Is Banning The Pirate Bay The Best Advertising A Country Can Give Its Local Pirate Parties?

from the seems-like-it dept

With the official blockade of access to The Pirate Bay in the UK, combined with the UK Pirate Party's decision to set up a proxy for users, it appears that the UK Pirate Party's website is rocketing up the traffic charts. Given the growing success of The Pirate Party in parts of Europe, it makes you wonder if each of these bans isn't turning into the best (free) advertising The Pirate Party could ever get.

While many people assume that The Pirate Bay and the Pirate Party are connected, they are entirely separate (and the people behind them don't always agree with or support each other). However, they certainly do agree on a few key points, and when TPB comes under attack under questionable circumstances, the Pirate Parties seem quite willing to step up and help.

It will be interesting, then, to see if the negative reaction to the censorship plan in the UK actually turns into useful action in the polling place. The Pirate Party in the UK isn't seen as being as strong as elsewhere, but perhaps this situation gives the Party a chance to make itself and its polices more well known and understood in the UK.

Filed Under: censorship, europe, pirate party, uk
Companies: the pirate bay

What If There Was A Music Collection Society That Actually Understood That Free Isn't Always Bad?

from the well,-here's-a-shot dept

In the US we have three main music collection societies for performance rights (ASCAP, BMI and SESAC), and then SoundExchange for satellite/online streaming. However, many other countries just have a single collection society, with somewhat monopolistic tendencies. There have been efforts (mostly failed) to create more competition in Europe, mainly by encouraging the organizations to leave their local country and work across Europe. There have been precious few new entrants, however. At least one group is trying to change that -- and they're doing so by embracing the internet and the concepts of free culture. C3S, or the Cultural Commons Collecting Society is trying to enter the market in Europe in a much more culture-friendly manner:

C3S is a collaborative effort to found a new and ground-breaking European collecting society for musical creators to register their works outside of traditional schemes, released under free licences for commercial exploitation. More than just for works published under Creative Commons Licences, C3S is open for other free licences as well.

The new operation wants to encourage free distribution for non-commercial use, and a much more reasonable (and appealing) deal for both musicians and consumers. Just the fact that the organization has to make it clear that members are encouraged to make use of free licensing is an amazing step forward. Compare that to organizations like GEMA that have tried refusing to recognize Creative Commons licenses, and operations like ASCAP, who insist that Creative Commons is threat to musicians, rather than a useful tool. Who knows if C3S will go anywhere, but it's nice to see that it's at least being tried.

Filed Under: collection society, cs3, europe
Companies: ascap, bmi, creative commons, gema, sesac

What Does The Election Of France's New President Mean For European Copyright?

from the keeping-everyone-happy dept

Whatever you might have thought of his policies, Nicolas Sarkozy probably had more impact on European copyright policy than any other EU politician. He consciously tried to the lead the way in bringing in more extreme copyright enforcement, most notably with the "three strikes" HADOPI law.

That alone makes his defeat in the recent French presidential elections significant: there are no signs that his successor, François Hollande, will take anything like the personal interest in copyright that Sarkozy did. But that also makes it very hard to predict what effect Hollande's election will have on the French and European copyright scene. Nonetheless, the French site Numerama has published an early attempt to lay down some rough ideas of what happens next (original in French.)

Things are complicated by Hollande's shifts in position on this issue. That's because in the run-up to the election he attempted to sweep up the anti-Sarkozy voters who hated HADOPI without alienating the creative industries who were all for strict enforcement of copyright. The result is a series of vague promises and pronouncements without much in the way of concrete plans.

For example, as Numerama explains, starting on 3 July there will be a "post-HADOPI reflection," led by a government commission that will draw up new measures forming what Hollande has termed "Act 2" for French culture. That commission will have the unenviable task of trying to keep everyone happy -- and probably end up pleasing no one. Meanwhile, it seems, the HADOPI machine will rumble on: Hollande has not announced any plans to suspend the system while the commission draws up its response. That's regrettable, since it implicitly accepts the validity of the "three strikes" punishment system.

However disappointing Hollande's vague policies may be for those looking for a clean break with the past, there is always the hope that now that he is elected, he may bring in bolder measures that restore some balance to copyright in his country. In any case, the fact that France is now taking its time to re-consider copyright and creativity altogether, rather than simply continuing to charge down the road of harsh enforcement, is likely to have a positive knock-on effect in the European Union. With Sarkozy gone, the copyright maximalists there have undoubtedly lost their most outspoken and powerful ally.

