France Says 'No' To Company Hack-Backs Following Online Attacks -- But Wants To Keep The Option Open For Itself

from the French-have-a-word-for-it dept

Ten years ago, Techdirt was warning about the hype surrounding the concept of "cyberattacks", and after that "cyberwar", both of which were routinely presented in apocalyptic terms. As we now know, the real online battles are being fought much more subtly in the form of low-profile foreign organizations subverting nations in sophisticated ways. Unlike the predicted take-downs of an entire electricity grid, these kind of attacks by foreign states and their proxies have already happened, and with troubling effects.

Governments have a responsibility to consider all possible attacks that may be conducted via the Internet, which means that drawing up policy documents in the field is important. The French government has just published its "Revue stratégique de cyberdéfense (pdf)" -- that is, a Strategic Review of Cyberdefense. It was written by the General Secretariat for Defense and National Security, which operates under the authority of the French Prime Minister, and assists the head of government in designing and implementing security and defense policies. It's extremely thorough and well worth reading, but it's also rather long (and in French). Fortunately, Lukasz Olejnik has put together a post discussing some of the main highlights of the document, which is much shorter -- and in English. As he notes, in France, cyberdefense and cyberoffense are two separate domains, and the strategy document lays out six main approaches to the former: prevention, anticipation, protection, detection, attribution, and reaction (remediation). On the offense side:

France strongly opposes giving private companies the rights to retaliate following a cyberattack. In the French view, such actions would constitute a point of instability in cyberspace. Especially when considering retaliation against actors located in a different state. France wants to put forward the issue of hack-back on the international level.

Notable thing. The fact that the strategy mentions these concepts should probably be interpreted as an indirect response to the ideas discussed in the US, where certain proposals considered giving companies the powers to hack-back.

As far as offensive actions are concerned, the review may not want companies to unleash hack-backs after an online attack, but it does want to keep that option open for the French authorities:

Annex 7 considers retaliatory actions following a cyberattack. Although the text points out that such actions should be considered provided that all the other approaches (prevention, cooperation, negotiation) fail, it acknowledges that a response can be made using cyber or non-cyber means. The strategy also highlights that major cyberattack can be interpreted as an armed aggression, in line with the Article 51 of Charter of United Nations.

Olejnik points out the following interesting idea from the document:

France apparently suggested a desire to put the security liability in hands of product suppliers. In other words, making companies responsible for the security of products they put on the market -- as long as the products are commercially available. The strategy then mentions that one of the solutions could be to release source code and documentation after an end of support date. The strategy itself mentions taking this discussion to the international level.

France's Strategic Review offers a good starting point for thinking about these issues. It would be great if somebody could translate it into English for even wider appreciation.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and +glynmoody on Google+

Filed Under: cybersecurity, france, hack backs

Netflix Has Narcos Actors Threaten To Shoot The Families Of French People For Pirating The Show

from the bullets-for-you dept

First, let's all just take a moment to drink in that headline above. 2017, people: it's a weird time to be alive. In any case, you likely have heard of Netflix's hit original show, Narcos. The show follows the exploits of Pablo Escobar's drug organization and was once the subject of Escobar's brother demanding a billion dollars from Netflix over the portrayal. Netflix, of course, was the disruptive new streaming service for movies and television that has since decided to go the route of copyright protectionist now that it is producing its own original content. It's a strange look for a company that exploded on a model of convenience over piracy, raking in tons of legit dollars by simply being an option better than or comparable to pirating films and television. Rather than continuing to compete in that arena, the company has begun to go the way of Big Content, firing off all kinds of DMCA notices.

And now threatening to shoot people and their families for pirating Netflix content? Well, not really, of course. I'm sure the folks at Netflix thought it would be funny to have actors from Narcos do so in character in France. But watch the video Netflix put out for yourself.

If you cannot see the video, the TorrentFreak link above has a nice summary of it.

“Hey you, yes you, do you think you’re smart? Do you think we didn’t see you Googling ‘Narcos season 3 download’? Don’t be a fool. Narcos is a business,” Pepe begins.

