OECD Supports Making ISPs Copyright Cops

from the oecd-fail dept

Thu, Jun 30th 2011 10:00pm — Mike Masnick

On the whole, the OECD has been pretty good about recognizing both the importance of freedom and openness of communications online and how certain industries have sought to use questionable claims and stats to push for protectionism. So, earlier this week, when the OECD put together a statement on "principles for internet policy-making," people hoped that it would follow along with the UN in focusing on protecting civil rights of individuals... not protecting outdated business models of certain companies.

And yet... it quickly came out that the OECD was considering dangerous language in the principles, seeking to cut back on important safe harbors to protect against misguided third party liability. When the draft language came out, nearly all of the "civil society" (i.e., consumer rights) groups that were a part of the discussion stated publicly that they could not endorse the language.

Tragically, the final document (pdf) did, in fact, keep the dangerous language.

To be sure, there are plenty of good things in the principles -- and even many of the "titles" for the principles sound reasonable. For example, among the principles are things like:

Promote and protect the global free flow of information
Promote the open, distributed and interconnected nature of the Internet
Promote investment and competition in high speed networks and services
Promote and Enable the Cross-Border Delivery of Services
Develop capacities to bring publicly available, reliable data into the policy-making process
Ensure transparency, fair process, and accountability
Strengthen consistency and effectiveness in privacy protection at a global level
Maximise individual empowerment
Promote Creativity and Innovation

It's tough to argue with most of those. But the devil is in the details. As KEI points out:

The Internet has actually demonstrated how much creativity is fostered without intellectual property, in fact despite IPR. Intellectual property is not a "driving" tool of the Internet. The Internet was NOT created by patents or copyright or trademark. Why would intellectual property be such a central theme for such a document? We concede that the Internet must not be a lawless "place" but this document where words such as "fair use, limitation and exception for users (it is "fixed" for the ISPs?), open source, free software, public domain, etc never appear, is wrong in tone and in its focus.

For example, just take a look at the very first item on the list: "Promote and protect the global free flow of information." Sounds good. But nearly half of the paragraph to back that up isn't about the global free flow of information, but about making sure there are ways to block the free flow of information:

While promoting the free flow of information, it is also essential for governments to work towards better protection of personal data, children online, consumers, intellectual property rights, and to address cybersecurity. In promoting the free flow of information governments should also respect fundamental rights.

Of course, countries that are blatantly censoring the internet, from China to Australia all claim that they're working towards "better protection of children online" etc. Such a statement basically undermines the entire point of the principle. The document goes on in this nature, inserting "intellectual property" in all sorts of places it doesn't belong. Perhaps most troubling is that there's a section officially on limiting third party liability, which has a whopper in the middle. Basically it talks up the importance of limiting liability to service providers to encourage innovation... and then puts a huge "but not in the case of IP" in there:

Within this context governments may choose to... identify the appropriate circumstances under which Internet intermediaries could take steps to educate users, assist rights holders in enforcing their rights or reduce illegal content....

In other words, this document is a joke, which is why civil society deserted it. It seems clear that it presents some nice principles upfront, but then undermines them in the fine print.

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, freedom, internet, oecd, principles, protection

16 Comments

If you liked this post, you may also be interested in...

Reader Comments

Subscribe: RSS

View by: Time | Thread

Nick Dynice (profile), 30 Jun 2011 @ 9:08pm

OECD?
Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development
http://www.oecd.org/
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 30 Jun 2011 @ 10:55pm

Re: OECD?
Organization for Enforcing Copyright Dictators
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 30 Jun 2011 @ 11:23pm

Re: Re: OECD?
Organisation for Ensuring Continued Disbursements

Organisation for Ensuring Capture of Dollars

Organisation for Establishing Continued Dominance

...too easy... :)
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 30 Jun 2011 @ 11:25pm

The Internet _must_ be a lawless "place". It is a reservoir of freedom, and a check on reality.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Greevar (profile), 30 Jun 2011 @ 11:51pm

Re: OECD?
Obsessive Excretion Compulsion Disorder?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 30 Jun 2011 @ 11:52pm

Re: Re: Re: OECD?
Good one!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Greevar (profile), 30 Jun 2011 @ 11:55pm

Re:
I read this somewhere else but it's too good to go unused: "If the internet is so lawless, why are there so many lawsuits?"
[ link to this | view in thread ]
David Muir (profile), 1 Jul 2011 @ 3:39am

I am not sure I like this new reference to "civil society" as if it is a distinct and identifiable thing. I am seeing it pop up more and more at TechDirt and elsewhere. Equating it to "consumer rights" groups like is done in this article helps just a tiny bit, but I prefer to think of civil society within the old vague context it used to have.

