EU Commission Proposes New IP Rules, With More Weight On Enforcement & Making ISPs Police The Internet
from the that's-not-how-things-work dept
Not a huge surprise given things happening elsewhere around the globe, but it appears that the European Commission (who have already been in the tank for the entertainment industry, as seen in their enthusiastic support of ACTA) has come out with a new plan for intellectual property in Europe that has a major focus on enforcement, including turning ISPs into copyright cops. Of course, it's long been the desire of the entertainment industry to have ISPs do all the dirty work in trying to stop infringement. The problem, of course, is that all of this assumes it's somehow easy for ISPs to determine what is and what is not infringing. It's not. Even the companies themselves don't seem to recognize it some of the time. It's sad that so many politicians can't seem to understand the very basics of the law and technology on these issues, leading to proposals like this one that will not help "boost creativity and innovation," but will hinder it by stifling the very technology that is most needed for creativity and innovation.
Thank you for reading this Techdirt post. With so many things competing for everyone’s attention these days, we really appreciate you giving us your time. We work hard every day to put quality content out there for our community.
Techdirt is one of the few remaining truly independent media outlets. We do not have a giant corporation behind us, and we rely heavily on our community to support us, in an age when advertisers are increasingly uninterested in sponsoring small, independent sites — especially a site like ours that is unwilling to pull punches in its reporting and analysis.
While other websites have resorted to paywalls, registration requirements, and increasingly annoying/intrusive advertising, we have always kept Techdirt open and available to anyone. But in order to continue doing so, we need your support. We offer a variety of ways for our readers to support us, from direct donations to special subscriptions and cool merchandise — and every little bit helps. Thank you.
–The Techdirt Team
Filed Under: copyright, enforcement, europe, european commission, ip, patents
Reader Comments
Subscribe: RSS
View by: Time | Thread
The law places no burden on copy protection holders to opt in, to help software developers and others know in advanced what is and what isn't infringing. All the burden is placed on everyone else to magically know. IP maxismists are lazy, they don't want to do any work whatsoever (ie: by opting in), so they want everyone else to do all their work for them. They want privileges and they want all the burden of enforcing those privileges (and the burden of figuring out what is and what isn't infringing) to be placed entirely on everyone else.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
"but if technology is so awesome, why can't it detect infringement". Because technology isn't psychic. It can't magically know what is and what's not infringing.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
No they don't - they have a "content that closely matches stuff that has been supplied to us by rightsholders " detector - which is fairly easily deteated if you know how - It's a very different concept.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
Not yet :)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Police the intertubes?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Police the intertubes?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Police the intertubes?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
manpower ? I guess the planet is kind of big too !!! we police that !
Making them get the names and address, and often fingerprint of the person trying to pawn an item.
its no different to knowingly profiting from the proceeds of a crime, even if you did not commit that crime, you have commited A crime.
It's no different to seeing a crime and not reporting it, that is concealing a crime. Even if you do not profit from that action at all, you allowed someone else to profit from it, which is in itself a crime.
Allowing a crime to occur or not reporting or acting to stop that crime, is NOT THE CRIME, but it is a SEPERATE CRIME in its own right.
So you may not be robbing someone house, or hosting illegal material, but if you 'aid' or contribute to that crime, you are guilty (once proved) of a different crime.
you would not be charged with copywrite infringement, you would be changed with aiding in the commision of a crime.
there are also crimes for which there is no defense, such as tresspass, if you were caught somewhere you are not allowed to be, what defense do you have.
The only defense is that if you were allowed to be there.
But that is not a defense, as you were not trespassing in the first place. But it means that sometimes, you can be charged without an adverserial hearing and without a chance to defend yourself.
if you are caught with illegal drugs on you, you are charged immediately.
and the drugs are removed from your possession, if copyright material is illegal to possess, and you are caught with that material then you are as guilty as the tresspasser or the drug carrier.
And you really have no defense.
probably very little manpower would be required, probably a small amount of computing power and some internet connections.
But if you or I can find copyrighted material on the web with little or no effort, dont you think that authorities would not be able to do the same ?
its so trivial that im sure ISP's can easily police their traffic.