“If you want your entertainment. If you want your show. You’re gonna pay the Cali Cartel, ‘hijo de puta’,” Pacho adds, using the strong language one expects from a cartel leader.

“Do you think we’re like Hadopi? Do you think we’re going to send you a nice and polite letter first? Please, sir / madam, could you please not illegally download Narcos? We don’t do courtesy letters.”

“There is no please, no por favor, no s’il vous plait,” Pepe adds.

“There’s bullets for you, your family, and all the people you send to watch Narcos on all those shitty websites full of questionable pop-ups,” Gilberto says.

“You know where to find us. Don’t mess around ‘hijo de puta’,” his brother adds.

It's just uncomfortable. Nobody is mistaking Netflix actors for actual hitmen, but it's worth putting this sort of thing in the context of the past decade, in which people really have had their lives ruined in retribution for copyright infringement. The threat letters from copyright trolls really do go out across Europe, looking for all the world like the legal arm of some extortion ring or mob organization. Threats to out people for their pornography of choice really have happened. Within that landscape, to joke around about shooting those who pirate a television show misses the mark on humor entirely, and coming from a company like Netflix it's downright creepy.

Filed Under: advertisement, anti-piracy, france, narcos, threats
Companies: netflix

Top European Court To Consider If EU Countries Can Censor The Global Internet

from the it's-spreading... dept

Last month we wrote about the tragic and hugely problematic ruling in Canada that said a Canadian court could order global censorship of content it deems to be illegal. As lots of people pointed out, that is going to have dangerous consequences for speech around the world. If you accept that Canada can censor the global internet, what's to stop China, Iran or Russia from claiming the same rights?

And now we'll get to find out if the EU similarly believes in the ability of one country to demand global censorship online. In another case that we've been following, French data protection officials had been demanding Google censor content globally, and Google had been refusing. Now, the issue has been sent to the EU Court of Justice, the very same court who created this mess three years ago in saying that Google was subject to "right to be forgotten" claims. Google had reasonably interpreted the law to just apply in the EU (where the jurisdiction existed). But now the same court will decide if EU officials can censor globally.

One hopes that the sheer absurdity of the situation may lead the CJEU to start to recognize just how problematic its ruling was back in 2014, but somehow, that's unlikely. We'll certainly be paying attention to this case...

Filed Under: censorship, cjeu, eu, france, free speech, global censorship, jurisdiction, right to be forgotten, rtbf
Companies: google

May And Macron's Ridiculous Adventure In Censoring The Internet

from the these-are-bad-ideas,-marc dept

For some observers, struggling UK Prime Minister Theresa May and triumphant French President Emmanuel Macron may seem at somewhat opposite ends of the current political climate. But... apparently they agree on one really, really bad idea: that it's time to massively censor the internet and to blame tech companies if they don't censor enough. We've been explaining for many years why this is a bad idea, but apparently we need to do so again. First, the plan:

The prime minister and Emmanuel Macron will launch a joint campaign on Tuesday to tackle online radicalisation, a personal priority of the prime minister from her time as home secretary and a comfortable agenda for the pair to agree upon before Brexit negotiations begin next week.

In particular, the two say they intend to create a new legal liability for tech companies if they fail to remove inflammatory content, which could include penalties such as fines.

It's no surprise that May is pushing for this. She's been pushing to regulate the internet for quite some time, and it's a core part of her platform (which is a bit "weak and wobbly" as they say these days). But, Macron... well, he's been held up repeatedly as a "friend" to the tech industry, so this has to be seen as a bit of a surprise in the internet world. Of course, there were hints that he might not really be all that well versed in the way technology works when he appeared to support backdoors to encryption. This latest move just confirms an unfortunate ignorance about the technology/internet landscape.

Creating a new legal liability for companies that fail to remove inflammatory content is going to be a massive disaster in many, many ways. It will damage the internet economy in Europe. It will create massive harms to free speech. And, it won't do what they seem to think it will do: it won't stop terrorists from posting propaganda online.

