www.freedominfo.org/news/ecuador/20040520.htm
On May 18, 2004, Ecuador formally published the new "Transparency and Access to Information Law" in the government's official record, after passage by Parliament earlier in the month and approval by President Lucio Gutierrez. For freedominfo.org, Carlos Osorio and Kati Costar provide the first English-language analysis of the new law, together with the Spanish-language legal text.
According to the Osorio and Costar report:
With refreshing democratic language, the new Ecuadorian Transparency and Access to Information Law establishes that "[a]ccess to information is a right of the person guaranteed by the State" and requires that government agencies proactively publish functional, operational and financial information. At the same time, a number of inconsistencies within the text, such as allowing the Armed Forces to restrict the right to information, could prove to be obstacles in Ecuador's push for transparency.
http://www.freedominfo.org/news/ecuador/20040520.htm
_______________________________________________________________
freedominfo.org is a one-stop portal that describes best practices,
consolidates lessons learned, explains campaign strategies and
tactics, and links the efforts of freedom of information advocates
around the world. It contains crucial information on freedom of
information laws and how they were drafted and implemented, including
how various provisions have worked in practice.
Update, May 20, 2004
Ecuador Enacts 'Transparency and Access to Information Law'
http://www.freedominfo.org/news/ecuador/20040520.htm
On May 18, 2004, Ecuador formally published the new "Transparency and Access to Information Law" in the government's official record, after passage by Parliament earlier in the month and approval by President Lucio Gutierrez. For freedominfo.org, Carlos Osorio and Kati Costar provide the first English-language analysis of the new law, together with the Spanish-language legal text.
According to the Osorio and Costar report:
With refreshing democratic language, the new Ecuadorian Transparency and Access to Information Law establishes that "[a]ccess to information is a right of the person guaranteed by the State" and requires that government agencies proactively publish functional, operational and financial information. At the same time, a number of inconsistencies within the text, such as allowing the Armed Forces to restrict the right to information, could prove to be obstacles in Ecuador's push for transparency.
http://www.freedominfo.org/news/ecuador/20040520.htm
_______________________________________________________________
freedominfo.org is a one-stop portal that describes best practices,
consolidates lessons learned, explains campaign strategies and
tactics, and links the efforts of freedom of information advocates
around the world. It contains crucial information on freedom of
information laws and how they were drafted and implemented, including
how various provisions have worked in practice.
Wednesday, March 31, 2004
FOIA
From Dr. Yaman Akdeniz:
EU Agreement on security procedures for the exchange of classified information with Bulgaria, Romania, Iceland, Norway, Turkey, Canada, the Russian Federation, Ukraine, the United States of America, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and FYROM
Press Note: BilgilenmeHakki.Org website received an EU document entitled EU Agreement on security procedures for the exchange of classified information with a number of states including Turkey. This document was obtained from the Council of the European Union by Mr. David Banisar of Privacy International, a well known FOI expert under the EU public access to Council documents procedure...
Notes from the EU Agreement
Article 2 of the Agreement defines classified information as follows:For the purposes of the present Agreement, classified information shall mean any information (namely, knowledge that can be communicated in any form) or material determined to require protection against unauthorized disclosure and which has been so designated by a security classification (hereafter: 'classified information').
Article 4 requires Each Party to
(a) protect and safeguard classified information subject to the present Agreement provided or exchanged by the other Party;
(b) ensure that classified information subject to the present Agreement provided or exchanged keeps the security classification given to it by the providing Party. The receiving Party shall protect and safeguard the classified information according to the provisions set out in its own security regulations for information or material holding an equivalent security classification, as specified in the Security Arrangements to be established pursuant to Articles 11 and 12;
(c) not use such classified information subject to the present Agreement for purposes other than those established by the originator and those for which the information is provided or exchanged;
(d) not disclose such classified information subject to the present Agreement to third parties, or to any EU institution or entity not mentioned in Article 3, without the prior consent of the originator.
You can read the full document entitled EU Agreement on security procedures for the exchange of classified information with a number of states including Turkey.
You can also see and read the final version of the EU agreement with revisions - to track the changes made to the original document.
For more details: http://www.bilgilenmehakki.org/
EU Agreement on security procedures for the exchange of classified information with Bulgaria, Romania, Iceland, Norway, Turkey, Canada, the Russian Federation, Ukraine, the United States of America, Bosnia and Herzegovina, and FYROM
Press Note: BilgilenmeHakki.Org website received an EU document entitled EU Agreement on security procedures for the exchange of classified information with a number of states including Turkey. This document was obtained from the Council of the European Union by Mr. David Banisar of Privacy International, a well known FOI expert under the EU public access to Council documents procedure...
Notes from the EU Agreement
Article 2 of the Agreement defines classified information as follows:For the purposes of the present Agreement, classified information shall mean any information (namely, knowledge that can be communicated in any form) or material determined to require protection against unauthorized disclosure and which has been so designated by a security classification (hereafter: 'classified information').
Article 4 requires Each Party to
(a) protect and safeguard classified information subject to the present Agreement provided or exchanged by the other Party;
(b) ensure that classified information subject to the present Agreement provided or exchanged keeps the security classification given to it by the providing Party. The receiving Party shall protect and safeguard the classified information according to the provisions set out in its own security regulations for information or material holding an equivalent security classification, as specified in the Security Arrangements to be established pursuant to Articles 11 and 12;
(c) not use such classified information subject to the present Agreement for purposes other than those established by the originator and those for which the information is provided or exchanged;
(d) not disclose such classified information subject to the present Agreement to third parties, or to any EU institution or entity not mentioned in Article 3, without the prior consent of the originator.
You can read the full document entitled EU Agreement on security procedures for the exchange of classified information with a number of states including Turkey.
You can also see and read the final version of the EU agreement with revisions - to track the changes made to the original document.
For more details: http://www.bilgilenmehakki.org/
Sunday, March 28, 2004
Knowlege Economy Forum-III
I have just returned from Budapest at where the Knowledge Economy Forum-III was held by the World Bank and the Hungarian Government...
Closing Session at the Hungarian Parliament...
Here is the website of the event: http://www.worldbank.org/eca/kef
And this is one of the last presentations made by Halil Ibrahim Akca, Deputy Undersecretary, State Planning Organization:
Turkey: The Country Perspective! (Next year the IVth Forum will be held in Istanbul)
Closing Session at the Hungarian Parliament...
Here is the website of the event: http://www.worldbank.org/eca/kef
And this is one of the last presentations made by Halil Ibrahim Akca, Deputy Undersecretary, State Planning Organization:
Turkey: The Country Perspective! (Next year the IVth Forum will be held in Istanbul)
FREE CULTURE
The new book from Larry Lessig may be found online, for free at :
http://www.free-culture.cc
" Lawrence Lessig could be called a cultural environmentalist. One of
America's most original and influential public intellectuals, his focus is
the social dimension of creativity: how creative work builds on the past and
how society encourages or inhibits that building with laws and technologies.
In his two previous books, CODE and THE FUTURE OF IDEAS, Lessig concentrated
on the destruction of much of the original promise of the Internet. Now, in
FREE CULTURE, he widens his focus to consider the diminishment of the larger
public domain of ideas. In this powerful wake-up call he shows how
short-sighted interests blind to the long-term damage they're inflicting are
poisoning the ecosystem that fosters innovation.
All creative works-books, movies, records, software, and so on-are a
compromise between what can be imagined and what is possible-technologically
and legally. For more than two hundred years, laws in America have sought a
balance between rewarding creativity and allowing the borrowing from which
new creativity springs. The original term of copyright set by the
Constitution in 1787 was seventeen years. Now it is closer to two hundred.
Thomas Jefferson considered protecting the public against overly long
monopolies on creative works an essential government role. What did he know
that we've forgotten?
Lawrence Lessig shows us that while new technologies always lead to new
laws, never before have the big cultural monopolists used the fear created
by new technologies, specifically the Internet, to shrink the public domain
of ideas, even as the same corporations use the same technologies to control
more and more what we can and can't do with culture. As more and more
culture becomes digitized, more and more becomes controllable, even as laws
are being toughened at the behest of the big media groups. What's at stake
is our freedom-freedom to create, freedom to build, and ultimately, freedom
to imagine."
http://www.free-culture.cc
" Lawrence Lessig could be called a cultural environmentalist. One of
America's most original and influential public intellectuals, his focus is
the social dimension of creativity: how creative work builds on the past and
how society encourages or inhibits that building with laws and technologies.
In his two previous books, CODE and THE FUTURE OF IDEAS, Lessig concentrated
on the destruction of much of the original promise of the Internet. Now, in
FREE CULTURE, he widens his focus to consider the diminishment of the larger
public domain of ideas. In this powerful wake-up call he shows how
short-sighted interests blind to the long-term damage they're inflicting are
poisoning the ecosystem that fosters innovation.
All creative works-books, movies, records, software, and so on-are a
compromise between what can be imagined and what is possible-technologically
and legally. For more than two hundred years, laws in America have sought a
balance between rewarding creativity and allowing the borrowing from which
new creativity springs. The original term of copyright set by the
Constitution in 1787 was seventeen years. Now it is closer to two hundred.
Thomas Jefferson considered protecting the public against overly long
monopolies on creative works an essential government role. What did he know
that we've forgotten?
Lawrence Lessig shows us that while new technologies always lead to new
laws, never before have the big cultural monopolists used the fear created
by new technologies, specifically the Internet, to shrink the public domain
of ideas, even as the same corporations use the same technologies to control
more and more what we can and can't do with culture. As more and more
culture becomes digitized, more and more becomes controllable, even as laws
are being toughened at the behest of the big media groups. What's at stake
is our freedom-freedom to create, freedom to build, and ultimately, freedom
to imagine."
Monday, March 01, 2004
“The Right to Information in Turkey”, International Conference
by Istanbul Bilgi University Faculty of Law and Human Rights Law Research Center,
in cooperation with TESEV (Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation) and
Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties.
February 26th, 2004
Details...
by Istanbul Bilgi University Faculty of Law and Human Rights Law Research Center,
in cooperation with TESEV (Turkish Economic and Social Studies Foundation) and
Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties.
February 26th, 2004
Details...