Having said that, third party liability for ISPs is like making the power company responsible for the evils that people do with electricity. I think, given the pretty good track record of the OECD, there must have been enormous pressure put on them to keep some references in the document about governments "clamping down" on the Internet in various ways.

Here's a Pollyanna view courtesy of yours truly: the Internet rose up and became a positive force without governments and the corporate biggies getting their sticky fingers all over it. The Wild West gave rise to a great nation. Something else will come along to unseat all these power-grabbers and authority-abusers (even if it's a popular groundswell from the little people like us).
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Anonymous Coward, 1 Jul 2011 @ 3:40am

Regulatory Capture
It appears that the OECD has been subjected to regulatory capture. Regulatory capture is when the regulatory bureaucrats do the bidding of the regulated industry. The usual technique is the revolving door. Are there instances of higher-ranking bureaucrats swapping jobs between the OECD bureaucracy and IP maximalist organizations?
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Drizzt, 1 Jul 2011 @ 3:52am

CSISAC (Civil Society Information Society Advisory Council) came out against the OECD Communique (before this ISPs-as-cops part came out, they were in support of the OECD line).

And just as an interesting side note: the OECD had pretty liberal ideas about net development/governance. The "Recommendation of the OECD Council concerning Guidelines for Cryptography Policy" comes to mind here. Seems like other groups within the OECD have risen to power since then.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
herbert, 1 Jul 2011 @ 4:03am

did anyone actually think that this document would be something other than in favour of the copyright industries? they are leaving no stone unturned to achieve exactly what they want; a completely regulated internet where no one is allowed to do anything, say anything other than what certain industries say. once the net has gone, it will never come back!
[ link to this | view in thread ]
The eejit (profile), 1 Jul 2011 @ 4:33am

Re: Re:
For the $$$ and the lulz.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
out_of_the_blue, 1 Jul 2011 @ 4:37am

"UN in focusing on protecting civil rights of individuals..."
If you believe that false premise, you can't keep from going awry. The UN has lately "authorized" bombing the hell out of sovereign countries on the pretext of instilling "democracy" there. But bombs don't deliver democracy, only death.

Khadafi may be evil, but those in the UN or elsewhere who are -- suddenly -- in favor of bombing Libya are far worse monsters; they've murdered around a million in Iraq on the same false pretext of bringing them democracy. A war in Yemen is now started, and a war in Pakistan is nearly on.

Anyway, False Premise; Didn't Read.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
Jay (profile), 1 Jul 2011 @ 5:36am

Famous Quotes
OECD: "Fraid we can't let you do that, Anonymous"
[ link to this | view in thread ]
ASTROBOI, 1 Jul 2011 @ 6:28am

Add to the list...
Add one more bullet point to the list:
.Identify every snotty little anti-social hacker punk that thinks they are smarter than their betters and screw them over until they regret the day they ever turned their computers on!

And I can see their point. If you and your "team" were paid ohsomany megabucks to devise a security system and some 14 year old boy from Kansas with Aspergers cracked it in his spare time, you would have a lot of explaining to do. If a foriegn spy did it, thats understandable. A file-swapping punk kid? Never. Look for a new job.

Once the internet became just another big money business the era of innovation ended. It happened to radio, tv, cable, and telephones. Get used to it. Computers just aren't fun anymore.
[ link to this | view in thread ]
BeeAitch (profile), 1 Jul 2011 @ 11:23am

Re: Re:
Just trying to help with attribution. :) It was this comment:

http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20110630/02172914918/riaa-lulzsec-anonymous-show-why-we -need-protect-ip.shtml#c98
[ link to this | view in thread ]