You do not have to "police the entire internet" you just have to police those who are breaking the law.
just as you can go for a drive in your car, and not be followed by your very own police car, you can have a small number of police, watching a very large number of people.
And of course, honest citizens can always call the police and report a crime.
What kind of manpower would we need to truly police the planet ???
(probably about what we have now !!)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: manpower ? I guess the planet is kind of big too !!! we police that !
As usual.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: manpower ? I guess the planet is kind of big too !!! we police that !
> is concealing a crime
Nope. With the exception of child abuse, a citizen has no affirmative duty to report a crime. Doing so can put a person in danger and the courts are fairly unanimous in ruling that a person is not obligated to put themselves in danger by reporting a crime.
If I witness a murder, I can walk away, keep my mouth shut and never say a thing and I'm legally fine. Morally, maybe not so much. But the law doesn't require me to call the police.
> Even if you do not profit from that action at all, you allowed
> someone else to profit from it, which is in itself a crime.
Nope.
> Allowing a crime to occur or not reporting or acting to stop
> that crime, is NOT THE CRIME, but it is a SEPERATE CRIME in
> its own right.
Nope. If you think it is, cite the law.
> you would not be charged with copywrite infringement
Yes, because there's no such thing as "copywrite".
> there are also crimes for which there is no defense,
> such as tresspass if you were caught somewhere you
> are not allowed to be, what defense do you have.
Hmmm... let's see... how about the affirmative defense of necessity? Always an available defense to a criminal charge.
> And of course, honest citizens can always call the police
> and report a crime.
Call your local police precinct and say you want to report copyright infringement you found on the internet. When they stop laughing you'll have your answer.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: manpower ? I guess the planet is kind of big too !!! we police that !
Sorry Darryl... it's the law
:-)
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: manpower ? I guess the planet is kind of big too !!! we police that !
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: manpower ? I guess the planet is kind of big too !!! we police that !
From there website:
"It is able to "learn" what to say by observing the things which you write to it..."
http://megahal.alioth.debian.org/
Is this the kinda junk that you want your software to learn? You'll confuse the heck out of it and it'll start returning garbage every time you feed it something. GIGO.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: manpower ? I guess the planet is kind of big too !!! we police that !
Trespass is NOT a crime in most jurisdictions-
The standard notice "trespassers will be prosecuted is in fact a lie.
You can only be sued (it is a civil matter) if you do some damage or interfere with lawful enjoyment of the land.
Also - in direct contradiction to your statement - there ARE defences - eg "A person is not guilty of trespass if he goes onto another's land to protect life or property during an emergency." from http://legal-dictionary.thefreedictionary.com/Criminal+Trespass
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: manpower ? I guess the planet is kind of big too !!! we police that !
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Encryption
Oh just like my SSH sessions to places far and wide.
This is an imposable task. It can never work. How much are they going to raise the price of your internet connection to pay for all the monkeys to TRY to decrypt the traffic running down the pipes.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Encryption
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Encryption
Not in the USA. Not without violating about 200+ years of 1st Amendment jurisprudence.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
Also, banking bandwidth isn't that much, they can monitor the net for unusual amounts of bandwidth in the few areas where encryption is allowed.
Again, I'm not supporting this, but the government could.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
Look how much law we already have that attempts to regulate every miniscule and technical aspect of our lives.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
> government could.
Again, no they couldn't, not without violating just about every 1st Amendment Supreme Court ruling for the last century or so.
How long do you think such a law would last in the face of a legal challenge?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Encryption
and then we will resort to steganography - so that even the existence of the traffic is hidden.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Encryption
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Encryption
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Among file sharers. Think how many good things came because of anti-piracy war, like torrents and Skype.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
There are several aspects of its original design which make it less efficient for copyright infringement. It was centralized. It did not even attempt to hide who is in the swarm. It used a fixed well-known pair of ports. It did not make any attempt to be hard to detect. It did not use any kind of encryption. And so on.
