Huawei To US Government: Please Investigate Us

from the nothing-to-hide dept

Interesting strategy from China's telco networking giant Huawei in dealing with security fears from the US government: it's asking the US government to do a full investigation of the company to satisfy itself that there's nothing questionable going on. Obviously part of the idea is a PR move, to show that the company has nothing to hide, but it's pretty rare to see a company so openly ask a government to investigate it. I guess it's Huawei's attempt to call the US government's grandstanding bluff.

Filed Under: china, investigation, us
Companies: huwei

EU: ACTA Is A Binding Treaty; US: ACTA Is Neither Binding, Nor A Treaty

from the funny-how-that-works dept

We've noted in the past how the US government (mainly via the USTR) has worked hard to try to play down the importance of ACTA to its critics (while, simultaneously, playing up how important it is to various lobbyists). For example, after years of promising that ACTA wouldn't change any US laws, the fact that the US does not actually comply with everything in ACTA represents a problem. The USTR gets around this by saying that we can just ignore the parts that don't match up with US law. Also, there's the whole lie about how ACTA is not a treaty. Oh no no no. According to US officials, ACTA is merely an "executive agreement." Of course, if you talk to legal experts, they'll point out that the only real difference between a treaty and an executive agreement is whether or not the Senate has any say in approving it. Making it an executive agreement is just a ploy to avoid Senate hearings. It also raises serious constitutional questions, since the Executive branch of the US government has no mandate to approve such things.

But, to summarize: according to the US, ACTA is not binding in that it can ignore the parts it doesn't like, and it's not a treaty. Got it? Not binding. Not a treaty.

Okay, let's jump over to Europe. A few months back, we had noted that the EU's Commissioner for Trade, Karel De Gucht, who, more or less, was in charge of the EU's position on ACTA, insisted that it was a treaty. And the latest news is that, in response to a question from the EU Parliament's Francoise Castex, De Gucht has also said that ACTA is binding:

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) is a binding international agreement on all its parties, as defined and subject to the rules of the Vienna Convention on the Law of Treaties (1969).

Apparently, MEP Castex sent the question about this way back at the beginning of November. The delay in response is allegedly due to De Gucht begging Castex to withdraw the question, perhaps knowing that the answer was going to get him in trouble.

So, if you're playing along with the home game, the EU says that ACTA is a binding treaty. The US says it's neither binding, nor a treaty.

Kinda makes you wonder what they spent so much time negotiating in secret, doesn't it, when they can't even agree on what the document is about.

Filed Under: acta, executive agreement, karel de gucht, treaty, us, ustr

With ACS:Law And MediaCAT Shutting Down, What Does It Mean For US Copyright Group?

from the brothers-in-arms dept

ACS:Law wasn't the first law firm to try the "send tons of 'pre-settlement' letters to people we accuse of file sharing in hopes they just pay up," business model. In fact, ACS:Law got all of its initial paperwork from another law firm, Davenport Lyons, who was trying to get out of that business. However, ACS:Law was the firm that really got much of the attention over the past few years. Just about a year ago, that business model finally jumped to the US, initially from an outfit called US Copyright Group, which was really an operation run by a tiny DC law firm called Dunlap, Grubb and Weaver along with an online monitoring company. However, with the latest news that ACS:Law and its online monitoring company MediaCAT have completely gone out of business -- perhaps in a weak attempt to avoid sanctions for their disastrous attempt to finally bring some cases to court, it makes me wonder if this is a precursor of things to come for US Copyright Group/DGW. It certainly looks like DGW has been a bit more careful with its strategy than ACS:Law (where it really seemed like Andrew Crossley got in way over his head), but it certainly should be a warning sign to all those law firms who think this sort of shakedown play is easy money.

Filed Under: pre-settlement, uk, us
Companies: acs:law, dunlap grubb & weaver, mediacat, us copyright group

Europeans Continue To Push For 'Right To Be Forgotten'; Claim Americans 'Fetishize' Free Speech

from the let's-try-this-again... dept

Back in November, we wrote about a proposal making the rounds in the EU for an official "right to be forgotten" law, which would allow people to demand that any website delete all info about a person at their request. As we've noted, some European countries already have something like this, such as in Germany, where a convicted murderer tried to force Wikipedia to remove his name in a discussion about the murder. France has been arguing for such a law for a while as well.