OECD Backs Broadband for Economic and Social Development
Balca Celener posted:
OECD Backs Broadband for Economic and Social Development
Bogdan sent this report:
EU - EP Report on collecting societies for authors' rights
Report on a Community framework for collecting societies for authors'
rights A5-0478/2003. Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal
Market Rapporteur: Raina A. Mercedes Echerer
http://www.qlinks.net/items/qlitem17577.htm
NL - Microsoft wins Lindows fight in the Netherlands (The Register)
Resellers of the Linux distribution Lindows in the Netherlands were
ordered to stop selling the product. Amsterdam judge Rullmann agreed
with Microsoft that in many ways Lindows is 'profiting from the
success of Windows' by infringing Microsoft trademarks.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/35221.html
IT - VALIDITY OF E-MAIL AS EVIDENCE
The Court of Cuneo ordered a company to fulfil its obligations to another
company on the basis of a claim proved with e-mail communications. The
order is interesting as it represents one of the few precedents in relation
to the issue of the validity of e-mails as evidence in Court. An e-mail may
have the same validity as a written document when it is linked to the sender
through information authentication tools. The Judge of Cuneo held that the
use of authentication credentials such as a user ID and password to access
the e-mail account represents a valid means of adducing evidence on the
origin of the message and therefore the Judge held that the e-mails had the
same validity as written documents and admitted them as trial evidence.
http://punto-informatico.it/p.asp?i=46663
NO - LINKING TO INTERNET DATABASE IS LEGAL
The owner of the finn.no website lost its lawsuit against the owner of the
notar.no website. Both websites provide advertisements for properties for
sale and Notar provides a link to the Finn/Eiendom website where Finn offers
its property advertisements. The link is not a deep link and does not
involve framing. Nevertheless, Finn claimed that the link infringed the
copyright in their database and contravened the Norwegian Marketing Control
Act. Finn claimed damages and removal of the link. The claim was dismissed
as the Court held that Finn had voluntarily made its database available to
the public by placing it on the Internet and therefore the link was merely a
way to make it easier for a user to find the information. Further, the Court
did not find the linking to be in conflict with good business practices
US - COPYRIGHT TERM EXTENSION ACT
A group of economists submitted an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in
the case of Eldred v. Ashcroft, arguing that the term extension provided in
the Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA) adds no economic value to the owner
while it extends a monopoly and increases costs to create new derivative
works. Recently, the authors published a paper that counters a common
claim that copyright extension so far out in the future can have little
effect on creativity.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=488085
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID488085_code59984.pdf?abstractid=488085
US - CYBERCRIME TREATY
The Senate is considering ratification of the Cybercrime Treaty, aimed at
stopping computer hackers. But according to the ACLU, the treaty's
language is too broad, threatening the core liberties of citizens. The
treaty, among other mandates, requires signatory nations to grant to its law
enforcement new powers of search and seizure, and forces U.S. law
enforcement to cooperate with investigations of activities that are legal in
the U.S. but illegal overseas.
http://www.aclu.org/Privacy/Privacy.cfm?ID=14605&c=39
Italy to retain communications data for five years (Statewatch)
On 23 December 2003, the Italian data protection authority expressed
its 'concern' about a decree that the government approved on the
compulsory storage of traffic data relating to telephone and Internet
communications by service providers. The decree introduces the
wholesale collection and storage of traffic data on all telephone and
Internet communications by service providers compulsory for sixty
months, in case it may subsequently prove useful for criminal
investigations.
http://www.statewatch.org/news/2004/jan/03italy-dataretention.htm
Spyware cures may cause more harm than good (CNET News.com)
A small army of angry Web users has set up a network of Web sites
where they post reports of antispyware programs said to prey on
consumers by installing offending files. Some of these charges could
get a hearing soon, as public-interest group The Center for Democracy
& Technology plans to file complaints with the Federal Trade
Commission against specific companies.
http://news.com.com/2100-1032_3-5153485.html
ES - LEGISLATION ON INTERNET SERVICE QUALITY
As the number of complaints from ADSL users has increased dramatically
during recent months, several Internet user associations are creating a
lobby group to demand that the Spanish Government approve legislation
governing Internet service quality. Several consumer associations and other
organizations are considering creating a similar lobby group relating to
Internet content, focusing particularly on legislative measures to improve
secure navigation and the protection of children.
http://www.internautas.org/article.php?sid=1481&mode=thread&order=0
http://www.belt.es/noticias/2004/febrero/02/seguridad_red.htm
US - STOPPING SPAM BY REQUIRING E-MAIL STAMPS
Major ISPs indicate interest in a system in which bulk emailers must pay 1
cent to buy a digital "stamp" for each e-mail message sent. The encrypted
stamp would verify the identity of the sender and require e-mailers to honor
requests to opt out. Opponents of the system argue that e-mail stamps
cannot work because the Internet and its traffic are not regulated by one
authority like the postal system is regulated by the federal government.
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/perl/story/32760.html
FR - Les enfants du Net : Recommandation du Forum des droits sur
l'internet (Communiqué de presse)
Recommandation du Forum des droits sur l'internet : Les Enfants du Net
- (1) Les mineurs et les contenus préjudiciables sur l'internet.
Rapport remis à Christian Jacob, Ministre délégué à la Famille, dans
le cadre du Conseil Consultatif de l'internet placé auprès de Claudie
Haigneré, Ministre déléguée à la Recherche et aux Nouvelles
technologies. Publiée le 11 février 2004, cette recommandation est le
fruit de plusieurs mois de concertation d'un groupe de travail
constitué de représentants d'administrations, d'associations
d'utilisateurs et d'acteurs économiques concernés.
http://www.foruminternet.org/activites_evenements/lire.phtml?id=66
EU - Handbook of Legislative Procedures of Computer and Network
Misuse (EDRI-gram)
Study for the European Commission, Directorate-General Information
Society, by Rand Europe. The Handbook is designed to help European
Computer Security Incident Response Teams (CSIRT) deal with incidents
and operate in a European environment with divergent legal codes
dealing with computer crime and misuse. Particular attention is
devoted to the examination of the content of the Council of Europe's
Cybercrime Convention and the proposed European Framework Decision on
Attacks Against Information Systems. The publication contains an
analysis of legislation in each EU member state in the area of
computer crime. A summary table is also provided together with the law
enforcement points of contacts and reporting mechanisms.
http://www.qlinks.net/items/qlitem17646.htm
Mémoire - Les contrats de distribution et Internet - FR
Michaël MALKA - 17/02/2004
http://www.juriscom.net/uni/visu.php?ID=447
JP - E-MAIL LOGGING REQUIREMENT
A bill that would let police without warrants require ISPs to keep logs of
e-mail up to 90 days is expected to go to the Diet this session. The
Justice Ministry's revision of the Criminal Procedure Law aims to give law
enforcement officials stronger tools to deal with Internet crime.
http://www.asahi.com/english/nation/TKY200402190172.html
KR - EMPLOYEE HACKS MESSENGER CONVERSATIONS
An employee of a Internet travel agency hacked his work colleague's Internet
Messenger conversations and reported them to the company head. The employee
used a hacking program to monitor conversations. It is an offence under the
Information Protection legislation to monitor another person's personal
information or communications through phone, Internet, or other information
communication networks.
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200402/200402180019.html
CA - RECORDING INDUSTRY P2P MOTION
Following the lead of RIAA in the U.S., CRIA sought orders from the Federal
Court to require several large ISPs to disclose the identities of
subscribers who uploaded large quantities of pirated music through the ISPs'
IP addresses. Shaw and Rogers have opposed disclosure, citing obligations
under PIPEDA, the cost of tracing dynamic IP addresses, and the risk of
misidentifying subscribers. Vidéotron, affiliated with a legitimate music
downloading site, said it will comply. The motion was adjourned until March
12, 2004. There are suggestions the court may consider the reasoning of a
December U.S. appeals court decision that limited ISP disclosure
obligations.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3496417.stm
'Télécharger tue l'industrie musicale'
Jean-Christophe BOBABLE - 19/02/2004
http://www.juriscom.net/int/visu.php?ID=457
The Creative Commons by Sandy Starr
'What if the law had said that you need someone's permission before taking
their image?' So asked LawrenceLessig, to draw our attention to what the
consequences might have been for
photography and film if they had been regulated as closely when they first
emerged as the internet is today.
http://www.spiked-online.com/articles/0000000CA401.htm
OECD Backs Broadband for Economic and Social Development
Bogdan sent this report:
EU - EP Report on collecting societies for authors' rights
Report on a Community framework for collecting societies for authors'
rights A5-0478/2003. Committee on Legal Affairs and the Internal
Market Rapporteur: Raina A. Mercedes Echerer
http://www.qlinks.net/items/qlitem17577.htm
NL - Microsoft wins Lindows fight in the Netherlands (The Register)
Resellers of the Linux distribution Lindows in the Netherlands were
ordered to stop selling the product. Amsterdam judge Rullmann agreed
with Microsoft that in many ways Lindows is 'profiting from the
success of Windows' by infringing Microsoft trademarks.
http://www.theregister.co.uk/content/4/35221.html
IT - VALIDITY OF E-MAIL AS EVIDENCE
The Court of Cuneo ordered a company to fulfil its obligations to another
company on the basis of a claim proved with e-mail communications. The
order is interesting as it represents one of the few precedents in relation
to the issue of the validity of e-mails as evidence in Court. An e-mail may
have the same validity as a written document when it is linked to the sender
through information authentication tools. The Judge of Cuneo held that the
use of authentication credentials such as a user ID and password to access
the e-mail account represents a valid means of adducing evidence on the
origin of the message and therefore the Judge held that the e-mails had the
same validity as written documents and admitted them as trial evidence.
http://punto-informatico.it/p.asp?i=46663
NO - LINKING TO INTERNET DATABASE IS LEGAL
The owner of the finn.no website lost its lawsuit against the owner of the
notar.no website. Both websites provide advertisements for properties for
sale and Notar provides a link to the Finn/Eiendom website where Finn offers
its property advertisements. The link is not a deep link and does not
involve framing. Nevertheless, Finn claimed that the link infringed the
copyright in their database and contravened the Norwegian Marketing Control
Act. Finn claimed damages and removal of the link. The claim was dismissed
as the Court held that Finn had voluntarily made its database available to
the public by placing it on the Internet and therefore the link was merely a
way to make it easier for a user to find the information. Further, the Court
did not find the linking to be in conflict with good business practices
US - COPYRIGHT TERM EXTENSION ACT
A group of economists submitted an amicus brief to the U.S. Supreme Court in
the case of Eldred v. Ashcroft, arguing that the term extension provided in
the Copyright Term Extension Act (CTEA) adds no economic value to the owner
while it extends a monopoly and increases costs to create new derivative
works. Recently, the authors published a paper that counters a common
claim that copyright extension so far out in the future can have little
effect on creativity.