First, a regime that fines companies for failing to remove "inflammatory content" will lead companies to censor broadly, out of fear that any borderline content they leave up may open them up to massive liability. This is exactly how the Great Firewall of China works. The Chinese government doesn't just say "censor bad stuff" it tells ISPs that they'll get fined if they allow bad stuff through. And thus, the ISPs over-censor to avoid leaving anything that might put them at risk online. And, when it comes to free speech, doing something "the way the Chinese do things" tends not to be the best idea.

Second, related to that, once they open up this can of worms, they may not be happy with how it turns out. It's great to say that you don't think "inflammatory content" should be allowed online, but who gets to define "inflammatory" makes a pretty big difference. As we've noted, you always want to design regulations as if the people you trust the least are in power. This is not to say that May or Macron themselves would do this, but would you put it past some politicians in power to argue that online content from political opponents is too "inflammatory" and thus must be removed? What about if the press reveals corruption? That could be considered "inflammatory" as well.

Third, one person's "inflammatory content" is another's "useful evidence." We see this all the time in other censorship cases. I've written before about how YouTube was pressured to take down inflammatory "terrorist videos" in the past, and ended up taking down the account of a human rights group documenting atrocities in Syria. It's easy to say "take down terrorist content!" but it's not always easy to recognize what's terrorist propaganda versus what's people documenting the horrors that the terrorists are committing.

Fourth, time and time again, we've seen the intelligence community come out and argue against this kind of censorship, noting that terrorists posting inflammatory content online is a really useful way to figure out what they're up to. Demanding that platforms take down these useful sources of open source intelligence will actually harm the intelligence community's ability to monitor and stop plans of attack.

Fifth, this move will almost certainly be used by autocratic and dictatorial regimes to justify their own widespread crackdown on free speech. And, sure, they might do that already, but removing the moral high ground can be deeply problematic in diplomatic situations. How can UK or French diplomats push for more freedom of expression in, say, China or Iran, if they're actively putting this in place back home. Sure, you can say that they're different, but the officials from those countries will argue it's the exact same thing: you're censoring the internet to "protect" people from "dangerous content." Well, they'll argue, that's the same thing that we do -- it's just that we have different threats we need to protect against.

Sixth, this will inevitably be bad for innovation and the economy in both countries. Time and time again, we've seen that leaving internet platforms free from liability for the actions of their users is what has helped those companies develop, provide useful services, employ lots of people and generally help create new economic opportunities. With this plan, sure, Google and Facebook can likely figure out some way to censor some content -- and can probably stand the risk of some liability. But pretty much every other smaller platform? Good luck. If I were running a platform company in either country, I'd be looking to move elsewhere, because the cost of complying and the risk of failing to take down content would simply be too much.

Seventh, and finally, it won't work. The "problem" is not that this content exists. The problem is that lots of people out there are susceptible to such content and are interested and/or swayed by it. That's a much more fundamental problem, and censoring such content doesn't do much good. Instead, it tends to only rally up those who were already susceptible to it. They see that the powers-that-be -- who they already don't trust -- find this content "too dangerous" and that draws them in even closer to it. And of course that content will find many other places to live online.

Censoring "bad" content always seems like an easy solution if you haven't actually thought through the issues. It's not a surprise that May hasn't -- but we had hopes that perhaps Macron wouldn't be swayed by the same weak arguments.

Filed Under: censorship, emmanuel macron, filtering, france, free speech, inflammatory content, intermediary liability, terrorism, terrorist content, theresa may, uk
Companies: facebook, google

New EU Lawsuit Claims Google Failed To Forget 'Sensitive' Information, Such As Their 'Political Affiliation'

from the oh-come-on dept

For years, we've pointed out that the "Right to be Forgotten" (RTBF) in Europe is a dangerous tool that has been and will continue to be abused as a tool to censor freedom of expression, while hiding behind a claim that it is to protect "privacy." While the concept has been around for a while, it really took off online with a EU Court of Justice (CJEU) ruling from three years ago, saying that Google's search results index counted as a data repository on someone, and thus, an individual could force Google to "delink" certain results from searches on their names. But, the court left some leeway to Google to decide whether or not the requests were valid. Basically, if the information is no longer relevant for the public to know about the person, then Google should delink it. Now, obviously, that's a horribly subjective standard, and Google has had to staff up on people to determine whether or not any requested delinking qualifies.