Over at The Atlantic, there's a story with the expected storyline about how Europe loves privacy, while the US loves free speech, and this whole "right to be forgotten" issue is where those two cultures clash. While there is some truth to the stereotypical claims about the US believing free speech trumps all and Europe valuing privacy much more, I still think this story line is not accurate for two important reasons.

First, I still don't believe the "right to be forgotten" is truly a privacy issue at all. A privacy issue is about protecting private information. The right to be forgotten is the opposite of that. It's asking websites to delete public information, including factual news information about a person. That's not about privacy. That's about pretending public information is really private.

And that brings up the second point, which is that the concept of a "right to be forgotten" isn't just silly because of the free speech restriction, but because it's impossible. You might be able to force some information off of some websites, but it will simply be impossible to erase that information completely -- especially on a global internet, where large segments of that internet will not exist in countries that abide by any "right to be forgotten." But even beyond that, once information is public and in people's brains, it's impossible to force them to forget it and equally impossible to realistically tell them they cannot ever speak about it again. From a sheer logistical angle, the whole idea of a "right to be forgotten" is so laughable that it's a waste to even seriously consider implementing such a thing.

Of course, that's probably why some politicians will still try to do exactly that.

Filed Under: europe, free speech, privacy, right to be forgotten, us

Leaked State Department Cables Confirm That ACTA Was Designed To Pressure Developing Nations

from the no-surprise-there dept

The site La Quadrature Du Net has a rather comprehensive look at a series of leaked State Department cables that confirm what many people said from the beginning about ACTA: that it was designed by US special interests as an "end run" around existing international intellectual property groups, since those groups had actually started listening to the concerns of many other nations about how overly strict intellectual property laws were stifling innovation, economic growth and were, at times, a threat to human safety. This point had been made by ACTA critics for quite some time, but now the leaked State Department cables effectively confirm it:

One of the core objectives is to circumvent international organizations in charge of "intellectual property", where maximalist countries such as the US and the EU have been facing growing opposition from developing countries. Not just WIPO and WTO, but also the OECD: Initially, the Japanese proposed to ask the OECD for some help in drafting the agreement, but US officials suggest a different process, stressing that that they have sufficient in-house expertise, and insist on avoiding any collaboration with international organizations

The full cable on this matter makes it clear that the US had a big plan and that plan involved bringing together only "like-minded" countries, and Japan was gleeful about this, but had originally expected the OECD would help.

From there, the plans become even clearer. The idea is to first do all of this with those "like-minded" (i.e., protectionist) countries, and then use the agreement to try to pressure those developing nations and other nations concerned about the expansive problems of intellectual property law into "joining." In other words, stack the deck first with those who benefit most, and then use international pressure to force the agreement on those who aren't comfortable with the end result of such laws.

The cables show that ACTA -- although negotiated between "like-minded countries" -- is ultimately meant to be imposed on developing countries. Early on, the US and Japan deem necessary to recruit developing countries so as to ensure the "legitimacy" of the agreement. Jordan and Morocco are the first to be mentioned, given their acceptance of tough copyright, trademark and patents provisions in bilateral free trade agreements recently concluded with the US.

However, one key concern for the negotiators is that ACTA might appear for what it is -- that is to say an agreement drafted by rich countries to be imposed on the developing world. Mexican officials are especially keen on helping out on this front. During a meeting with US counterparts, Mexicans stress "their willingness to join the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) negotiations and push-back against Brazilian efforts to undermine IPR in international health organizations," according to the US account of the meeting. Brazil's push for progressive policies on the international arena is denounced by Mexican officials, who offer to play the "good cops" by acting alongside the US to push for maximal patent and copyright standards at the global level.

Mexico selling out to US interests over its own people -- how nice. In fact, in one of the cables, Japan explicitly states that the purpose of ACTA is to impose rules on China, Russia and Brazil.

Oh yeah, remember all those claims from US officials about how ACTA was just an agreement to align "enforcement" techniques and really had nothing (nothing!) to do with changing laws? Yeah, turns out they were lying. In discussing the early plans for ACTA, US officials indicated to Japanese officials that the US was perfectly happy to change its laws to greater protectionism around copyright and patents:

He added that Congress has welcomed the opportunity to engage on these issues, changing laws where necessary. Moore stressed that the United States is keen to move forward quickly, but with an effective, high-standard agreement. As we work together to reach out to other like-minded countries, he said, it will be essential for Japan to consider seriously improvements to its enforcement regime.

