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

European Patent Agents Go On Strike To Complain About Pressure To Approve Bad Patents

from the killing-innovation dept

One of the causes of so many bad patents getting approved lately is screwed up incentives in the patent system. For a while, the US had a de facto system where agents were pushed to approve a patent when in doubt. That's because they were judged on how many patents they went through -- and if they rejected a patent, the applicant could complain and ask for a review -- meaning that the examiner would have to spend more time reviewing that same patent again, decreasing the number of patents they had gotten through, potentially harming their "stats." Thus, it's often easier to just "approve." And, of course, the Patent Office itself is usually fine with this, because that means more patent applications and more fees. The Patent Office has an inherent conflict of interest in that the more patent applications applied for, the more money it brings in. In the US, after this problem was brought to light, some changes were made to decrease the incentives to simply approve so many patents, though one could argue how effective it's been.

However, it looks like there are similar pressures in Europe, and Slashdot points out that a bunch of EU Patent Office staffers have gone on strike, complaining about the same thing: that there's pressure on them to simply approve as many patents as possible, in order to bring in more money for the patent office. The staffers are complaining that this is harming innovation. It's great to see workers in the patent office recognize how much harm approving bad patents can do to innovation -- and actually standing up and protesting the pressures to approve bad patents.

Filed Under: eu, europe, innovation, patents, strike

EU Academics Pointing Out How Database Copyrights Hinder, Rather Than Help, Businesses

from the about-time dept

For a long time, Europe has allowed "database rights," effectively allowing companies to get a copyright of sorts on a collection of factual data. The US has mostly disagreed with this, noting that facts themselves cannot be covered by copyright, even if aggregated into a database -- though, more recently there have been efforts in the US to change the law, and mimic Europe's database rights offerings. Of course, companies that aggregate a bunch of publicly available data love such database rights, as it grants them a gov't-granted protectionist system on their business model. However, the actual evidence shows that it also shrinks markets -- and when you compare US markets without database rights to EU markets with database rights, you find that the US market thrives:

Now, we actually have some good evidence about the effects of these different approaches. The United States database industry is considerably larger and more thriving, and has higher rates of return, than the European database industry. In fact, at the moment when Europe introduced sui generis database rights, there was a short one-time spike as database producers raced into the market, but then growth rates returned to previous levels, and many companies left the market. And when did Reed Elsevier and Thomson enter the legal database market in the United States? It was after a case called Feist, which said that facts, and unoriginal compilations of facts, were uncopyrightable. That is to say, European companies chose to come into a classically public information field in the United States after they had found out, for sure, that they could get no copyright in unoriginal databases. Yet, even without database rights, they're getting high rates of return. So, we have evidence showing that less protection has been better for innovation than more protection. But you could spend days listening to arguments about database rights, and you'd never hear these facts mentioned.

In fact, it's these troubling "database rights" that both easyJet and Ryanair are using to try to stop travel sites from aggregating their flight pricing.

The good news is that academics in the UK are starting to point out that these database rights can be quite damaging to businesses, rather than helpful. In the link, they're focused just on creating certain exceptions to database rights, rather than scrapping them altogether, but it's at least a step in the right direction.

Filed Under: copyright, database rights, eu, europe

Professor Slams European Commission For Ignoring The Evidence On Copyright Extension

from the it's-not-about-evidence,-it's-about-campaign-contributions dept

We were pretty surprised a few weeks back when the European Commission endorsed a plan for copyright extension, despite ample evidence that retroactive copyright extension is a bad idea. Soon after that announcement, a group of European academics sent a letter warning that such extension would harm innovation. The academics keep piling on, as Professor Bernt Hugenholtz, the director of the University of Amsterdam's Institute for Information Law (IViR) has sent an open letter to the Commission blasting them for ignoring all of the research showing that copyright extension is bad. Specifically, Hugenholtz is amazed that the Commission relied only on reports prepared by industry, and willfully ignored research prepared by independent academics, such as his own group, claiming that by ignoring such studies, the Commission has a clear intention to mislead the rest of the EU by hiding the research that shows why copyright extension is a bad idea.

Filed Under: copyright, copyright extension, eu, europe, innovation

European Intellectual Property Scholars: Copyright Extension Harms Innovation

from the good-for-them dept

Following the EU's misguided proposal to extend performance copyrights on songs from 50 years to 95 years, a group of professors from intellectual property, legal and innovation positions, have gotten together to send a highly critical letter, pointing out why such a copyright extension is not necessary and, in fact, will be quite harmful. Here's a snippet of the letter:

Unanimously, the European centres for intellectual property research have opposed the proposal. The empirical evidence has been summarised succinctly in at least three studies: the Cambridge Study for the UK Gowers Review of 2006; a study conducted by the Amsterdam Institute for Information Law for the Commission itself (2006); and the Bournemouth University statement signed by 50 leading academics in June 2008.

The simple truth is that copyright extension benefits most those who already hold rights. It benefits incumbent holders of major back-catalogues, be they record companies, ageing rock stars or, increasingly, artists' estates. It does nothing for innovation and creativity. The proposed Term Extension Directive undermines the credibility of the copyright system. It will further alienate a younger generation that, justifiably, fails to see a principled basis.

Hopefully, European politicians will actually pay attention to this condemnation of the proposed extension.