Part of the problem with all of this is that it seems to produce tremendous liability. Fail to get a delinking request "right" and Google is right back in court, which is exactly where we are today. Google has rejected just under 60% of requests to delink info in Europe, and four individuals in France were so upset by this, that they complained that their rights were being violated. The French data protection regulator, CNIL, actually agreed with Google that the information shouldn't be "forgotten." However, the four have appealed their case, and it's been kicked back to the European Court of Justice. The four individuals are claiming that the information is "sensitive data" and are suggesting that just being "sensitive data" alone is enough to require forgetting -- no matter what the "public interest" may be in that info.

As Google has noted in a blog post, there are serious questions here about whether or not people can hide information from their past that may be relevant:

The CJEU now has to decide whether "sensitive personal data"—such as the political allegiance of an individual, or a past criminal conviction reported in the press—should always outweigh the public interest.

The tricky thing with this kind of information is that it is often important for people to know and it is frequently reported in newspapers and elsewhere. Requiring automatic delisting from search engines, without any public interest balancing test, risks creating a dangerous loophole. Such a loophole would enable anyone to demand removal of links that should remain up in the public interest, simply by claiming they contain some element of sensitive personal data.

While that is an important point -- equally important is the question of how this can be massively damaging for basically any other company, that doesn't have Google's legal team and resources to fight. The fact that anyone disagreeing with your decision on a RTBF request can put a company at risk for failing to delete something, and take them to court repeatedly, means that most companies are going to default to deleting.

At least with things like the DMCA notice-and-takedown provision -- which is already massively and widely abused to censor content -- there are fairly clear and strict rules about how a takedown notice works, and what it requires. With the RTBF, it's not at all clear, and risks significant and repeated litigation. As it stands, the system is a recipe for widespread censorship of often important information.

Filed Under: cjeu, eu, france, political affiliation, right to be forgotten, sensitive data
Companies: google

French Theater Owners Freak Out; Get Netflix Booted From Cannes Film Festival

from the competing-isn't-really-the-French-way dept

Even as Netflix continues to draw top talent to produce original series and movies (while failing to destroy the motion picture industry), it is still being locked out of being considered a "real" filmmaker.

The tentative embrace of streaming services' offerings comes with caveats: films must be released to theaters as well to be considered for major awards. This makes things considerably tougher for Netflix since it's faced heavy resistance from theater owners and others who see a lack of release windows as a threat to their existence.

The latest rejection of Netflix's advances is happening at France's Cannes Film Festival. Netflix has two films up for consideration for this year's awards, but according to festival organizers, it will be its last unless something changes. Here's the festival's official flip-flop, via David Canfield at Slate:

A rumor has recently spread about a possible exclusion of the Official Selection of Noah Baumbach and Bong Joon-Ho whose films have been largely financed by Netflix. The Festival de Cannes does reiterate that, as announced on April 13th, these two films will be presented in Official Selection and in Competition.

The Festival de Cannes is aware of the anxiety aroused by the absence of the release in theaters of those films in France. The Festival de Cannes asked Netflix in vain to accept that these two films could reach the audience of French movie theaters and not only its subscribers. Hence the Festival regrets that no agreement has been reached.

The issue here appears to be French theater owners, although the statement doesn't say that in as many words. Instead, the festival delivers a whole lot of words on a platter of subtext.