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Filed Under: europe, france, francois hollande, hadopi, nicolas sarkozy

NY Times Notices That The Pirate Party May Be Changing Politics

from the slowly,-but-surely dept

We've talked about the growing success of The Pirate Parties in Europe, with particularly strong growth in Germany. While some continue to dismiss the phenomenon as unimportant, it appears that more and more people are realizing why it is important. I don't think more than maybe a handful of people actually believe The Pirate Party will ever become a significant political party on its own... but what it can do (and is already doing in some areas) is changing how politics works. Even the NY Times is taking notice, publishing a fascinating piece by Steve Kettmann about how The Pirate Party in Germany is having a much wider impact. He notes that the official platform -- and what many people associate the party with -- may be niche, but the overall goal is something much bigger:

But their real goal, and the root of their success, is more meta: using the Internet to create a new structure of politics that can solve the problem of how to energize citizens — not only for the excitement of a campaign but also the often dreary realities of actual governance.

And he gives an example of how The Pirate Party is experimenting with technology to get the public much more engaged. They're not fighting back against the system just by talking -- but they're actually trying to hack the system from within:

Using a software package they call Liquid Feedback, the Pirates are able to create a continuous, real-time political forum in which every member has equal input on party decisions, 24 hours a day. It’s more than just a gimmicky Web forum, though: complex algorithms track member input and generate instantaneous collective decisions.

Of course, on some level Liquid Feedback is a gimmick, an effort to get young people interested and involved in the humdrum of German politics, outside the campaign season and even off line. Whatever it is, it works: late last month some 1,300 members trekked to the small northern city of Neumunster to elect a new executive board.

And the real point in all of this: there's no reason that others can't learn from what The Pirate Parties are doing, and make use of them to make all politics much more engaging and inclusive:

There’s no reason the party’s lessons couldn’t be applied elsewhere, including the United States. One of the biggest problems for President Obama has been to maintain the vigorous online following that Candidate Obama generated in 2008. But while the Obama campaign at least gave the impression that he was influenced by input from his supporters, they have been shut out of the White House.

If Mr. Obama had followed the Pirate method, he would not only have sent updates via Facebook and Twitter, but he would have involved larger numbers of supporters in an extensive dialogue and given them an actual say in determining such priorities as which issues to pursue in his first months in office and how much to reach out to conservatives.

Indeed, the Obama administration did at least try to do some of that with various online tools, but it rarely seemed to take them very seriously, reverting to politics as usual, rather than actually doing much with what information the public sent in. It was a step in the right direction, but hardly a full step. If The Pirate Party's one big success is convincing other major political parties to be more responsive to the public, rather than special interests, I'd argue that it would be a massive success.

Filed Under: europe, germany, ny times, obama, pirate party

Pirate Parties Continue To Grow In Europe As People Get Sick Of Politics As Usual

from the good-for-them dept

I've expressed my skepticism in the past about the ability of The Pirate Party to make a real dent long-term in politics, but I'm beginning to wonder if I've underestimated the effort. While we've seen some successes in Germany, it appears that the party has now become the third most popular party in the country, surpassing the Greens. That's fairly surprising. Equally interesting is that in nearby Austria, a Pirate Party member won a seat in a local city election... which actually made front page news:

These are still small steps, of course, and I still doubt that the party will become a "major" political party -- but its success in Europe is already driving other parties to pay much more attention to the issues that have attracted so much attention for The Pirate Party: internet freedom, free speech, civil liberties, copyright law, patent law, privacy and much more. If the Party's one major accomplishment is to bring those issues into the mainstream of politics, I'd consider it a pretty big success.

Filed Under: austria, europe, germany, internet freedom, pirate party

ACTA Rapporteur's Recommendations: Reject Treaty, But Ask European Commission To Come Up With Replacement

from the not-quite-what-we-hoped-for dept

Last week, the EU Rapporteur on ACTA, David Martin, announced he would recommend that the European Parliament reject the treaty. He has now made good on that promise in his report, available in draft form (pdf):

The intended benefits of this international agreement are far outweighed by the potential threats to civil liberties. Given the vagueness of certain aspects of the text and the uncertainty over its interpretation, the European Parliament cannot guarantee adequate protection for citizens' rights in the future under ACTA.

Your rapporteur therefore recommends that the European Parliament declines to give consent to ACTA.