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/papers.cfm?abstract_id=488085
http://papers.ssrn.com/sol3/delivery.cfm/SSRN_ID488085_code59984.pdf?abstractid=488085
US - CYBERCRIME TREATY
The Senate is considering ratification of the Cybercrime Treaty, aimed at
stopping computer hackers. But according to the ACLU, the treaty's
language is too broad, threatening the core liberties of citizens. The
treaty, among other mandates, requires signatory nations to grant to its law
enforcement new powers of search and seizure, and forces U.S. law
enforcement to cooperate with investigations of activities that are legal in
the U.S. but illegal overseas.
http://www.aclu.org/Privacy/Privacy.cfm?ID=14605&c=39
Italy to retain communications data for five years (Statewatch)
On 23 December 2003, the Italian data protection authority expressed
its 'concern' about a decree that the government approved on the
compulsory storage of traffic data relating to telephone and Internet
communications by service providers. The decree introduces the
wholesale collection and storage of traffic data on all telephone and
Internet communications by service providers compulsory for sixty
months, in case it may subsequently prove useful for criminal
investigations.
http://www.statewatch.org/news/2004/jan/03italy-dataretention.htm
Spyware cures may cause more harm than good (CNET News.com)
A small army of angry Web users has set up a network of Web sites
where they post reports of antispyware programs said to prey on
consumers by installing offending files. Some of these charges could
get a hearing soon, as public-interest group The Center for Democracy
& Technology plans to file complaints with the Federal Trade
Commission against specific companies.
http://news.com.com/2100-1032_3-5153485.html
ES - LEGISLATION ON INTERNET SERVICE QUALITY
As the number of complaints from ADSL users has increased dramatically
during recent months, several Internet user associations are creating a
lobby group to demand that the Spanish Government approve legislation
governing Internet service quality. Several consumer associations and other
organizations are considering creating a similar lobby group relating to
Internet content, focusing particularly on legislative measures to improve
secure navigation and the protection of children.
http://www.internautas.org/article.php?sid=1481&mode=thread&order=0
http://www.belt.es/noticias/2004/febrero/02/seguridad_red.htm
US - STOPPING SPAM BY REQUIRING E-MAIL STAMPS
Major ISPs indicate interest in a system in which bulk emailers must pay 1
cent to buy a digital "stamp" for each e-mail message sent. The encrypted
stamp would verify the identity of the sender and require e-mailers to honor
requests to opt out. Opponents of the system argue that e-mail stamps
cannot work because the Internet and its traffic are not regulated by one
authority like the postal system is regulated by the federal government.
http://www.ecommercetimes.com/perl/story/32760.html
FR - Les enfants du Net : Recommandation du Forum des droits sur
l'internet (Communiqué de presse)
Recommandation du Forum des droits sur l'internet : Les Enfants du Net
- (1) Les mineurs et les contenus préjudiciables sur l'internet.
Rapport remis à Christian Jacob, Ministre délégué à la Famille, dans
le cadre du Conseil Consultatif de l'internet placé auprès de Claudie
Haigneré, Ministre déléguée à la Recherche et aux Nouvelles
technologies. Publiée le 11 février 2004, cette recommandation est le
fruit de plusieurs mois de concertation d'un groupe de travail
constitué de représentants d'administrations, d'associations
d'utilisateurs et d'acteurs économiques concernés.
http://www.foruminternet.org/activites_evenements/lire.phtml?id=66
EU - Handbook of Legislative Procedures of Computer and Network
Misuse (EDRI-gram)
Study for the European Commission, Directorate-General Information
Society, by Rand Europe. The Handbook is designed to help European
Computer Security Incident Response Teams (CSIRT) deal with incidents
and operate in a European environment with divergent legal codes
dealing with computer crime and misuse. Particular attention is
devoted to the examination of the content of the Council of Europe's
Cybercrime Convention and the proposed European Framework Decision on
Attacks Against Information Systems. The publication contains an
analysis of legislation in each EU member state in the area of
computer crime. A summary table is also provided together with the law
enforcement points of contacts and reporting mechanisms.
http://www.qlinks.net/items/qlitem17646.htm
Mémoire - Les contrats de distribution et Internet - FR
Michaël MALKA - 17/02/2004
http://www.juriscom.net/uni/visu.php?ID=447
JP - E-MAIL LOGGING REQUIREMENT
A bill that would let police without warrants require ISPs to keep logs of
e-mail up to 90 days is expected to go to the Diet this session. The
Justice Ministry's revision of the Criminal Procedure Law aims to give law
enforcement officials stronger tools to deal with Internet crime.
http://www.asahi.com/english/nation/TKY200402190172.html
KR - EMPLOYEE HACKS MESSENGER CONVERSATIONS
An employee of a Internet travel agency hacked his work colleague's Internet
Messenger conversations and reported them to the company head. The employee
used a hacking program to monitor conversations. It is an offence under the
Information Protection legislation to monitor another person's personal
information or communications through phone, Internet, or other information
communication networks.
http://english.chosun.com/w21data/html/news/200402/200402180019.html
CA - RECORDING INDUSTRY P2P MOTION
Following the lead of RIAA in the U.S., CRIA sought orders from the Federal
Court to require several large ISPs to disclose the identities of
subscribers who uploaded large quantities of pirated music through the ISPs'
IP addresses. Shaw and Rogers have opposed disclosure, citing obligations
under PIPEDA, the cost of tracing dynamic IP addresses, and the risk of
misidentifying subscribers. Vidéotron, affiliated with a legitimate music
downloading site, said it will comply. The motion was adjourned until March
12, 2004. There are suggestions the court may consider the reasoning of a
December U.S. appeals court decision that limited ISP disclosure
obligations.
http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/entertainment/3496417.stm
'Télécharger tue l'industrie musicale'
Jean-Christophe BOBABLE - 19/02/2004
http://www.juriscom.net/int/visu.php?ID=457
The Creative Commons by Sandy Starr
'What if the law had said that you need someone's permission before taking
their image?' So asked LawrenceLessig, to draw our attention to what the
consequences might have been for
photography and film if they had been regulated as closely when they first
emerged as the internet is today.
http://www.spiked-online.com/articles/0000000CA401.htm
Friday, February 27, 2004
Friday, February 13, 2004
Darius Cuplinskas has sent this:
iCommons
Thank you for your interest in iCommons, which oversees the
internationalization of the Creative Commons Idea. We want as many countries
as possible to join our efforts to increase the sum of raw source material
online and to make access to that material cheaper and easier. We are still
looking for expert help all around the world. The following overview is
designed to help you understand what helping us would entail.
see: http://creativecommons.org/projects/international/overview
iCommons
Thank you for your interest in iCommons, which oversees the
internationalization of the Creative Commons Idea. We want as many countries
as possible to join our efforts to increase the sum of raw source material
online and to make access to that material cheaper and easier. We are still
looking for expert help all around the world. The following overview is
designed to help you understand what helping us would entail.
see: http://creativecommons.org/projects/international/overview
Wednesday, February 04, 2004
Bogdan posted this:
Ukraine tightens control of Internet, moves to stamp out porn
Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma passed a law banning publication,
including on the Internet of material promoting terrorism, the
overthrow of the state or depicting pornography. The law makes it
illegal to publish calls to overthrow the state or forcibly change the
country's constitution, material that is pornographic or promotes
terrorism, violence or discrimination. It also outlaws the
dissemination of information that "could harm the honour or business
reputation of individuals". Under the government-proposed
legislation, adopted in parliament on November 20, a state commission
will be formed to identify materials of a violent or pornographic
nature and ban them from all media including the Internet.
http://www.qlinks.net/items/qlitem17377.htm
Copy protection: Consumers vs. copyright holdersDigital rights management took significant strides toward being
accepted by mainstream consumers and businesses in 2003, but hackers
and critics maintained their attacks on the technology in the name of
fair use and information freedom.
http://www.qlinks.net/items/qlitem17336.htm
NO - Norwegian cleared of DVD piracy charges
An Oslo appeal court cleared a 20-year-old Norwegian man of DVD piracy
charges in a new setback for Hollywood studios which say unauthorized
copying costs them billions of dollars a year. Upholding a verdict by
a lower court in January, the court said that Jon Johansen had broken
no laws by helping to unlock a code and distribute a computer program
on the Internet enabling unauthorized copying of DVD movies.
http://www.qlinks.net/items/qlitem17373.htm
US - Internet Law Year in Review 2003by Doug Isenberg. Internet law in 2003 was full of surprises, with
Congress passing an anti-spam bill, the courts blessing pop-up
advertising, the music industry losing lawsuits, and the Supreme Court
finally upholding an Internet law. And those are just a few of the
highlights from a year in which technology and the law saw their
biggest clashes yet.
http://www.qlinks.net/items/qlitem17348.htm
Au Canada, le téléchargement de MP3 sur les réseaux P2P peut-il être
légal ?Juriscom.net, Nicolas Vermeys - 05/01/2004
http://www.juriscom.net/actu/visu.php?ID=407
Frenchman sentenced in Senegal for Internet libel
A French national who ran an Internet website about Senegal has been
sentenced in his absence for libelling an official in and hoteliers in
the south of the country, legal sources said. Christian Costeaux, who
ran the 'senegalaisement.com' website, was also ordered to pay damages
of 600 million CFA francs (around 915,000 euros) to the plaintiffs,
the mayor of Ziguinchor, the main city in the southern Senegalese
region of Casamance, and two hotelkeepers.
http://www.qlinks.net/items/qlitem17391.htm
FR - Compétence pour un site internet en Espagne
Cour de Cassation, Première chambre civile, 9 décembre 2003, Société
Castellblanch c/ Société Champagne Louis Roederer. Propriété
littéraire et artistique - Contrefaçon - Site Espagnol - Compétence
juridictionnelle - Juge français compétent (oui). En admettant la
compétence des juridictions françaises pour connaître de la prévention
et de la réparation de dommages subis en France du fait de
l'exploitation d'un site internet en Espagne, la cour d'appel qui a
constaté que ce site, fût-il passif, était accessible sur le
territoire français, de sorte que le préjudice allégué du seul fait de
cette diffusion n'était ni virtuel ni éventuel, a légalement justifié
sa décision.
http://www.qlinks.net/items/qlitem17382.htm
DE - LIABILITY FOR INTERNET ADVERTISEMENTS: The Regional Court of Cologne
held that an Internet portal provider was liable for the content of
advertisements published on its website. The applicable terms and conditions
stated that, prior to posting, each advertisement was subject to a "manual
review". The Court assumed that this provision amounted to the acceptance of
a review and verification policy for highly sensitive information
http://www.haerting.de/deutsch/archiv/LG Koeln-28-O-706-02.pdf
CA - INTERNET SALES CONTRACT REGULATIONS: Nova Scotia introduced new
regulations under the Consumer Protection Act that will govern consumer
sales transactions online. The new regulations specify information that must
be disclosed to consumers before and at the time of sale. They also mandate
the use of an Internet sales contract containing specified information, and
establish a consumer's right to cancel a contract and reverse credit card
charges for online purchases.
http://www.gov.ns.ca/news/details.asp?id=20031219006
US - E-PRIVACY YEAR IN REVIEW: EPIC published its 2003 Year in Review,
noting the Can-Spam Act becoming law, school installing biometrics
technology to detect sex offenders, the Supreme Court allowing Internet
filters in libraries, and the legal battle involving the Do-Not-Call
registry.
http://www.epic.org/alert/EPIC_Alert_10.26.html
Cuba Tightens Controls on Internet
Cuba tightened its controls over the Internet, prohibiting access over
the low-cost government phone service most ordinary citizens have at
home. Cuba's communist government already heavily controls access to
the Internet. Cubans must have government permission to use the Web
legally and most don't, although many can access international e-mail
and a more limited government-controlled intranet at government jobs
and schools. Now Cubans will need additional approval to access via
the nation's regular phone service.
http://www.qlinks.net/items/qlitem17460.htm
FR - L'internet français se mobilise contre une loi jugée
liberticideLa quasi-totalité des fournisseurs d'accès internet (FAI) français ont
menacé de fermer leurs services d'hébergement si le Parlement
approuvait en l'état un projet de loi visant à les contraindre à
contrôler préablement tous les contenus diffusés sur leurs réseaux.