The Festival is pleased to welcome a new operator which has decided to invest in cinema but wants to reiterate its support to the traditional mode of exhibition of cinema in France and in the world. Consequently, and after consulting its Members of the Board, the Festival de Cannes has decided to adapt its rules to this unseen situation until now: Any film that wishes to compete in Competition at Cannes will have to commit itself to being distributed in French movie theaters. This new measure will apply from the 2018 edition of the Festival International du Film de Cannes onwards.

To translate this, one needs to look at the events leading up to the festival's sudden reversal. The festival doesn't want to lose local support, so it has allowed itself to be bullied into a hasty invitation retraction. This report from CBC News is the explicit version of the statement's implicit wording.

The [Netflix] selections prompted immediate criticism from French exhibitors. In France, the theatrical experience is passionately defended. Films are prohibited from streaming or appearing on subscription video on demand for three years after playing in theatres.

On Tuesday, France's National Federation of Films Distributors said the Netflix films at Cannes were "endangering a whole ecosystem."

Must be a pretty fragile ecosystem if a streaming service being considered for an award threatens its stability. And -- considering the three-year no-streaming window French citizens are punished with -- it's easy to see why Netflix hasn't reached an agreement with the locals. It's also easy to see Netflix will never be able to reach an agreement with French exhibitors. One side has a whole lot of room for compromise, but if it hasn't done so already during the rise of streaming services, it's unlikely to start making concessions now.

So, there will be no Palme d'Ors in the Netflix trophy case. And this nation's creative industries will continue to prop themselves up on insular, isolationist laws, rather than face the rest of the world head-on.

Filed Under: cannes, films, france, streaming
Companies: netflix

Moderate French Presidential Candidate Suggests He May Pressure US Tech Companies Into Creating Encryption Backdoors

from the safety-through-insecurity dept

France's presidential election season has kicked in. The supposed "moderate" of the bunch -- Emmanuel Macron -- has managed to gain considerable support in the last several months. Some of this has sprung from our own recent election. Earlier this year, the candidate took digs at Trump's anti-climate change stance, stating France would welcome dejected US scientists with open arms.

He also said this, taking a shot at Trump's planned border wall.

Macron also had a thinly veiled dig at Trump’s intention to build a wall along the Mexico border, comparing it to France’s Maginot Line, which in 1940 failed to keep Nazi invaders out of France.

“I don’t want to build a wall. I can assure you there’s no wall in my program,” he told about 8,000 cheering supporters. “Can you remember the Maginot Line?”

Macron has, for the most part, refused to get swept up in post-terrorist attack hysteria. Most of his statements have stressed restraint rather than indulge in expansions of government power, as so many others are prone to do.

But something's changed recently. Macron may be the moderate who doesn't want European nations to turn into police states in reaction to terrorist attacks. But he appears to feel there's a certain amount of security/privacy that could be sacrificed to fight terrorism.

Speaking at his Paris launch, Mr Macron said he wants to legally compel social media companies to give authorities access to encrypted messages between terror suspects.

"Democratic states must have access to content exchanged between terrorists on social media and instant messaging," he said, while introducing a five-point strategy that would bring in new powers across Europe.

He said it was "no longer acceptable" for companies to insist that they have a contractual obligation to clients after offering protected communication.

He cited Google, Facebook, Apple and Twitter as those he wants to have frank discussions with.

This sounds like the French counterpart to the "adult conversations" FBI Director James Comey wants to have with tech companies about encryption. Of course, in Comey's case, the "conversation" doesn't necessarily even have to include tech companies. He's fine with legislation or All Writs Orders or whatever for the time being -- anything that doesn't involve actually speaking to anyone who understands encryption.

It's tougher to get a read on Macron's desires and intentions. He hasn't spent months hammering away this issue or claiming terrorists are staying ahead of law enforcement by using Whatsapp or iPhones or spiral-bound notebooks. But what he's suggesting is rather breathtaking: an EU-wide undermining of encryption. If tech companies are offering encryption, they're going to have craft backdoors or start holding onto users' encryption keys. The other alternative would be to pull themselves out of the European market, which seems like the least likely route they will take.