Again, almost nothing in these cables is new or a surprise. But it does confirm what many ACTA critics had said early on, and prove that US official statements on ACTA were clearly inaccurate at best, and deliberately misleading at worst.

Filed Under: acta, copyright, japan, mexico, us

And Now Europe Feels The Need To Catch Up To China And The US In The Self-Destructive Patent Race

from the bad-news-for-innovation dept

Well, you had to know this was coming. When you make the very dangerous mistake of assuming that patents are a proxy for innovation, then you get concerned when other countries/regions are getting more patents than you are. We've already covered how China is ramping up their patent approvals in an attempt to create an economic weapon against the West ("sorry, you can't sell those computers here, they violate the patent of this Shanghai firm..."). And, of course, the US has stupidly fallen into line and started approving patents willy-nilly to keep up. So, over in Europe, overreacting bureaucrats are about to make the same mistake. They've declared that the EU is "falling behind" in innovation (really, patents) and are urging a more streamlined patent system that would be European-wide. The idea, of course, is that with a EU-wide patent system, it becomes easier to get patents. Of course, that only helps innovation if patents actually lead to more innovation and, sadly, the evidence suggests otherwise.

Filed Under: china, eu, patents, us

How Would US Politicians Respond If Spain Seized Domains Of American Companies?

from the a-little-thought-exercise dept

Here's a little thought exercise. We've written about the recent domain name seizures by Homeland Security's Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) group -- including the domains of a Spanish company (which had already been found to be legal in Spain). The defense of why this is okay seems to be that since this company was using .com or .org domain names, which are both run by US companies, that it suddenly makes those domains US property, and thus subject to seizure under US laws. There are some serious questions to ask concerning whether or not these URLs really are "US" based. I mean, if you are hosting all of the content for a domain on a server in Spain, and the vast majority of the traffic is in Spain, it seems like a stretch to call the domain American.

That said, in the comments Nick Dynice suggests that Spain should retaliate by seizing the Spanish (.es) domain names of various big American companies. And, of course, that raises a related question. How do you think US politicians would react if that's what had happened? If the Spanish government suddenly seized the domain names of some big American companies because Spain decided (unilaterally, with no notice or trial) that the company had violated the law, you would see American politicians screaming bloody murder about how Spain was intruding on American sovereignty, and discussing just how ridiculous it is that the Spanish government felt comfortable seizing a domain off the "open" internet.

So will any American politicians speak up about Americans seizing a Spanish domain?

Filed Under: censorship, domain seizures, international incident, spain, us

Iceland Officials Ask US To Explain Why It's Trying To Get Lawmaker's Twitter Info

from the overstepping-bounds dept

On Friday, we noted that US officials had sent a court order (not a subpoena, apparently) to Twitter, asking for info from a few accounts that had some association with Wikileaks, including that of Icelandic lawmaker Birgitta Jonsdottir. Apparently, Icelandic officials are not too happy about this. They've asked the US ambassador to Iceland to explain the reasoning for this:

"(It is) very serious that a foreign state, the United States, demands such personal information of an Icelandic person, an elected official," Interior Minister Ogmundur Jonasson told Icelandic broadcaster RUV.

"This is even more serious when put (in) perspective and concerns freedom of speech and people's freedom in general," he added.

Of course, we might not find out what was said until Wikileaks (or some other operation) leaks a new batch of State Department cables a few years down the road...

Filed Under: birgitta jonsdottir, iceland, us, wikileaks
Companies: wikileaks

Chinese Crackdown On Porn Websites Sounds Like US Crackdown On Allegedly 'Infringing' Websites

from the it's-all-censorship-in-the-end dept

There have been some recent reports on how China has apparently begun a massive crackdown on porn websites, shutting down tens of thousands of websites. And, while the scale is obviously significantly larger, what struck me about the reports on this crackdown is just how similar the reasoning coming from Chinese officials sounds to the reasoning from US officials concerning domain names seized by Homeland Security having to do (allegedly) with copyright and trademark infringement. Apparently, the explanation from Chinese officials was along the following lines:

"Our campaign has been a great success and this has not been achieved easily... We have made the Internet environment much cleaner than before as there was a lot of pornography available. As long as there are people with bad motives who want to spread violent or pornographic information, we will have to continue our campaign to resolutely crack down on the spread of such information."