Le texte destiné à renforcer la confiance dans l'économie numérique a
déjà été adopté en seconde lecture par l'Assemblée nationale et qui
doit examiner le mois prochain par le Sénat. Le texte stipule que les
FAI et portails internet hébergeant des pages personnelles ou
communautaires "mettent en oeuvre les moyens conformes à l'état de
l'art pour empêcher la diffusion de données constitutives des
infractions" d'incitation à la haine raciale, de négationnisme et de
pédo-pornographie. Outre l'obligation de surveillance et de filtrage
pour les hébergeurs, les FAI soulignent qu'une autre disposition du
projet de loi désacralise le courrier électronique, qui n'est plus
considérée comme de la correspondance privée.
http://www.qlinks.net/items/qlitem17440.htm
URLs, IP Numbers, and Speech
by Susan Crawford. There's a great fight going on right now in
Philadelphia, CDT v. Pappert. The case is about a Pennsylvania statute
[PDF] that mandates that Pennsylvania ISPs remove access to sites that
the AG believes contain child pornography. Now, child pornography is
abhorrent and any ISP will cooperate in taking down such sites that it
is hosting. But the problem is that in complying with the statute with
respect to sites the ISPs don't themselves host, ISPs are (rationally)
using either IP blocking ("null routing") or "domain poisoning"
techniques, both of which (particularly the IP number blocking) result
in rendering inaccessible millions of perfectly legal sites.
http://www.qlinks.net/items/qlitem17427.htm
US - PLAYBOY v. NETSCAPE: The Ninth Circuit reversed the lower court's
summary judgment against Playboy in its trademark infringement and dilution
lawsuit against Excite, Inc. and Netscape alleging that defendants include
the trademark terms "playboy" and "playmate" into a list of words and
phrases that trigger banner ads unrelated to Playboy, without identifying
that the ads are sponsored by others. The court found genuine issues of
material fact as to likelihood of confusion. In addition, the court remanded
the case for the lower court to consider the dilution claim under the new
standard which requires evidence of actual dilution.
http://news.com.com/2100-1024_3-5142058.html?tag=nefd_top
India - Police to Monitor Cybercafes
Relatively few Indians can afford home PCs, so millions go online in
the nation's jammed Internet cafes, enjoying their low cost and
anonymity. But police in Bombay are planning to monitor cybercafes, a
move some are decrying as excessive regulation that could create a
dangerous precedent. Increasingly fearful that terrorists and other
criminals are taking advantage of cybercafes, Bombay police want to
require customers to show photo identification and give their home
addresses. Cafe owners would have to retain such records for up to a
year and show them to police on request.
http://www.qlinks.net/items/qlitem17496.htm
US - Recording Industry Is Accusing 532 People of Music PiracyThe music industry returned to the courthouse with lawsuits against
532 people it is accusing of large-scale copyright infringement. The
new lawsuits are "John Doe'' lawsuits, an increasingly common type of
litigation in the Internet age, which allow plaintiffs to sue people
whose identities are not known. These suits identify the suspected
file traders only by the numerical identifier, known as an Internet
Protocol number, assigned to them by their Internet service provider.
http://www.qlinks.net/items/qlitem17476.htm
CA - Consumer ministers approve e-commerce code
Canadian federal, provincial, and territorial ministers met to
approve a new Code of Practice for Consumer Protection in Electronic
Commerce. The code addresses issues such as clear information,
payment security, contract formation, and complaints handling.
http://www.qlinks.net/items/qlitem17499.htm
EU - Do not touch B2B contract laws, says ICC
The International Chamber of Commerce has published its response to
the European Commission's consultation on harmonising EU contract
laws. The ICC's message was that businesses neither want nor require
new regulatory instruments.
http://www.qlinks.net/items/qlitem17467.htm
Ukraine tightens control of Internet, moves to stamp out porn
Ukrainian President Leonid Kuchma passed a law banning publication,
including on the Internet of material promoting terrorism, the
overthrow of the state or depicting pornography. The law makes it
illegal to publish calls to overthrow the state or forcibly change the
country's constitution, material that is pornographic or promotes
terrorism, violence or discrimination. It also outlaws the
dissemination of information that "could harm the honour or business
reputation of individuals". Under the government-proposed
legislation, adopted in parliament on November 20, a state commission
will be formed to identify materials of a violent or pornographic
nature and ban them from all media including the Internet.
http://www.qlinks.net/items/qlitem17377.htm
Copy protection: Consumers vs. copyright holdersDigital rights management took significant strides toward being
accepted by mainstream consumers and businesses in 2003, but hackers
and critics maintained their attacks on the technology in the name of
fair use and information freedom.
http://www.qlinks.net/items/qlitem17336.htm
NO - Norwegian cleared of DVD piracy charges
An Oslo appeal court cleared a 20-year-old Norwegian man of DVD piracy
charges in a new setback for Hollywood studios which say unauthorized
copying costs them billions of dollars a year. Upholding a verdict by
a lower court in January, the court said that Jon Johansen had broken
no laws by helping to unlock a code and distribute a computer program
on the Internet enabling unauthorized copying of DVD movies.
http://www.qlinks.net/items/qlitem17373.htm
US - Internet Law Year in Review 2003by Doug Isenberg. Internet law in 2003 was full of surprises, with
Congress passing an anti-spam bill, the courts blessing pop-up
advertising, the music industry losing lawsuits, and the Supreme Court
finally upholding an Internet law. And those are just a few of the
highlights from a year in which technology and the law saw their
biggest clashes yet.
http://www.qlinks.net/items/qlitem17348.htm
Au Canada, le téléchargement de MP3 sur les réseaux P2P peut-il être
légal ?Juriscom.net, Nicolas Vermeys - 05/01/2004
http://www.juriscom.net/actu/visu.php?ID=407
Frenchman sentenced in Senegal for Internet libel
A French national who ran an Internet website about Senegal has been
sentenced in his absence for libelling an official in and hoteliers in
the south of the country, legal sources said. Christian Costeaux, who
ran the 'senegalaisement.com' website, was also ordered to pay damages
of 600 million CFA francs (around 915,000 euros) to the plaintiffs,
the mayor of Ziguinchor, the main city in the southern Senegalese
region of Casamance, and two hotelkeepers.
http://www.qlinks.net/items/qlitem17391.htm
FR - Compétence pour un site internet en Espagne
Cour de Cassation, Première chambre civile, 9 décembre 2003, Société
Castellblanch c/ Société Champagne Louis Roederer. Propriété
littéraire et artistique - Contrefaçon - Site Espagnol - Compétence
juridictionnelle - Juge français compétent (oui). En admettant la
compétence des juridictions françaises pour connaître de la prévention
et de la réparation de dommages subis en France du fait de
l'exploitation d'un site internet en Espagne, la cour d'appel qui a
constaté que ce site, fût-il passif, était accessible sur le
territoire français, de sorte que le préjudice allégué du seul fait de
cette diffusion n'était ni virtuel ni éventuel, a légalement justifié
sa décision.
http://www.qlinks.net/items/qlitem17382.htm
DE - LIABILITY FOR INTERNET ADVERTISEMENTS: The Regional Court of Cologne
held that an Internet portal provider was liable for the content of
advertisements published on its website. The applicable terms and conditions
stated that, prior to posting, each advertisement was subject to a "manual
review". The Court assumed that this provision amounted to the acceptance of
a review and verification policy for highly sensitive information
http://www.haerting.de/deutsch/archiv/LG Koeln-28-O-706-02.pdf
CA - INTERNET SALES CONTRACT REGULATIONS: Nova Scotia introduced new
regulations under the Consumer Protection Act that will govern consumer
sales transactions online. The new regulations specify information that must
be disclosed to consumers before and at the time of sale. They also mandate
the use of an Internet sales contract containing specified information, and
establish a consumer's right to cancel a contract and reverse credit card
charges for online purchases.
http://www.gov.ns.ca/news/details.asp?id=20031219006
US - E-PRIVACY YEAR IN REVIEW: EPIC published its 2003 Year in Review,
noting the Can-Spam Act becoming law, school installing biometrics
technology to detect sex offenders, the Supreme Court allowing Internet
filters in libraries, and the legal battle involving the Do-Not-Call
registry.
http://www.epic.org/alert/EPIC_Alert_10.26.html
Cuba Tightens Controls on Internet
Cuba tightened its controls over the Internet, prohibiting access over
the low-cost government phone service most ordinary citizens have at
home. Cuba's communist government already heavily controls access to
the Internet. Cubans must have government permission to use the Web
legally and most don't, although many can access international e-mail
and a more limited government-controlled intranet at government jobs
and schools. Now Cubans will need additional approval to access via
the nation's regular phone service.
http://www.qlinks.net/items/qlitem17460.htm
FR - L'internet français se mobilise contre une loi jugée
liberticideLa quasi-totalité des fournisseurs d'accès internet (FAI) français ont
menacé de fermer leurs services d'hébergement si le Parlement
approuvait en l'état un projet de loi visant à les contraindre à
contrôler préablement tous les contenus diffusés sur leurs réseaux.
Le texte destiné à renforcer la confiance dans l'économie numérique a
déjà été adopté en seconde lecture par l'Assemblée nationale et qui
doit examiner le mois prochain par le Sénat. Le texte stipule que les
FAI et portails internet hébergeant des pages personnelles ou
communautaires "mettent en oeuvre les moyens conformes à l'état de
l'art pour empêcher la diffusion de données constitutives des
infractions" d'incitation à la haine raciale, de négationnisme et de
pédo-pornographie. Outre l'obligation de surveillance et de filtrage
pour les hébergeurs, les FAI soulignent qu'une autre disposition du
projet de loi désacralise le courrier électronique, qui n'est plus
considérée comme de la correspondance privée.
http://www.qlinks.net/items/qlitem17440.htm
URLs, IP Numbers, and Speech
by Susan Crawford. There's a great fight going on right now in
Philadelphia, CDT v. Pappert. The case is about a Pennsylvania statute
[PDF] that mandates that Pennsylvania ISPs remove access to sites that
the AG believes contain child pornography. Now, child pornography is
abhorrent and any ISP will cooperate in taking down such sites that it
is hosting. But the problem is that in complying with the statute with
respect to sites the ISPs don't themselves host, ISPs are (rationally)
using either IP blocking ("null routing") or "domain poisoning"
techniques, both of which (particularly the IP number blocking) result
in rendering inaccessible millions of perfectly legal sites.
http://www.qlinks.net/items/qlitem17427.htm
US - PLAYBOY v. NETSCAPE: The Ninth Circuit reversed the lower court's
summary judgment against Playboy in its trademark infringement and dilution
lawsuit against Excite, Inc. and Netscape alleging that defendants include
the trademark terms "playboy" and "playmate" into a list of words and
phrases that trigger banner ads unrelated to Playboy, without identifying
that the ads are sponsored by others. The court found genuine issues of
material fact as to likelihood of confusion. In addition, the court remanded
the case for the lower court to consider the dilution claim under the new
standard which requires evidence of actual dilution.