It's interesting to note the main areas of ACTA that he found unsatisfactory:

Unintended consequences of the ACTA text is a serious concern. On individual criminalisation, the definition of "commercial-scale", the role of internet service providers and the possible interruption of the transit of generic medicines, your rapporteur maintains doubts that the ACTA text is as precise as is necessary.

However, Martin does not have a problem with the underlying idea of ACTA:

The problems which ACTA seeks to address are real and growing. Counterfeiting and piracy have increased substantially and continue to do so. The consequences of the growth in these illegal activities range from economic losses to health and safety dangers. The European Union has much to lose without efficient and enforced global coordination in copyright protection.

As a result, he concludes as follows:

Following the expected revision of relevant EU directives, your rapporteur hopes the European Commission will therefore come forward with new proposals for protecting IP.

This seems to be a reference to the imminent revision of IPRED ("intellectual property rights enforcement directive"). The European Commission has already published what it calls its "indicative roadmap" (pdf) for IPRED, so it's clear that it is working on a new proposal. Martin's closing comment suggests that it may get an easier ride through the European Parliament than ACTA, which could encourage the Commission to incorporate some of ACTA's ideas in IPRED 2 -- before moving on to ACTA 2.0.

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Filed Under: acta, david martin, eu rapporteur, europe, ipred

Funny How Sensitive Hollywood Gets When You Threaten To Mess With Its 'Fundamental' Structure

from the but-the-internet?-bah... dept

One of the key points in the SOPA/PIPA debate involved Hollywood -- and the MPAA's Chris Dodd and Michael O'Leary in particular -- dismissing the worries of folks in the tech industry about the rather fundamental changes that these laws would make to both the technological and legal frameworks of the internet. Anytime such a thing was brought up, it was dismissed out of hand. This was most noticeable during the original SOPA hearings in November, where a number of experts were pointing out their concerns with how SOPA would undermine basic internet security principles... and O'Leary dismissed them with a simple statement about how he just didn't believe those concerns to be true.

What shocked many folks in the tech community was just how easily the MPAA sought to dismiss some pretty massive fundamental changes to both the internet and the legal framework around the internet. However, apparently if you dare touch the "fundamental" parts of Hollywood's business, the same MPAA throws a hissy fit. The EU recently had a public consultation on a variety of copyright-related topics, some of which were more interesting than others. One of the topics was on the question of movie release windows, and whether or not they made sense any more. As we've noted there have been many, many studies that suggest that these release windows are actually a big part of the problem for Hollywood, and they're leaving a ton of money on the table by not making movies available in as many convenient ways as possible.

In fact, many of the (non-Hollywood) respondents to the consultation made this point. There's BEUC (a consumers' group) that sees (pdf) "both platform and territorial release windows as outdated." GSMA called for (pdf) support for "flexible and shorter release windows." And EuroISPA was the most stringent (pdf), pointing out that:

the current windowing system is obsolete and seriously damaging the objective of the Digital Agenda, because it hampers the circulation of digital works and discriminate amongst platforms, to the detriment of more innovative technologies and business models

But you get a totally different story when you hear the MPAA's international arm, the MPA, tell its story (pdf). You see, to Hollywood, release windows are a "fundamental" part of its business model, and how dare anyone think of touching it.

The MPA submits that the freedom to set the exact timing for the release of films in various media and various countries is a fundamental feature of the film industry’s business model

Perhaps Hollywood is right, even if so many studies disagree. But, really, if it thinks it can just claim a certain feature is a "fundamental feature of the industry's business model," why does it then feel that there's absolutely no problem to leap into a totally different industry, and muck around with the "fundamental features" of that "industry's business model"? What an incredible sense of entitlement. The MPAA wants the law to keep its business model in place permanently... but if anyone else even dares to ask why Hollywood is trying to muck with their own business model, everyone gets attacked as being misinformed shills.

Filed Under: business models, europe, fundamental, movies, pipa, release windows, sopa
Companies: mpa, mpaa

European Commission Suggests ACTA's Opponents Don't Have 'Democratic Intentions'

from the what-planet-are-they-on? dept

Last week, we had a story about the IFPI (the international equivalent of the RIAA) saying that the ACTA protests were trying to "silence the democratic process". You might have thought that was bad enough, but here's worse.

Netzpolitik.org points us to leaked internal minutes of a meeting of the European Commission the day before the massive Europe-wide demonstrations against ACTA. They reveal the EU's top politicians taken aback by the scale of the planned demonstrations, but dismissing them with almost the same words as the IFPI (German original):

ultimately it will be hard to convince civil society organizations [about the benefits of ACTA]. Represented among them are interests that do not reflect the wider community. Specific activities were observed that do not always live up to the supposedly democratic intentions.

