French Senate Approves 3 Strikes Law

from the screw-the-eu dept

Despite the fact that the EU Parliament rejected the concept of a "three strikes" law for kicking people off the internet, and warned member countries that such laws interfered with civil rights and privacy rights of individuals, France is moving forward with such a law. The EU Parliament specifically had called on France to reconsider such a law, but the French Senate has approved the law by an overwhelming majority, 297 to 15. The law still needs approval from the lower house of Parliament as well, but it's disappointing that any government body would approve such a law after it's been shown to be both unnecessary and destructive.

Filed Under: disconnect, france, isps, three strikes

Belgian Court Realizes That ISPs Shouldn't Be Forced To Block File Sharing

from the about-time dept

A year and a half ago, we wrote about a Belgian court requiring an ISP to block all file sharing, and saying that after six months to implement a filtering solution, the ISP would be fined 2,500 euros per day that file sharing still occurred on its network. The court had been convinced by the IFPI that blocking all file sharing was as simple as installing the filtering software from the entertainment industry darling, Audible Magic. Of course, as has been seen over and over again, Audible Magic's "magic bullet" solution isn't particularly good, and certainly does very little to stop file sharing. Apparently, Belgian ISPs have finally been able to convince the judge of that fact, and he's reversed the original ruling, saying that the ISP in question is no longer subject to the fine. Apparently, even the recording industry lawyers had to admit that they misled the court over the efficacy of Audible Magic's filtering software.

Filed Under: belgium, filtering, isps
Companies: audible magic, ifpi, riaa

Why ISPs Shouldn't Be Copyright Cops

from the taking-down-content-that-creators-want-online dept

It's no secret that the RIAA is pushing quite hard to make ISPs responsible for policing the various content that traverses their networks or is hosted by their customers. However, if you want a perfect example of why this is a terrible idea, witness this story of a record label that purposely puts all its music online for free to download, who had its web host take down the sites for copyright infringement. Yes, the record label put the tracks online on purpose, to help promote the musicians on its label. Yet, the webhost took matters into its own hand, seeing the music being distributed for free, and shut the label's website down for copyright infringement.

Even better, is that when the record label's boss (who also happens to have written many of the songs that were pulled down) called the hosting firm, he was told that he needed to send the host the paperwork showing that the songs had the copyright registered to him. The only problem? There is no registration, because you don't need to register things with the copyright office (you can, and there are some advantages to doing so, but it's not a requirement). Instead, they had just put them under a Creative Commons license.

This is the sort of thing that will happen all the time if ISPs or webhosts or even online services like YouTube are told that they need to police copyright infringement proactively. They have no idea the real intentions of the content creators, and will inevitably pull down content that was put online for free on purpose, creating a bureaucratic mess for content creators who purposely adopt business models that embrace free file sharing. I can understand why the RIAA would like to hobble those business model innovators, but it doesn't explain why politicians and ISPs seem to want to help the RIAA out in this manner.

Filed Under: copyright, isps, takedowns

Is Public Shame Enough To Keep ISPs From Doing Bad Stuff With Your Data?

from the not-if-no-one-knows-what's-going-on dept

While there has been a lot of attention paid recently to ISPs using clickstream tracking to provide targeted ads, it seems that many people are still focused on the activities of the ad companies, such as NebuAd, which garnered some attention from Congress for its offering. However, as we pointed out recently, many ISPs have been selling your clickstream data to others for years without people knowing about it. Now, with Congress threatening to put regulations in place, the various ISPs are scrambling to push back against that possibility.

For example, Broadband Reports points out that Verizon is claiming that the chance of a public shaming will keep the company honest. While it's certainly true that a public shaming is a risk, it's also true that the sale of clickstream data is usually kept entirely secret, which would preclude any sort of public shaming. Public shaming could work if the companies were upfront and honest with how they're using data. But, since they're not, it's difficult to see how that works as a self-regulating mechanism.

Filed Under: clickstream tracking, isps, legality, public shame, regulations
Companies: verizon

UK Tells ISPs They Must Retain Data... Except If It Costs Money

from the mixed-messages dept

For years, Europe has been trying to push data retention rules, that require ISPs to hang onto data much longer than it's needed for any business purpose. Such data retention has plenty of problems, from the likelihood of abuse to the chance of inadvertent disclosure to the simple fact that sifting through more data often makes it more difficult to find the data you actually need. However, the biggest problem is the cost involved with data retention. It's rather costly to retain all that data for many ISPs, and for years ISPs (especially smaller ones) fought to make sure that any data retention laws also included provisions that would make the government pay for retaining the data. While some politicians in the UK have tried to shrug off the cost issue as not a big deal, it looks like it may leave a loophole that makes data retention in the UK basically meaningless.

The Register is reporting on a meeting the UK government held with various ISPs that left many of the ISPs baffled. Basically, they were told that they needed to start retaining data to stay in compliance with the law, but that since the UK government couldn't pay for it, many of the ISPs could get away without actually retaining the data. In other words, it sounded as if they said that, yes, you need to retain the data, but since we don't want to pay for it, maybe you shouldn't actually retain the data (wink, wink, nod, nod). So they end up giving lip service to the public about telling ISPs to retain data, but then since they won't fund it, it won't actually happen.