Filed Under: copyright, copyright extension, eu, europe, innovation

Did The EU Accidentally Support A '3 Strikes' Policy For Internet Users?

from the not-at-all-clear dept

There was talk earlier this week that, despite an earlier rejection in the EU of a "three strikes" plan that would effectively turn ISPs into copyright cops, a new vote might backdoor in the same results. The proposal was approved, but there appears to be considerable confusion over what it actually means. The text says that European regulators should provide "cooperation" between ISPs and those who are "interested in the protection and promotion of lawful content." To many, that sounds like turning the ISPs into copyright cops. But, the politicians who approved it claim it has nothing at all to do with copyright, saying that it's all about providing easier access to services:

"It is about new provisions so that users can find out about new services. It will make price comparison sites easier to set up, it will force regulators to give equivalent access to disabled users and enhance emergency services with caller location."

If that's actually the case, then the wording should be clarified, because you can pretty much bet that the entertainment industry will jump on the wording, along with claims of "international treaties" and demand that regulators force ISPs to comply with their every demand.

Filed Under: europe, isps, politics, three strikes

Google's Latest Silly Privacy Problem

from the oh-no!-someone-saw-me-outside! dept

Well now that Google's dealt with one ridiculous privacy complaint, it appears it has another to deal with. As Google is preparing to launch its "Street View" offerings in Europe (which let people see photos of the streets they search for on Google Maps), some privacy groups are complaining how its a violation of people's privacy. Apparently the fact that they were photographed out in public hasn't occurred to the privacy group. Even more to the point, as Google has pointed out in response, despite the fact that anyone caught in these photographs was in public, it's recently rolled out a system to automatically blur faces of people who end up in the Street View photos. Overall, the whole complaint seems to be much ado about nothing from privacy advocates who have much more important things to focus on.

Filed Under: europe, photos, privacy, street view
Companies: google

European Politicians Discuss 'The Blogger Problem'

from the are-you-serious? dept

Apparently this got some discussion a few weeks back, but I was just alerted to the fact that some European politicians have been debating how to handle the new media landscape that makes some odd and totally contradictory suggestions which the possibilities of bloggers becoming a problem by "polluting cyberspace." While some of the argument has been blown way out of proportion, there are some things that are very problematic in the way the paper is written.

The oddest contradiction in the piece is the fact that much of it is concerned about the lack of diversity in media these days, and then it seems to see bloggers as a threat, rather than the solution:

"The cases of unrestricted ownership concentration or of scarce content pluralism in the media are endangering cultural diversity and freedom of expression not only within national markets but also at European level. We need therefore strong European commitment to overcome those challenges especially in view of the new technologies and services in the media sector."

One would think that such politicians would then champion the rise of easy publishing platforms that allows anyone, professional or amateur, to join the game. Yet, that doesn't appear to be the case.

"The blogosphere has so far been a haven of good intentions and relatively honest dealing. However, with blogs becoming commonplace, less principled people will want to use them.... We do not see bloggers as a threat. They are in position, however, to considerably pollute cyberspace. We already have too much spam, misinformation and malicious intent in cyberspace. I think the public is still very trusting towards blogs, it is still seen as sincere. And it should remain sincere. For that we need a quality mark, a disclosure of who is really writing and why."

If I'm reading this right, it appears that these politicians are afraid of media consolidation, because it limits the diversity of voices -- but at the same time, it's afraid of bloggers polluting media, because that diversity of voices might be "bad." Right. In other words, the real fear isn't either the diversity of media or the rise of bad bloggers -- it's just that they're afraid that speech they don't like will become popular, whereas those who agree with them might get drowned out. That would also explain the ridiculous assertion that Europe needs a "right to reply." A sort of cousin of the fairness doctrine, a right to reply is designed to let someone respond if a publication says something about them that they don't like. This isn't the first time this has been proposed in Europe. Way back in 2003, we wrote about plans in Europe to regulate bloggers with a demand for a right to reply.

The thing is, everyone already has a right to reply: your own website. A right to reply makes sense when there isn't a way for you to reply. With the internet, however, that's just not the case any more. And, yes, some people will say "but, if the original report is on a popular publication, and your site doesn't get any traffic, then that's not the same." However, that's inaccurate as well. In this day and age, if the media says something incorrect about you, and you write up your own thoughts, it seems that others are only too eager to hype it up and show the news report was wrong. You just need to let some other folks know that you've responded, and the word spreads pretty quickly.

Filed Under: bloggers, europe, media ownership, regulations, right to reply

Europe Looks To Get Rid Of Monopoly On Royalty Collection Societies

from the one-step-in-the-right-direction dept

There are all sorts of problems with copyright "collection" groups who are in charge of collecting royalties and distributing them out to content creators. However, at least in the US we have competition among a few different such collection agencies, with ASCAP and BMI being the big two, and SESAC being the new up and comer. However, over in Europe, they've set up monopolies with only a single collection agency in each country -- meaning that if the collection society has ridiculous artist-damaging ideas, you're stuck with them.

However, it looks like that may be about to change. A few people have sent in the news that Europe is looking to get rid of monopolies on copyright collection groups, meaning that there can be some competition among different groups to see who can serve an artist better. Of course, it's still not clear that these groups are needed at all -- as they mainly prop up an unnecessary and increasingly obsolete business model (compulsory licensing), but at least having some competition is better than none.

Filed Under: collection societies, copyright, eu, europe, monopolies

EU Tells Videogame Industry To Protect Children; Doesn't Explain From What

from the disconnect dept

Just as even more research is coming out showing the lack of any evidence that playing violent video games leads to violent activities, it appears that EU politicians have decided that they don't care about the facts, but will simply go with the false fears that the video games are dangerous. The EU has now warned the industry that it needs to come up with a way to keep the games out of the hands of kids, within the next two years. At least that's better than just coming out with a new law, but it does seem misguided (especially given the evidence). Besides, what's wrong with parents determining what's okay for their kids to play?

Filed Under: eu, europe, protect the children, violent video games