http://news.com.com/2100-1024_3-5142058.html?tag=nefd_top
India - Police to Monitor Cybercafes
Relatively few Indians can afford home PCs, so millions go online in
the nation's jammed Internet cafes, enjoying their low cost and
anonymity. But police in Bombay are planning to monitor cybercafes, a
move some are decrying as excessive regulation that could create a
dangerous precedent. Increasingly fearful that terrorists and other
criminals are taking advantage of cybercafes, Bombay police want to
require customers to show photo identification and give their home
addresses. Cafe owners would have to retain such records for up to a
year and show them to police on request.
http://www.qlinks.net/items/qlitem17496.htm
US - Recording Industry Is Accusing 532 People of Music PiracyThe music industry returned to the courthouse with lawsuits against
532 people it is accusing of large-scale copyright infringement. The
new lawsuits are "John Doe'' lawsuits, an increasingly common type of
litigation in the Internet age, which allow plaintiffs to sue people
whose identities are not known. These suits identify the suspected
file traders only by the numerical identifier, known as an Internet
Protocol number, assigned to them by their Internet service provider.
http://www.qlinks.net/items/qlitem17476.htm
CA - Consumer ministers approve e-commerce code
Canadian federal, provincial, and territorial ministers met to
approve a new Code of Practice for Consumer Protection in Electronic
Commerce. The code addresses issues such as clear information,
payment security, contract formation, and complaints handling.
http://www.qlinks.net/items/qlitem17499.htm
EU - Do not touch B2B contract laws, says ICC
The International Chamber of Commerce has published its response to
the European Commission's consultation on harmonising EU contract
laws. The ICC's message was that businesses neither want nor require
new regulatory instruments.
http://www.qlinks.net/items/qlitem17467.htm
Tuesday, February 03, 2004
Vera Franz posted:
Conference on Information Society : "New Opportunities for Growth in an
Enlarged Europe" (26-27/02, Budapest)
http://www.europa.eu.int/rapid/start/cgi/guesten.ksh?p_action.gettxt=gt&doc=
IP/04/116|0|RAPID&lg=EN
Progress in implementing the eEurope+ Information Society action plan in the
new EU Member States and candidate countries, the eEurope 2005 mid-term
review and joint Information Society challenges for the whole of Europe will
be debated at a two-day, pan-European ministerial conference in Budapest on
26-27 February 2004. This event, hosted by the EU's Irish Presidency,
Minister Kálmán Kovács on behalf of the Hungarian government and
Commissioner Erkki Liikanen for the European Commission, follows similar
events held in Ljubljana in 2002 and Warsaw in 2000. Ministers from the 10
new Member States and 3 candidate countries, EU Member States, and the
South-East European countries have been invited to participate. The 450
participants will include high-level representatives of international
institutions, the private sector, academics, and civil society. As the
Commission emphasized in its recent call to the Spring European Council,
seizing economic growth opportunities created by EU enlargement can give
fresh impetus to the Lisbon strategy for making Europe the world's most
competitive knowledge-based economy (IP/04/74). The new Member States join
the Union on 1 May 2004.
Conference on Information Society : "New Opportunities for Growth in an
Enlarged Europe" (26-27/02, Budapest)
http://www.europa.eu.int/rapid/start/cgi/guesten.ksh?p_action.gettxt=gt&doc=
IP/04/116|0|RAPID&lg=EN
Progress in implementing the eEurope+ Information Society action plan in the
new EU Member States and candidate countries, the eEurope 2005 mid-term
review and joint Information Society challenges for the whole of Europe will
be debated at a two-day, pan-European ministerial conference in Budapest on
26-27 February 2004. This event, hosted by the EU's Irish Presidency,
Minister Kálmán Kovács on behalf of the Hungarian government and
Commissioner Erkki Liikanen for the European Commission, follows similar
events held in Ljubljana in 2002 and Warsaw in 2000. Ministers from the 10
new Member States and 3 candidate countries, EU Member States, and the
South-East European countries have been invited to participate. The 450
participants will include high-level representatives of international
institutions, the private sector, academics, and civil society. As the
Commission emphasized in its recent call to the Spring European Council,
seizing economic growth opportunities created by EU enlargement can give
fresh impetus to the Lisbon strategy for making Europe the world's most
competitive knowledge-based economy (IP/04/74). The new Member States join
the Union on 1 May 2004.
Robert Horvitz (Global Internet Policy Initiative) sent:
Technology licensing reforms draw scepticism
Ingrid Hering, London - 01 February 2004
Managing Intellectual Property (MIP Week)
http://www.legalmediagroup.com/default.asp?Page=1&SID=13595&CH=5&CN=&Cou
ntryName=&Type=News
The European Commission's proposed reforms to its technology licensing
rules have failed to win the backing of industry and the intellectual
property community.
Submissions to the Commission suggest that though the need for reform
has support, there is apprehension that the proposals will instead make
licensing more expensive and cumbersome, stifling innovation and
clouding legal certainty.
The Commission wants to overhaul the Technology Transfer Block Exemption
Regulation to streamline licensing and modernize competition aspects.
The American Bar Association's antitrust, business law, IP law, and
international law and practice sections queried several aspects of the
proposals, such as the use of market share thresholds.
"Market share thresholds may not lead to greater legal certainty, given
the difficulty of measuring market shares and limited utility of market
shares in dynamic, technology-driven markets where the future is
uncertain and market definitions often change quickly."
The International Chamber of Commerce UK suggests that more time is
needed to tackle the issues and any changes should be postponed until
the existing Regulation expires in 2007.
The Chamber is concerned that the revisions will mean "a large part of
the onus of working out the acceptability or otherwise of licensing
arrangements under the EC competitions rules will fall on the business
community and judges in national courts"...
The revised rules are due to come into effect next year, when they will
be relevant for any newly signed agreements. Existing agreements, drawn
up under the current regime, are valid until October 2005, by which time
they must comply with the new rules.
To view the submissions:
http://www.publicinfo.net/forprint.php?allvars=N2270161200014cd300000060
2004-01-271
Technology licensing reforms draw scepticism
Ingrid Hering, London - 01 February 2004
Managing Intellectual Property (MIP Week)
http://www.legalmediagroup.com/default.asp?Page=1&SID=13595&CH=5&CN=&Cou
ntryName=&Type=News
The European Commission's proposed reforms to its technology licensing
rules have failed to win the backing of industry and the intellectual
property community.
Submissions to the Commission suggest that though the need for reform
has support, there is apprehension that the proposals will instead make
licensing more expensive and cumbersome, stifling innovation and
clouding legal certainty.
The Commission wants to overhaul the Technology Transfer Block Exemption
Regulation to streamline licensing and modernize competition aspects.
The American Bar Association's antitrust, business law, IP law, and
international law and practice sections queried several aspects of the
proposals, such as the use of market share thresholds.
"Market share thresholds may not lead to greater legal certainty, given
the difficulty of measuring market shares and limited utility of market
shares in dynamic, technology-driven markets where the future is
uncertain and market definitions often change quickly."
The International Chamber of Commerce UK suggests that more time is
needed to tackle the issues and any changes should be postponed until
the existing Regulation expires in 2007.
The Chamber is concerned that the revisions will mean "a large part of
the onus of working out the acceptability or otherwise of licensing
arrangements under the EC competitions rules will fall on the business
community and judges in national courts"...
The revised rules are due to come into effect next year, when they will
be relevant for any newly signed agreements. Existing agreements, drawn
up under the current regime, are valid until October 2005, by which time
they must comply with the new rules.
To view the submissions:
http://www.publicinfo.net/forprint.php?allvars=N2270161200014cd300000060
2004-01-271
Tuesday, January 06, 2004
Vera Franz posted:
[from http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=03/12/16/187234 ]
RMS covers WSIS
2003.12.16
The World Summit on the Information Society is supposed to formulate
plans to end the "digital divide" and make the internet accessible to
everyone on Earth. The negotiations were completed in November, so
the big official meeting in Geneva last week was more of a trade show
and conference than a real summit meeting.
The summit procedures were designed so that non-governmental
organizations (mainly those that promote human rights and equality,
and work to reduce poverty) could attend, see the discussions, and
comment. However, the actual declaration paid little attention to
the comments and recommendations that these organizations made. In
effect, civil society was offered the chance to speak to a dead mike.
The summit's declaration includes little that is bold or new. When
it comes to the question of what people will be free to do with the
Internet, it responds to demands made by various governments to
impose restrictions on citizens of cyberspace.
Part of the digital divide comes from artificial obstacles to the
sharing of information. This includes the licenses of non-free
software, and harmfully restrictive copyright laws. The Brazilian
declaration sought measures to promote free software, but the US
delegation was firmly against it (remember that the Bush campaign got
money from Microsoft). The outcome was a sort of draw, with the
final declaration presenting free software, open source, and
proprietary software as equally legitimate. The US also insisted on
praising so-called "intellectual property rights." (That biased term
promotes simplistic over-generalization; for the sake of clear
thinking about the issues of copyright law, and about the very
different issues of patent law, that term should always be avoided.)
The declaration calls on governments to ensure unhindered access to
the public domain, but says nothing about whether any additional
works should ever enter the public domain.
Human rights were given lip service, but the proposal for a "right to
communicate" (not merely to access information) using the Internet
was shot down by many of the countries. The summit has been
criticized for situating its 2005 meeting in Tunisia, which is a
prime example of what the information society must not do. People
have been imprisoned in Tunisia for using the Internet to criticize
the government.
Suppression of criticism has been evident here at the summit too. A
counter-summit, actually a series of talks and discussions, was
planned for last Tuesday, but it was shut down by the Geneva police,
who clearly were searching for an excuse to do so. First they
claimed that the landlord did not approve use of the space, but the
tenant who has a long-term lease for the space then arrived and said
he had authorized the event. So the police cited a fire code
violation which I'm told is applicable to most buildings in Geneva --
in effect, an all-purpose excuse to shut down anything. Press
coverage of this maneuver eventually forced the city to allow the
counter-summit to proceed on Wednesday in a different location.
In a more minor act of suppression, the moderator of the official
round table in which I spoke told me "your time is up" well before
the three minutes each participant was supposed to have. She later
did the same thing to the EPIC representative. I later learned that
she works for the International Chamber of Commerce -- no wonder she
silenced us. And how telling that the summit would put a
representative of the ICC at the throttle when we spoke.
Suppression was also visible in the exclusion of certain NGOs from
the summit because their focus on human rights might embarrass the
governments that trample them. For instance, the summit refused to
accredit Human Rights In China, a group that criticizes the Chinese
government for (among other things) censorship of the internet.
Reporters Without Borders was also excluded from the summit. To
raise awareness of their exclusion, and of the censorship of the
Internet in various countries, they set up an unauthorized radio
station in nearby France and handed out mini-radios so that summit
attendees could hear what the organization had been blocked from
saying at the summit itself.
The summit may have a few useful side effects. For instance, several
people came together to plan an organization to help organizations in
Africa switch to GNU/Linux. But the summit did nothing to support
this activity beyond providing an occasion for us to meet. Nor, I
believe, was it intended to support any such thing. The overall
attitude of the summit can be seen in its having invited Microsoft to
speak alongside, and before, most of the various participating
governments -- as if to accord that criminal corporation the standing
of a state.