Even if elected, there's no guarantee the country's legislators will comply with Macron's wishes. Despite recent terrorist attacks on French soil, no further action has been taken to undermine encryption, despite periodic calls to do so being issued by more panicky members of the French government.

Macron's pronouncement seems at odds with his refusal to be cowed by terrorists or be pushed towards sacrificing the public's rights and privileges on the altar of national security. No further details were offered by Macron to explain this stance, but presumably there will be much more discussion of this surprising announcement in the near future.

Filed Under: emmanuel macron, encryption, france, going dark, terrorism

Bolivia Initiates Diplomatic Action With France Over Portrayal In Fictional Video Game

from the un-bolivia-ble dept

There's been something of a trend recently in which the digital realm of video games have begun penetrating reality. This has taken several forms, from many countries attempting to dress up their real world military capabilities using video game footage, to infractions within the gaming realm resulting in real world criminal charges. This has come to be in part because gaming has become a dominant form of entertainment for so much of the population and in part because of how realistic games have become.

But neither seems to be much of a factor in what I think is a first: Bolivia has filed a dipolomatic complaint with France in response to the country's fictionalized portrayal in Tom Clancy's Ghost Recon Wildlands.

The Bolivian government has filed a formal complaint with the French embassy about a video game produced by a French company that portrays the South American country as an area controlled by drug traffickers, authorities said. Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Interior Minister Carlos Romero said Bolivia had delivered a letter to the French ambassador and asked that the French government intervene, adding that Bolivia reserved the right to take legal action.

"We have the standing to do it (take legal action), but at first we prefer to go the route of diplomatic negotiation," Romero said.

Now, the setting for the game is a fictionalized version of Bolivia where, contrary to reality, large swaths of the country are controlled by Mexican drug cartels that are wreaking all manner of havoc over the land. The key part of that would be that it's fictional. As in not mirroring reality. You know, such as pretty much every other work of fictional art that has ever been created.

Oh, also, Ubisoft chose Bolivia for the setting specifically because of how much it appreciated the beauty of the country.

In a statement to Reuters on Thursday, Ubisoft said the game is "a work of fiction" and that Bolivia was chosen as the background for the game because of its "magnificent landscapes and rich culture."

"While the game's premise imagines a different reality than the one that exists in Bolivia today, we do hope that the in-game world comes close to representing the country's beautiful topography," Ubisoft said.

I don't know what the workload of the Bolivian diplomatic corps looks like, and I frankly don't care. There simply must be more relevant work to do than shaking a diplomatic fist against the home country of a video game company over an artistic work of fiction. I have no idea what Bolivia's end-game was in trying to get France to intervene in Ubisoft's work, but I'm sure it wasn't the actual outcome, which is to have Bolivia look both petty and silly, as well as hostile to art and free speech.

I'm not sure what standing Bolivia thinks it actually has to do anything about this, but I'm fairly certain that such standing is every bit as fictional as the Bolivia from the game.

Filed Under: bolivia, diplomacy, france, ghost recon wildlands
Companies: ubisoft

Getty's French Office Sends Out Letters To US Websites Demanding They Take Down Anything Linking It To 'Legalized Extortion'

from the call-it-like-you-see-it dept

Getty Image's long history of copyright thuggery can be found all over Techdirt. This litany of uncivil public discourse finally resulted in it being force-fed its own medicine by a plaintiff who demanded $1 billion from the image licensing service for taking her public domain photos and adding them to the Getty library.

Thanks to some serious misjudgment, and incomplete knowledge of how national laws work, Getty has now (briefly) earned a reputation for another form of thuggery: censorship.

Matthew Chan runs Extortion Letter Info (ELI), a site that specializes in collecting threatening letters for various entities (usually copyright-related) and gives guidance on how to fight back against this form of speculative invoicing.