Now, compare that to some statements by Homeland Security's director of Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE) John Morton soon after ICE seized its first batch of domain names in June:

Simply put, American business is under assault from those who pirate copyrighted material and produce counterfeit trademarked goods.... American innovation is being diluted and the public health and safety of Americans is at risk.... The Administration is responding to this organized criminal activity through a first-of-its-kind aggressive, coordinated, and strategic offensive...

In early December, we pointed to law professor Derek Bambauer's explanation of how these domain seizures really seemed quite similar to the censorship in other countries, and the similarities in explanations by China and the US simply serves to highlight this point. The US censors domains it believes are involved in copyright and trademark infringement, because it believes those sites are "bad" and put the US in danger. Similarly, China censors pornographic websites, because it believes that those sites are "bad" and put its citizens in danger. Perhaps those reasons are defensible, but for US politicians to then claim that the US is against censorship is obviously false. It's perfectly happy to censor when it comes to content it doesn't like.

Filed Under: censorship, china, copyright, free speech, porn, us

Once Again, More State Dept. Cables Show Swedish Copyright Enforcement At The Behest Of US

from the but-of-course dept

There's absolutely nothing surprising at all about the following, but Christian Engstrom (one of the two European Parliament Members from The Pirate Party*) highlights yet another leaked State Department cable that shows that many of the copyright enforcement efforts of the Swedish government were in response to a six point checklist given to the Swedish government by the US Embassy (English translation from the original Swedish -- though at the end of the Swedish post the original cable is available in English). The six point check list passed on by the embassy was almost certainly originally from US industry lobbyists. There's nothing in this that is even remotely surprising (and hints of this had already leaked previously).

What really gets me about this is why do countries like Sweden even really care about the Special 301 Report, which is used as the main "stick" by the US Embassy. As we discuss every year, the US Trade Rep (USTR) each year puts together a silly "Special 301 Report" which lists out who's been naughty and who's been nice on intellectual property issues... according to US industry. The list is widely regarded as a joke by many -- including within the US government. I was once at a copyright conference where people from the US Copyright Office openly mocked the Special 301 Report as being a meaningless joke. In part, that's because it's not based on any hard science or actual data at all. Instead, it's written mainly based on what US industry says are problem countries... with a review from US diplomats stationed in those countries. The "leaked" cable is the US embassy in Sweden weighing in on the 2009 report.

Of course, getting on that list is somewhat meaningless. All it really means is that US diplomats will put more pressure on those countries to fix and/or change the situation in that country -- which is exactly what the cable shows the US embassy was already doing in Sweden. What I don't really understand is why Swedish officials caved so easily. Canada has been in the same position for years, with US industry making up completely bogus and totally unsubstantiated claims about how Canada is a "haven" for copyright infringement, despite the fact that Canada's copyright laws are much more stringent than the US's in many ways. While some Canadian politicians have pushed for new copyright reform, the attempt two years ago that was almost certainly written by US industry got shot down. However, what's really interesting is that Canada responds each year to the Special 301 report by noting its ridiculously flawed methodology and pointing out that it's purely a political list, and not one to be concerned about.

What's unfortunate is that Sweden did not do the same, but that its government pretty much folded. Of course, what's amusing is that the undertones of this cable, and previous cables on this issue suggest that Swedish politicians know that the public absolutely does not support them in pushing this "made in America" approach to copyright law. But, for whatever reason, they still seem to feel compelled to follow through with it. What I don't quite understand is why that is? I would guess the concern is trade sanctions by the US against Sweden, which is the undercurrent of all of the Special 301 threats, but at some point the Swedish government should stand up for itself and not be bullied in such a manner.

* I normally do not list out political parties of politicians on this blog, as it tends to drive the discussion in a political direction, rather than on the facts of the article. However, when I did this last time with a Pirate Party MEP, I was falsely accused of trying to "hide" the fact. So I'll mention it here, in part, because (after thinking about it) I don't think mentioning the Pirate Party leads to the same sort of political mudslinging that naming a major party creates.

Filed Under: copyright, diplomacy, special 301, sweden, us