Links
1. " promotes simplistic over-generalization" -
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-
avoid.html#IntellectualProperty
2. "imprisoned in Tunisia for using the Internet to criticize the
government" - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/2777389.stm
3. "refused to accredit Human Rights In China" -
http://iso.hrichina.org/iso/news_item.adp?news_id=1527
4. "Reporters Without Borders was also excluded" -
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=8774
Copyright 2003 Richard Stallman
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article are
permitted without royalty in any medium provided this notice is
preserved.
[from http://www.newsforge.com/article.pl?sid=03/12/16/187234 ]
RMS covers WSIS
2003.12.16
The World Summit on the Information Society is supposed to formulate
plans to end the "digital divide" and make the internet accessible to
everyone on Earth. The negotiations were completed in November, so
the big official meeting in Geneva last week was more of a trade show
and conference than a real summit meeting.
The summit procedures were designed so that non-governmental
organizations (mainly those that promote human rights and equality,
and work to reduce poverty) could attend, see the discussions, and
comment. However, the actual declaration paid little attention to
the comments and recommendations that these organizations made. In
effect, civil society was offered the chance to speak to a dead mike.
The summit's declaration includes little that is bold or new. When
it comes to the question of what people will be free to do with the
Internet, it responds to demands made by various governments to
impose restrictions on citizens of cyberspace.
Part of the digital divide comes from artificial obstacles to the
sharing of information. This includes the licenses of non-free
software, and harmfully restrictive copyright laws. The Brazilian
declaration sought measures to promote free software, but the US
delegation was firmly against it (remember that the Bush campaign got
money from Microsoft). The outcome was a sort of draw, with the
final declaration presenting free software, open source, and
proprietary software as equally legitimate. The US also insisted on
praising so-called "intellectual property rights." (That biased term
promotes simplistic over-generalization; for the sake of clear
thinking about the issues of copyright law, and about the very
different issues of patent law, that term should always be avoided.)
The declaration calls on governments to ensure unhindered access to
the public domain, but says nothing about whether any additional
works should ever enter the public domain.
Human rights were given lip service, but the proposal for a "right to
communicate" (not merely to access information) using the Internet
was shot down by many of the countries. The summit has been
criticized for situating its 2005 meeting in Tunisia, which is a
prime example of what the information society must not do. People
have been imprisoned in Tunisia for using the Internet to criticize
the government.
Suppression of criticism has been evident here at the summit too. A
counter-summit, actually a series of talks and discussions, was
planned for last Tuesday, but it was shut down by the Geneva police,
who clearly were searching for an excuse to do so. First they
claimed that the landlord did not approve use of the space, but the
tenant who has a long-term lease for the space then arrived and said
he had authorized the event. So the police cited a fire code
violation which I'm told is applicable to most buildings in Geneva --
in effect, an all-purpose excuse to shut down anything. Press
coverage of this maneuver eventually forced the city to allow the
counter-summit to proceed on Wednesday in a different location.
In a more minor act of suppression, the moderator of the official
round table in which I spoke told me "your time is up" well before
the three minutes each participant was supposed to have. She later
did the same thing to the EPIC representative. I later learned that
she works for the International Chamber of Commerce -- no wonder she
silenced us. And how telling that the summit would put a
representative of the ICC at the throttle when we spoke.
Suppression was also visible in the exclusion of certain NGOs from
the summit because their focus on human rights might embarrass the
governments that trample them. For instance, the summit refused to
accredit Human Rights In China, a group that criticizes the Chinese
government for (among other things) censorship of the internet.
Reporters Without Borders was also excluded from the summit. To
raise awareness of their exclusion, and of the censorship of the
Internet in various countries, they set up an unauthorized radio
station in nearby France and handed out mini-radios so that summit
attendees could hear what the organization had been blocked from
saying at the summit itself.
The summit may have a few useful side effects. For instance, several
people came together to plan an organization to help organizations in
Africa switch to GNU/Linux. But the summit did nothing to support
this activity beyond providing an occasion for us to meet. Nor, I
believe, was it intended to support any such thing. The overall
attitude of the summit can be seen in its having invited Microsoft to
speak alongside, and before, most of the various participating
governments -- as if to accord that criminal corporation the standing
of a state.
Links
1. " promotes simplistic over-generalization" -
http://www.gnu.org/philosophy/words-to-
avoid.html#IntellectualProperty
2. "imprisoned in Tunisia for using the Internet to criticize the
government" - http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/africa/2777389.stm
3. "refused to accredit Human Rights In China" -
http://iso.hrichina.org/iso/news_item.adp?news_id=1527
4. "Reporters Without Borders was also excluded" -
http://www.rsf.org/article.php3?id_article=8774
Copyright 2003 Richard Stallman
Verbatim copying and distribution of this entire article are
permitted without royalty in any medium provided this notice is
preserved.
A Taste of Our Own Poison
A modest proposal: Hold Hollywood hostage till we kill farm subsidies.
By Lawrence Lessig
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.01/view.html?pg=5
When America was poor, its citizens "stole." We took the intellectual property of Dickens and other foreign artists without paying for it. We didn't call it stealing, but they did. We called it a sensible way for a developing nation to develop. Eventually, we saw it was better to protect their rights as well as ours - better because we had rights to protect elsewhere, too. But we only imposed this burden on ourselves when it made sense to do so. Until 1891, we were a pirate nation.
Things have changed. Now that we're the world's leading exporter of intellectual property, we're also the most self-righteous about the importance of protecting it globally. Indeed, we can be vicious in our self-righteousness - threatening trade wars with developing nations for the crime of being just like us. Recently, through a series of trade agreements, we have demanded stricter protection for intellectual property internationally than US law would allow domestically. (Fair use, for example, is mandated by our constitution but invisible in these agreements.)
This push to protect intellectual property is defended as just one aspect of free trade - the aspect that benefits Hollywood. Since Adam Smith penned The Wealth of Nations, we've understood that borders are best when opened and when property from one country is respected in another. Free trade so enabled is the promised elixir for the woes of developing nations. Open your borders, protect property rights, and prosperity, the Smithies say, will quickly follow.
The dirty little secret, however, is that we don't respect the free trade rules that we impose on others. While the US sings the virtues of free trade to defend maximalist intellectual property regulation, we poison the free trade that developing nations care about most - agriculture - by subsidizing farming in the industrialized world to the tune of $300 billion annually. Rhetoric about family farmers aside, most of that money passes quickly to agribusiness. This is not Adam Smith; it is corporate welfare par excellence.
There's little developing nations can do about this - individually. But increasingly they are acting together. One group recently walked out of trade talks because agribusiness subsidies were not on the table. Others are openly discussing ways to get US attention.
What developing nations need is better lobbyists. In particular, advocates as persuasive as Hollywood's lobbyists, who've managed to defend the entertainment industry's intellectual property rights extremely well. Here's one way to get power (or the Man) on their side.
A block of powerful developing nations should first take a page from the US Copyright Act of 1790 and enact national laws that explicitly protect their own rights only. It would not protect foreigners. Second, these nations should add a provision that would relax this exemption to the extent that developed nations really opened their borders. If we reduce, for example, the subsidy to agribusiness by 10 percent, then they would permit 10 percent of our copyrights to be enforced (say, copyrights from the period 1923 to 1931). Reduce the subsidy by another 10 percent, then another 10 percent could be enforced. And so on.
The mechanism is clumsy, but the message is clear: Both the subsidy of agribusiness and the subsidy of local culture and science violate the principles of free trade by ignoring American intellectual property laws. Both violations are bad. But the two bads should be resolved together. Indeed, if anything, American subsidies should be ended first. The actual loss to US firms from piracy worldwide is not terribly high - if "actual loss" means the amount Americans would get if the piracy ended. (Would Microsoft be better off if China ended its piracy of Windows and instead used GNU/Linux - the only OS they could then afford?) But when crops grown by farmers in Peru rot in the field because the US House of Representatives cares more about agribusinesses than about Adam Smith, then there is real harm. The resentment and anger at this American hypocrisy festers as poisonously as moldering crops in the hot sun.
Of course, this solution won't work unless enough developing nations join together. But if they do, their message will have meaning. A principle is a principle. And a content industry keen to defend its "property" on the basis of that principle would then have an interest in defending principle more generally.
The world is already skeptical enough about Adam Smith's magic. Throwing hypocrisy into the bargain can't help.
--------------------
Lester Thurow - Patents' Raging Bull
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.01/view.html?pg=3
In Fortune Favors the Bold, MIT professor Lester Thurow - known for his "new rules for the knowledge-based economy" - says a global economy is emerging and the time to shape it is now. His formula for building lasting prosperity? A universal patent system that encourages companies to apply for more patents and prod governments into enforcement, among other things. Sounds like either a great idea or a bureaucratic nightmare of ever bigger corporations and ever bigger government.
WIRED: You want the government to buy corporate patents to encourage innovation?
THUROW: You need incentives where there's a big up-front investment. Look at the pharmas. They're putting all their efforts into developing Viagra and fat pills. No one wants to develop a cure for malaria. So let the government come in, buy the intellectual property rights for a malaria pill, and give it away.
Are more patents a good thing?
If we're really going to be the knowledge economy, you can't make it work unless you know who owns what knowledge. Take music. If they can't find some way to lock up music, music is going to end. Eventually, there will be no professional musicians, because there's no way to make money, and we're left with a world full of amateurs.
So every decent idea should have an official piece of paper behind it?
Obviously, there's a limit. I'm dubious about business patents. Dell has something like 36 patents on the supply chain. And what we did for Disney was reprehensible: They get Mickey Mouse for 75 years, and then they have the political clout to get it extended. There must be a point where copyright runs out and stuff drops into the public domain. Descendants of Shakespeare shouldn't be able to claim royalties - and they can't.
What's the enforcement component?
There are two ways to violate a patent. One is China, which doesn't have a system. The other is Israel, which has a system but doesn't enforce it. We have to figure out the dollar value and keep track of all the violations in Israel. Then we say to US companies, we'll give you carte blanche to copy that amount from Israeli companies.
Sounds like an awful lot of government.
In a globalized world, governments become more important than they used to be. You have to think of them not as air traffic controllers but as airport builders.
- Jeffrey M. O'Brien
A modest proposal: Hold Hollywood hostage till we kill farm subsidies.
By Lawrence Lessig
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.01/view.html?pg=5
When America was poor, its citizens "stole." We took the intellectual property of Dickens and other foreign artists without paying for it. We didn't call it stealing, but they did. We called it a sensible way for a developing nation to develop. Eventually, we saw it was better to protect their rights as well as ours - better because we had rights to protect elsewhere, too. But we only imposed this burden on ourselves when it made sense to do so. Until 1891, we were a pirate nation.
Things have changed. Now that we're the world's leading exporter of intellectual property, we're also the most self-righteous about the importance of protecting it globally. Indeed, we can be vicious in our self-righteousness - threatening trade wars with developing nations for the crime of being just like us. Recently, through a series of trade agreements, we have demanded stricter protection for intellectual property internationally than US law would allow domestically. (Fair use, for example, is mandated by our constitution but invisible in these agreements.)