Chan, along with others, has been loudly critical of Getty's tactics. Getty likes to send out threatening letters and demand licensing fees for images it happens to see in use around the web. Visitors to ELI's forums are no less disdainful of the company than Chan is. And, the internet being the great communicator it is, this sort of criticism isn't limited solely to Chan's site.

Chan's site -- along with a couple of others -- somehow flew onto the radar of Getty's French office, which sent out a completely ridiculous letter demanding not only that Chan's criticism of the company be removed from his site (and others), but EVERY DEROGATORY COMMENT made by site visitors to be taken down as well.

Sir,

I am the legal adviser of the company GETTY IMAGES.

The company GETTY IMAGES is the biggest global database. Its main activity is the supply, development and worldwide distribution of online images, videos and music under which many communication professionals made use.

Indeed, it enjoys an established reputation both domestically and internationally. However, my client found many comments which seriously jeopardize its practice on your web site www.extortionletterinfo.com …..

Indeed, the combination of the words «GETTY IMAGES» and «extortion» or «arnaque» (fraud) on the search engine Google bring us directly to your web site.

Furthermore, the regularity of the methods and of the proceedings used by our client had also been questioned, which have been described as «legalized extortion» and «Extortion Letter Scheme».

[...]

According to the judgment given by the First Civil Division of the French Supreme Court on the 12th of July 2012, this is particularly intolerable and reprehensible.

Those acts of gross disparagement seriously damage GETTY IMAGES’ image.

A similar letter [PDF] was received by The Hacker Factor Blog and Zyra.info. Chan and The Hacker Factor both responded in detailed fashion to the French legal stupidity apparently resulting from Getty Image France's legal rep Vanessa Bouchara's Google search for "reprehensible" terminology. (The third site took down the image/criticism, but left up a notice telling readers about Getty's censorship.)

Both responses to Getty pointed out the obvious: parlez-vous US law, motherfuckers?

From Chan's response:

Regardless of which corporate entity you represent in France, I inform you of the following:

1.   I am a U.S. Citizen who lives and work in the U.S.

2.   I do not have any business interests in or solicit any business from France.

3.   My websites are hosted in the U.S., written in English, and primarily targets American readers.

As such, any content you or your client may object to on my website all firmly within the realm of U.S. laws and the First Amendment. I do not see how you can threaten me with a lawsuit being brought in a country in which I have no contact, connections, or involvement.

[...]

French law might have jurisdiction over you, your law firm, and your client operating in France. But I cannot see any way whatsoever how French law applies to me or my websites.

From the very detailed and well worth reading response by The Hacker Factor:

As noted in the 2014 letter from Getty Images, they list their address as "605 5th Ave S, Suite 400, Seattle, WA 98104 USA". Moreover, they sent their letter to my address in Fort Collins, Colorado, United States. Neither of these addresses is in France.

My 2014 blog entry includes my response letter. At the top of the response letter are the addresses of the sender and the recipient. Again, the correspondence was from a US citizen in the United States of America and to a company in the United States of America.

At no time was there any mention of France or Getty Images in France. The country of France has no jurisdiction in a discussion between a US citizen and a US company. Your repeated citations of French laws have no basis since this falls under the jurisdiction of US laws.

Someone at Getty's US HQ is now in a terrible mood. Getty's reputation in the US is far from impeccable, and now they have to deal with a French interloper throwing a one-lawyer Streisanding via international mail. An apology and retraction has already been sent to ELI and a few other sites that were affected.

Dear Sirs/Madam,

Whilst operating as Getty Images’ French legal advisor, we sent you a formal letter dated December 23th 2016, asking you to cease and desist perceived libelous activity on your site.

Please disregard our previous letter, it was sent in error and accept our sincerest apologies.

Yours sincerely,
Vanessa Bouchara

It's hard to say how many people were involved in this debacle as Vanessa Bouchara uses the royal (and somewhat exculpatory) "we" in her communications, but whoever was behind it needs to spend a bit more time getting to know the limits of their local laws.

Filed Under: copyright, copyright trolling, criticism, france, legalized extortion, matthew chan, us
Companies: getty images