The innovations because of the anti-piracy war came later. DHT and PEX. Randomized ports. Trackers returning fake IP addresses. Weak encryption for protocol hiding. The private flag. And several others. And they were done by third parties, not by the original creators of the bittorrent software and protocol.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Copyright Abuse
Check this out for a good example of the 4 chords they keep on using:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=5pidokakU4I
Who owns the copyright for those 4 chords and are any royalties being paid?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Copyright Abuse
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
On top of that, even if they did get results it would only drive people to the less advertised-but-still-good free alternatives for things like music and software.
Then what would the labels/software companies tell their signed artists/codemonkeys when sales still dropped anyway?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re:
You mean like how banks are forced to report suspected violations of money laundering laws?
"Encryption is used in far too many places to be regulated without causing serious debilitative economic consequences."
As global terrorism and drug dealing increase, I think it likely that one may be required to register or be licensed to encrypt data. Like registering firearms in some jurisdictions has been found to be constitutional I doubt the free speech card would trump a requirement to obtain a registration to encrypt.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
So even if you got isps to police the internet it would be a lot of work with little(if anything) to show for it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re:
With motion pictures, most are watermarked.
I think the ISP's have done a pretty good job on keeping a lid on child porn despite the lack of watermarks and a great deal of effort to conceal.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: Re:
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re:
All they have done is to make sure it is not visible.
That is not the same thing as stopping it. There is no way of knowing whether you have actually stopped it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re:
Steganography!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
If it was that easy to detect infringement....
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: If it was that easy to detect infringement....
The Warner Music Group is an entirely different company.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: If it was that easy to detect infringement....
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: If it was that easy to detect infringement....
NBC was owned by GE; now owned by Comcast.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: If it was that easy to detect infringement....
Only since 2009 when it was spun out. They had plenty of time before that.
So the previous commenter is correct in his assertion.
Sorry you fail.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: If it was that easy to detect infringement....
Warner Music Group was founded in 2004.
Care to apologize?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: If it was that easy to detect infringement....
You're the one who needs to apologize!
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Re: Re: Re: Re: If it was that easy to detect infringement....
Prior to that, the same group was known as WEA, for Warner-Elektra-Asylum.
The affiliation with Time Warner cable ended in 2004 when the new WMG was founded as a publicly held company.
WMG has no affiliation with Time Warner cable and hasn't had any since 2004.
Thus, my ORIGINAL statement, Time Warner cable has no ties to the recording industry whatsoever, is CORRECT.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
There would be commissions convened to determine an answer to "Hey - where did all our customers go"?
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
You don't really have to understand how difficult it is to identify particular songs, just go to the RIAA radar site and see what troubles they have in keeping it straight.
So now we're gonna turn this over to ISPs to do the police action? That's a recipe for disaster.
Add to this that ISPs don't just have people laying around doing nothing so they are going to have to hire folks to do this. Get ready for your internet connection price to go up to pay for it.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Having ISPs police the net has serious problems
Just think (if you are using Wi-Fi) as you are reading this comment your computer could be easily accessed from a car or a neighbor in your street and it could be downloading illegal material for which you could be fined or imprisoned depending on the content of the download.
This brings me to say that the Laws as to downloading martial as they are cannot be seriously enforced, as anyone could have placed this material on you ISP�s server track record (and or on your computer�s hard drive) simply by carrying out the latter.
As to encryption of your �Wi-Fi Security System� there are devices that can decrypt any encryption in a matter of minutes sometimes-even seconds.
Remember the pub owner in UK (under Mandy's revised Law) was fined �8000 when one of his customers was caught downloading copyrighted digital content from the pub�s Wi-Fi See �Digital Rights Act/ Digital Economy Bill� is legally seriously flawed. http://tinyurl.com/y9nfdga
Signed Carl Barron Chairman of agpcuk
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
Re: Having ISPs police the net has serious problems
Not so - it is quite possible to deploy encryption that is not breakable at all - the problem is that people who set up encryption systems tend not to use the best systems or to leave back doors open - and that is how the system gets broken.
AES +RSA key exchange is pretty much unbreakable if sufficiently long keys are used and the system is set up properly - sadly most aren't - so in practical terms there isn't much wrong with the thrust of your comment.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]
You are wrong Mike. It is in fact extremely easy. The ISP simply downloads the latest White List from RIAA and there you go.
[ link to this | view in chronology ]