This push to protect intellectual property is defended as just one aspect of free trade - the aspect that benefits Hollywood. Since Adam Smith penned The Wealth of Nations, we've understood that borders are best when opened and when property from one country is respected in another. Free trade so enabled is the promised elixir for the woes of developing nations. Open your borders, protect property rights, and prosperity, the Smithies say, will quickly follow.
The dirty little secret, however, is that we don't respect the free trade rules that we impose on others. While the US sings the virtues of free trade to defend maximalist intellectual property regulation, we poison the free trade that developing nations care about most - agriculture - by subsidizing farming in the industrialized world to the tune of $300 billion annually. Rhetoric about family farmers aside, most of that money passes quickly to agribusiness. This is not Adam Smith; it is corporate welfare par excellence.
There's little developing nations can do about this - individually. But increasingly they are acting together. One group recently walked out of trade talks because agribusiness subsidies were not on the table. Others are openly discussing ways to get US attention.
What developing nations need is better lobbyists. In particular, advocates as persuasive as Hollywood's lobbyists, who've managed to defend the entertainment industry's intellectual property rights extremely well. Here's one way to get power (or the Man) on their side.
A block of powerful developing nations should first take a page from the US Copyright Act of 1790 and enact national laws that explicitly protect their own rights only. It would not protect foreigners. Second, these nations should add a provision that would relax this exemption to the extent that developed nations really opened their borders. If we reduce, for example, the subsidy to agribusiness by 10 percent, then they would permit 10 percent of our copyrights to be enforced (say, copyrights from the period 1923 to 1931). Reduce the subsidy by another 10 percent, then another 10 percent could be enforced. And so on.
The mechanism is clumsy, but the message is clear: Both the subsidy of agribusiness and the subsidy of local culture and science violate the principles of free trade by ignoring American intellectual property laws. Both violations are bad. But the two bads should be resolved together. Indeed, if anything, American subsidies should be ended first. The actual loss to US firms from piracy worldwide is not terribly high - if "actual loss" means the amount Americans would get if the piracy ended. (Would Microsoft be better off if China ended its piracy of Windows and instead used GNU/Linux - the only OS they could then afford?) But when crops grown by farmers in Peru rot in the field because the US House of Representatives cares more about agribusinesses than about Adam Smith, then there is real harm. The resentment and anger at this American hypocrisy festers as poisonously as moldering crops in the hot sun.
Of course, this solution won't work unless enough developing nations join together. But if they do, their message will have meaning. A principle is a principle. And a content industry keen to defend its "property" on the basis of that principle would then have an interest in defending principle more generally.
The world is already skeptical enough about Adam Smith's magic. Throwing hypocrisy into the bargain can't help.
--------------------
Lester Thurow - Patents' Raging Bull
http://www.wired.com/wired/archive/12.01/view.html?pg=3
In Fortune Favors the Bold, MIT professor Lester Thurow - known for his "new rules for the knowledge-based economy" - says a global economy is emerging and the time to shape it is now. His formula for building lasting prosperity? A universal patent system that encourages companies to apply for more patents and prod governments into enforcement, among other things. Sounds like either a great idea or a bureaucratic nightmare of ever bigger corporations and ever bigger government.
WIRED: You want the government to buy corporate patents to encourage innovation?
THUROW: You need incentives where there's a big up-front investment. Look at the pharmas. They're putting all their efforts into developing Viagra and fat pills. No one wants to develop a cure for malaria. So let the government come in, buy the intellectual property rights for a malaria pill, and give it away.
Are more patents a good thing?
If we're really going to be the knowledge economy, you can't make it work unless you know who owns what knowledge. Take music. If they can't find some way to lock up music, music is going to end. Eventually, there will be no professional musicians, because there's no way to make money, and we're left with a world full of amateurs.
So every decent idea should have an official piece of paper behind it?
Obviously, there's a limit. I'm dubious about business patents. Dell has something like 36 patents on the supply chain. And what we did for Disney was reprehensible: They get Mickey Mouse for 75 years, and then they have the political clout to get it extended. There must be a point where copyright runs out and stuff drops into the public domain. Descendants of Shakespeare shouldn't be able to claim royalties - and they can't.
What's the enforcement component?
There are two ways to violate a patent. One is China, which doesn't have a system. The other is Israel, which has a system but doesn't enforce it. We have to figure out the dollar value and keep track of all the violations in Israel. Then we say to US companies, we'll give you carte blanche to copy that amount from Israeli companies.
Sounds like an awful lot of government.
In a globalized world, governments become more important than they used to be. You have to think of them not as air traffic controllers but as airport builders.
- Jeffrey M. O'Brien
Thursday, December 18, 2003
Internet Law 2004
The Berkman Center for Internet & Society is pleased to offer the
Internet Law Program at Harvard Law School on May 13-15, 2004. This
dynamic, innovative three-day seminar will bring together the leading
experts in the field with participants from all over the world to
explore today's most pressing Internet issues.
The outstanding team of educators includes Larry Lessig of Stanford,
Yochai Benkler of Yale, and William Fisher, Charles Nesson and
Jonathan Zittrain of Harvard. On the agenda: recent reforms in
intellectual-property systems, privacy versus security on the Net, the
changing shape and role of ICANN, "open" versus "proprietary" software
systems, regulating pornography, jurisdictional problems, cybercrime,
addressing the digital divide, and more.
The program is intended for a broad audience, and no previous
experience with Internet law is necessary. Past participants have
included entrepreneurs, policymakers, educators, technology
professionals, and journalists who write about technology. American
lawyers in some states may be eligible for Continuing Legal Education
(CLE) credit.
Register online beginning January 12 at <http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/ilaw>.
Questions? Please contact Robyn Mintz at rmintz@cyber.law.harvard.edu.
The Berkman Center for Internet & Society is pleased to offer the
Internet Law Program at Harvard Law School on May 13-15, 2004. This
dynamic, innovative three-day seminar will bring together the leading
experts in the field with participants from all over the world to
explore today's most pressing Internet issues.
The outstanding team of educators includes Larry Lessig of Stanford,
Yochai Benkler of Yale, and William Fisher, Charles Nesson and
Jonathan Zittrain of Harvard. On the agenda: recent reforms in
intellectual-property systems, privacy versus security on the Net, the
changing shape and role of ICANN, "open" versus "proprietary" software
systems, regulating pornography, jurisdictional problems, cybercrime,
addressing the digital divide, and more.
The program is intended for a broad audience, and no previous
experience with Internet law is necessary. Past participants have
included entrepreneurs, policymakers, educators, technology
professionals, and journalists who write about technology. American
lawyers in some states may be eligible for Continuing Legal Education
(CLE) credit.
Register online beginning January 12 at <http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/ilaw>.
Questions? Please contact Robyn Mintz at rmintz@cyber.law.harvard.edu.
An excerpt from interview with Yochai Benkler...
A Reference to the interview with Yochai Benkler that I made during "i-law 2003"!
Mr. Yurtsan Atakan, the leading ICT columnist of Hurriyet Daily, quoted the interview that I made with Prof. Yochai Benkler during the "i-law 2003" course in Stanford for the "Open Radio" ("Aç?k Radyo" in Turkish). He underlined that the well-known "Indian miracle" on creating software is a "fairy-tale" and referred to what Benkler told on creativity and innovation by the transition countries!
For the Turkish translation of my interview click on here...
And... I am enclosing the original decoding of the said interview below:
A.TANSUG- Dear Professor Benkler, what would you tell us for the rest of the world in terms of their positioning in the information society?
J.BENKLER- I think we’ve been seeing too much focus in the US, in Europe, on securing high-speed Internet connections and the information economy based on purely market behavior, based on strong property rights. This has been true for a radio frequency spectrum policy, this has been true for broadband wire policy, and this has been true for intellectual property policy and we see in this regard both the US and Europe moving in the same direction...
The problem and the problems are divers for each of these particular layers of the communication system; the problem with exclusively lies on the property based approaches is that they are leading us towards missing the opportunity of an open, decentralized Internet and straightening into re-concentrate or to shift the Internet to a broadcast model where you still have one primary or one small set of primary owners of the means of communication, of the contents of communication, who then can control the flow of information and society.
I think for any country now and I say this one I speak in the US, and I say this one I speak in Europe and I say this one I speak to people or interested in development in all sorts of places in the world, beat as a matter of policies of freedom, beat as a matter of policies of development and there is a series of strategies that are committed to open communication systems that can be implemented. At the physical layer this means using a variety of strategies of unlicensed wireless communications, things we now see primarily in the wire Fay market in communications devices and don’t have the government licenses to operate but are in fact permitted to operate wherever within a range of frequencies but permitted to offer whatever but these enable is the development of a network that is owned by no one and the network that is owned by its end users, built and by its end users and provides no bottle-neck over which anyone can exercise control in the way that the cable operator controls, the cable head in and whether the broadcaster control the transmit so that’s are the physical.
3-11- 3.43 (Noise)
3.49
At the logical layer, what we have today is increasing opportunities. For use of open source software or free software that is not controlled by any single company that is open and free for any country to use as its primary software infrastructure for critical infrastructures, it is being deployed by parts of the US government simply because its better, it is being deployed widely in businesses, because its better.
But from the perspective of creating an open network, it is crucial that the logical layer, that the layer of software and standards that allowed machine to let people speak to each other and make culture together. Be such that no one company can control it that and no one person can say, “you may speak and you may not speak this particular kind of uses permitted and that particular kind is not”. And so it is a matter of speech and openness and innovation. It is important to adopt a strategy that supports open source software up to an including I think every government needs to look at procurement policy of actually using free software for its own operations both to cut the costs of government software systems. But no less importantly to create a practice and a habit and a market within the nation of people who have the facility to work with free software. And who can then participate in the international network of computer programmers who contribute to this. And who by building skills can then also become valuable contributors to the large service industry there has been built around free software and it prevents tremendous opportunities for nations that are outside the economy to have to develop a set of programmers who are educated in materials that allowed them to participate in the core economies from a distance.
6.03
And finally intellectual property we know that intellectual property increases costs of innovation and this is so particularly for countries that are net-importers of cultural and innovation products. And so I think we have a very strong agenda driven by both US and the EU towards international expansion of intellectual property rights across all domains, patent, copyright, trademark... I think this a trend that works to the decrement of all developing nations. It works as the decrements of the all nations that are net-importers of innovation and cultural products because it raises their cost without at the same time increasing as much their ability to appropriate the benefits and so I think its is important for any country that in the position of being a net importer of innovation and cultural products and information. To collaborate with other nations to co-operate with other nations in this framework to bring the interests of these countries outside the core information economies, to bear on international trade negotiations and to permit a greater flexibility and designate any quality in the obligations of countries that are net-importers vis-à-vis those who are not net-exporters because otherwise we see a re-distribution from the periphery of the information economy into its core and in this regard usually from the less wealthy to the more wealthy nations which doesn’t seem to be either good development policy or just in matters of distribution. Well at the same time not at all the in clear that it is important as a matter of innovation policy because patents and copyright and trade mark though continuously strengthen the straight policy or questionable as innovation policy...