Filed Under: data retention, isps, money, uk

Why Did ISPs Take Down Ronald Riley's Sites?

from the make-sure-you-have-a-good-ISP dept

Paul Alan Levy writes "In a new post, I consider the Dozier-Riley controversy from a different angle. Some ISPs knuckled under to Dozier's threats of trademark claims, while others stood up to him (or tried to do so). Consumers who are considering purchasing web hosting services should consider the host's record on free speech issues. I also discuss whether the CDA should be amended to provide immunity against trademark claims. "

Levy raises some excellent points. I, too, was troubled by various ISPs caving in to Dozier's complaints, when it seemed clear that there was little real legal basis for them. While I had pointed out that the ISPs should be protected by Section 230 safe harbors, Levy mentions that Dozier is relying on the fact that Section 230 exempts "intellectual property" claims, which is a loophole that Dozier is exploiting. Levy points out, as we have plenty of times in the past, that trademarks really shouldn't be considered "intellectual property" any way. They don't stem from the same part of the constitution, and they are designed to do totally different things. Trademark is really about consumer protection in protecting a buyer from being tricked into buying Bob's Cola believing he is buying Coca-Cola. It's not about "property" at all. And, of course, copyright has its own safe harbors as found in the DMCA. The fact that trademark is somehow left out seems like an accidental loophole that will hopefully be closed shortly. Still, it's troublesome that Dozier was able to get so many ISPs to shut down Riley's websites over highly questionable claims. I may dislike Riley quite a bit (and while he had been silent since the lawsuit, he showed up again last Friday in full form, insulting me repeatedly, and never even acknowledging that I've been defending his position in this lawsuit), but I will stand by his legal right to post his obnoxious websites.

Filed Under: isps, john dozier, lawsuits, ronald j. riley, safe harbors, trademark

Most People Don't Realize Their ISPs Are Already Spying On Them

from the wake-up... dept

We recently wrote about how you should probably be more nervous about the data your ISP is collecting rather than what Google is collecting, because your ISP has access to a lot more data, and the data it has isn't data that you chose to give, as in the case of Google. Plus, ISPs have a long history of selling that data. Now, a new study is showing that most people have no idea that their ISPs track and sell their data, with many believing that an ISP would need to first let them know if they were doing that. In fact, many people are quite concerned about how that data would be used, not realizing that it's already being sold. And, of course, it's not just being sold to ad companies like NebuAd and Phorm, but to website tracking firms like Compete and Hitwise. And, even if that data is sold solely for the purpose of creating trend data, there's no reason that uses can't change over time. For example, the Register is noting that a recent patent lawsuit suggests that trend-tracking research firm Hitwise (which was recently bought by credit giant Experian) may be working on an advertising product as well, that also uses your clickstream data.

Filed Under: clickstream tracking, isps, legality

European Parliament Rejects Laws Kicking File Sharers Off The Internet

from the three-strikes-law-strikes-out dept

Earlier this year, the EU Parliament spoke out against laws proposed by entertainment industry lobbyists, that would force ISPs to kick accused file sharers off the internet using a "three strikes" law. Now the Parliament has made its position even clearer, taking a vote and, once again, rejecting the idea of using three strikes laws to fight unauthorized file sharing, noting that it interfered with civil rights and privacy rights of individuals. The sponsor of the motion made it clear: "You do not play with individual freedoms like that." He also suggested that France, who had already put in place a three strikes law, should reconsider. It's so rare these days to see politicians not falling for the lobbyists' claims, that it's nice to see.

Filed Under: eu, europe, isps, parliament, three strikes

Court Says Italy Can't Block The Pirate Bay

from the ah,-pesky-laws dept

Lots of people were surprised back in August when a prosecutor in Italy told Italian ISPs they needed to start blocking The Pirate Bay. That was problematic for a variety of reasons -- from why ISPs should be responsible for filtering content to why The Pirate Bay had no chance to tell its side of the story to (the most questionable of all) the fact that ISPs were told to redirect people to a site run by the record labels. But, of course, as with any of these blocks, the attention only served to drive more traffic to The Pirate Bay in Italy.

Still, even ordering the blocks in the first place seemed highly questionable, so The Pirate Bay asked an Italian court to reverse the order -- and that's exactly what's happened. The court has ordered that the bans be lifted. So, it appears that all the Italian prosecutor did was drive a lot more traffic to The Pirate Bay by getting it a lot more attention, without being able to actually ban the site.

Filed Under: ban, isps, italy
Companies: pirate bay

UK Police Stop Phorm Investigation, As They Don't See Any Criminal Behavior

from the civil,-however.., dept

While American competitor NebuAd may be on the verge of shutting down, it appears that Phorm, the controversial clickstream tracking, behavioral ad company that focused mainly on the UK market, may be dodging a series of bullets. First, the government said that clickstream tracking could be legal if the situation was clearly explained to customers and there was an obvious mechanism for opting out. Now, UK police are dropping their own investigation of earlier trials with BT, which many believed were illegal because they were done with no notice to consumers at all, and no way to opt-out. That would seem to go against the government's earlier statements, but the police are saying that there's no evidence that this is a criminal matter -- which would leave this open to civil lawsuits from individuals who were impacted by the trials.

Filed Under: clickstream tracking, isps, legality, spyware, uk
Companies: phorm