The minutes went on to detail some of the things people are up to:

ACTA's opponents are trying to mobilize people against the agreement, in order to influence the remaining MS [Member States that have not yet signed] and EP [Parliament].

So the European Commission thinks that tens of thousands of people on the streets somehow don't reflect the wider community -- presumably unlike the small band of negotiators and lobbyists behind closed doors that drew up ACTA in secrecy for years, who do represent the European Union's 500 million people.

And the Commissioners are just shocked that the opponents of ACTA, who have been denied any meaningful transparency about what was being agreed to in their name during those now-concluded negotiations, are desperately trying to make their voices heard by the only institutions left that can listen: the EU nations that haven't signed ACTA, and the European Parliament that must still ratify it.

This suggests that the European Commission is completely out of touch with the people it supposedly serves, and still doesn't understand the growing anger that its arrogant approach and condescending tone continues to generate on the streets.

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Filed Under: acta, democratic intentions, eu commission, europe

IFPI & Other Lobbyists Tell Parliament That ACTA Protests Silence The Democratic Process

from the actually,-it's-the-opposite dept

This is really incredible. Apparently IFPI (the international RIAA, basically) penned a letter to European Parliament members concerning the widespread ACTA protests claiming that these "protests silence the democratic process."

Over the past two weeks, we have seen coordinated attacks on democratic institutions such as the European Parliament and national governments over ACTA. The signatories to this letter and their members stand against such attempts to silence the democratic process. Instead, we call for a calm and reasoned assessment of the facts rather than the misinformation circulating.

That's quite a statement. We'd heard some SOPA/PIPA supporters hint at views like that, but not quite so blatant. Let's be clear: the protests and the public speaking out are the democratic process. They're not silencing the democratic process in any way. To suggest that people speaking out over their own viewpoint somehow silences the process, is to redefine "the democratic process" to be something entirely different than what most people believe.

Filed Under: acta, democracy, europe, free speech, protests
Companies: ifpi

EU Court Of Justice Says Social Networks Can't Be Forced To Be Copyright Cops

from the good-news dept

A few months back we noted that the European Court of Justice had ruled that ISPs couldn't be required to set up a filtering system designed to catch copyright infringement. The case involved Belgian anti-piracy organization/collection agency SABAM, which had demanded that a local ISP proactively filter against infringement. Apparently, SABAM didn't limit this strategy just to ISPs, but also brought similar efforts against online sites and social networks, including local social network Netlog. That case followed a similar trajectory, and now the EU Court of Justice has issued a similar ruling noting that an online site can't be forced to proactively monitor for infringement because that infringes on too many other rights. The court's press release (pdf) is worth reading:

In the main proceedings, the injunction requiring the installation of a filtering system would involve monitoring all or most of the information stored by the hosting service provider concerned, in the interests of the copyright holders. Moreover, that monitoring would have to have no limitation in time, be directed at all future infringements and be intended to protect not only existing works, but also works that have not yet been created at the time when the system is introduced. Accordingly, such an injunction would result in a serious infringement of Netlog’s freedom to conduct its business since it would require Netlog to install a complicated, costly, permanent computer system at its own expense.

Moreover, the effects of that injunction would not be limited to Netlog, as the filtering system may also infringe the fundamental rights of its service users - namely their right to protection of their personal data and their freedom to receive or impart information - which are rights safeguarded by the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union. First, the injunction would involve the identification, systematic analysis and processing of information connected with the profiles created on the social network, that information being protected personal data because, in principle, it allows those users to be identified. Second, that injunction could potentially undermine freedom of information, since that system might not distinguish adequately between unlawful content and lawful content, with the result that its introduction could lead to the blocking of lawful communications.

Consequently, the Court’s answer is that, in adopting an injunction requiring the hosting service provider to install such a filtering system, the national court would not be respecting the requirement that a fair balance be struck between the right to intellectual property, on the one hand, and the freedom to conduct business, the right to protection of personal data and the freedom to receive or impart information, on the other.

Here's another good court ruling against the massive overreach of the entertainment industry, as they seek to bend and break the internet so that it acts more like how they want it, rather than how everyone else wants it to work.

Filed Under: eu court of justice, europe, filters, hosting, monitoring
Companies: netlog, sabam