AT – So can we outline the matter as “to be just consumer or not to be”?
JB- Exactly!
The possibility of being not purely a passive consumer but also an active participant in the creation of information of knowledge and culture is embedded in the widely decentralized open Internet.
8.42
And its the possibility of having a society of active participants as supposed a society of the passive consumers. That is the promise of the Internet and that promises being threatened by the excessive focus on purely property based commercial provision of all the layers of the information environment...
AT- Thanks a lot...
Later on, Prof.Dr. Emre Kongar published an article referring Atakan's:
Cumhuriyet Daily
Mr. Yurtsan Atakan, the leading ICT columnist of Hurriyet Daily, quoted the interview that I made with Prof. Yochai Benkler during the "i-law 2003" course in Stanford for the "Open Radio" ("Aç?k Radyo" in Turkish). He underlined that the well-known "Indian miracle" on creating software is a "fairy-tale" and referred to what Benkler told on creativity and innovation by the transition countries!
For the Turkish translation of my interview click on here...
And... I am enclosing the original decoding of the said interview below:
A.TANSUG- Dear Professor Benkler, what would you tell us for the rest of the world in terms of their positioning in the information society?
J.BENKLER- I think we’ve been seeing too much focus in the US, in Europe, on securing high-speed Internet connections and the information economy based on purely market behavior, based on strong property rights. This has been true for a radio frequency spectrum policy, this has been true for broadband wire policy, and this has been true for intellectual property policy and we see in this regard both the US and Europe moving in the same direction...
The problem and the problems are divers for each of these particular layers of the communication system; the problem with exclusively lies on the property based approaches is that they are leading us towards missing the opportunity of an open, decentralized Internet and straightening into re-concentrate or to shift the Internet to a broadcast model where you still have one primary or one small set of primary owners of the means of communication, of the contents of communication, who then can control the flow of information and society.
I think for any country now and I say this one I speak in the US, and I say this one I speak in Europe and I say this one I speak to people or interested in development in all sorts of places in the world, beat as a matter of policies of freedom, beat as a matter of policies of development and there is a series of strategies that are committed to open communication systems that can be implemented. At the physical layer this means using a variety of strategies of unlicensed wireless communications, things we now see primarily in the wire Fay market in communications devices and don’t have the government licenses to operate but are in fact permitted to operate wherever within a range of frequencies but permitted to offer whatever but these enable is the development of a network that is owned by no one and the network that is owned by its end users, built and by its end users and provides no bottle-neck over which anyone can exercise control in the way that the cable operator controls, the cable head in and whether the broadcaster control the transmit so that’s are the physical.
3-11- 3.43 (Noise)
3.49
At the logical layer, what we have today is increasing opportunities. For use of open source software or free software that is not controlled by any single company that is open and free for any country to use as its primary software infrastructure for critical infrastructures, it is being deployed by parts of the US government simply because its better, it is being deployed widely in businesses, because its better.
But from the perspective of creating an open network, it is crucial that the logical layer, that the layer of software and standards that allowed machine to let people speak to each other and make culture together. Be such that no one company can control it that and no one person can say, “you may speak and you may not speak this particular kind of uses permitted and that particular kind is not”. And so it is a matter of speech and openness and innovation. It is important to adopt a strategy that supports open source software up to an including I think every government needs to look at procurement policy of actually using free software for its own operations both to cut the costs of government software systems. But no less importantly to create a practice and a habit and a market within the nation of people who have the facility to work with free software. And who can then participate in the international network of computer programmers who contribute to this. And who by building skills can then also become valuable contributors to the large service industry there has been built around free software and it prevents tremendous opportunities for nations that are outside the economy to have to develop a set of programmers who are educated in materials that allowed them to participate in the core economies from a distance.
6.03
And finally intellectual property we know that intellectual property increases costs of innovation and this is so particularly for countries that are net-importers of cultural and innovation products. And so I think we have a very strong agenda driven by both US and the EU towards international expansion of intellectual property rights across all domains, patent, copyright, trademark... I think this a trend that works to the decrement of all developing nations. It works as the decrements of the all nations that are net-importers of innovation and cultural products because it raises their cost without at the same time increasing as much their ability to appropriate the benefits and so I think its is important for any country that in the position of being a net importer of innovation and cultural products and information. To collaborate with other nations to co-operate with other nations in this framework to bring the interests of these countries outside the core information economies, to bear on international trade negotiations and to permit a greater flexibility and designate any quality in the obligations of countries that are net-importers vis-à-vis those who are not net-exporters because otherwise we see a re-distribution from the periphery of the information economy into its core and in this regard usually from the less wealthy to the more wealthy nations which doesn’t seem to be either good development policy or just in matters of distribution. Well at the same time not at all the in clear that it is important as a matter of innovation policy because patents and copyright and trade mark though continuously strengthen the straight policy or questionable as innovation policy...
AT – So can we outline the matter as “to be just consumer or not to be”?
JB- Exactly!
The possibility of being not purely a passive consumer but also an active participant in the creation of information of knowledge and culture is embedded in the widely decentralized open Internet.
8.42
And its the possibility of having a society of active participants as supposed a society of the passive consumers. That is the promise of the Internet and that promises being threatened by the excessive focus on purely property based commercial provision of all the layers of the information environment...
AT- Thanks a lot...
Later on, Prof.Dr. Emre Kongar published an article referring Atakan's:
Cumhuriyet Daily
Wednesday, December 17, 2003
Draft Plan of Action WSIS-03/GENEVA/DOC/0005
Draft Plan of Action WSIS-03/GENEVA/DOC/0005
This is the final version of the Plan of Action agreed to by the World
Summit on the Information Society. December 12, 2003. The Plan is
available in Arabic, Chinese, English. French, Russian, and Spanish.
http://www.itu.int/wsis/documents/doc_single-en-1160.asp
This is the final version of the Plan of Action agreed to by the World
Summit on the Information Society. December 12, 2003. The Plan is
available in Arabic, Chinese, English. French, Russian, and Spanish.
http://www.itu.int/wsis/documents/doc_single-en-1160.asp
Advocacy Handbook for the Non Governmental Organisations: The Council of Europe's Cyber-Crime Convention 2001
Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties releases report on the CyberCrime Convention
2001
Leeds, 01 December, 2003 - Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties, released today an Advocacy Handbook for the Non Governmental Organisations: The Council of Europe's Cyber-Crime Convention 2001 and the additional protocol on the criminalisation of acts of a racist or xenophobic nature committed through
computer systems, December 2003.
The Cyber-Crime Convention 2001 and its additional protocol has been
developed by the Council of Europe, an international and well respected
organisation with a primary mission to strengthen democracy, human rights,
and the rule of law throughout its member states. Although the Cyber-Crime
Convention states in the preamble that a proper balance needs to be ensured
between the interests of law enforcement and respect for fundamental human
rights, the balance resolutely and regrettably favours the former claimes
Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties.
While the CoE's concerns in relation to cyber-crimes and its desire to
address criminal law and mutual assistance in criminal matters are shared
by many, any co-ordinated policy initiative at an international level
should ideally aim to offer the best protection for individual rights and
liberties. Lamentably, this has not been the case.
This advocacy handbook for the NGOs written by Dr. Yaman Akdeniz, the director of Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties provides a policy analysis of
the Cyber-Crime Convention 2001 and its first additional protocol from a
human rights perspective for policy specialists, NGOs, and human rights
activists within the 45 member states of the Council of Europe.
Compatibility problems with the European Convention on Human Rights and
implications for freedom of expression, privacy of communications and data
protection will be the main focus of this critical analysis. The appendices
include other useful information that could be relied upon while NGOs and
policy activists lobby their individual governments in relation to the
implementation of the Cyber-Crime.
The Report is released as a pdf file and can be obtained through
http://www.cyber-rights.org/cybercrime/
For further information contact: Dr. Yaman Akdeniz
Director, Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties
email: lawya@cyber-rights.org
Tel: +44 (0)7798 865116 Fax: +44 (0)7092199011
http://www.cyber-rights.org / http://www.cyber-rights.net
2001
Leeds, 01 December, 2003 - Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties, released today an Advocacy Handbook for the Non Governmental Organisations: The Council of Europe's Cyber-Crime Convention 2001 and the additional protocol on the criminalisation of acts of a racist or xenophobic nature committed through
computer systems, December 2003.
The Cyber-Crime Convention 2001 and its additional protocol has been
developed by the Council of Europe, an international and well respected
organisation with a primary mission to strengthen democracy, human rights,
and the rule of law throughout its member states. Although the Cyber-Crime
Convention states in the preamble that a proper balance needs to be ensured
between the interests of law enforcement and respect for fundamental human
rights, the balance resolutely and regrettably favours the former claimes
Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties.
While the CoE's concerns in relation to cyber-crimes and its desire to
address criminal law and mutual assistance in criminal matters are shared
by many, any co-ordinated policy initiative at an international level
should ideally aim to offer the best protection for individual rights and
liberties. Lamentably, this has not been the case.
This advocacy handbook for the NGOs written by Dr. Yaman Akdeniz, the director of Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties provides a policy analysis of
the Cyber-Crime Convention 2001 and its first additional protocol from a
human rights perspective for policy specialists, NGOs, and human rights
activists within the 45 member states of the Council of Europe.
Compatibility problems with the European Convention on Human Rights and
implications for freedom of expression, privacy of communications and data
protection will be the main focus of this critical analysis. The appendices
include other useful information that could be relied upon while NGOs and
policy activists lobby their individual governments in relation to the
implementation of the Cyber-Crime.
The Report is released as a pdf file and can be obtained through
http://www.cyber-rights.org/cybercrime/
For further information contact: Dr. Yaman Akdeniz
Director, Cyber-Rights & Cyber-Liberties
email: lawya@cyber-rights.org
Tel: +44 (0)7798 865116 Fax: +44 (0)7092199011
http://www.cyber-rights.org / http://www.cyber-rights.net
Sunday, December 14, 2003
A paper:
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/icann/publicparticipation/Palfrey_Working_P
aper_ICANN_120803.pdf
published by an Internet law scholar examines ICANN's experimentation in
running a representative and open corporate decision-making, and
concludes that the process has largely failed. ICANN relies more on
staff recommendations and input from the Supporting Organizations,
rather than on direct broad-based input from the Internet user
community.
Study:
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/icann/publicparticipation/
See also Response to Paper and Study:
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/mclaughlin/mclaughlin-response-publicpartic
ipation.html
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/icann/publicparticipation/Palfrey_Working_P
aper_ICANN_120803.pdf
published by an Internet law scholar examines ICANN's experimentation in
running a representative and open corporate decision-making, and
concludes that the process has largely failed. ICANN relies more on
staff recommendations and input from the Supporting Organizations,
rather than on direct broad-based input from the Internet user
community.
Study:
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/icann/publicparticipation/
See also Response to Paper and Study:
http://cyber.law.harvard.edu/mclaughlin/mclaughlin-response-publicpartic
ipation.html
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