Microsoft Lobbying Group Forces 'Pirate' To Get 200,000 Views On Anti-Piracy Video... Whole Thing Backfires

from the 'education'-campaign dept

The history of anti-piracy activities by the legacy entertainment and software industries always seems to focus on the mistaken idea that if only the public were "more educated" piracy would magically go away. That's never been true. In fact, nearly every attempt at an education campaign hasn't just failed to work, it's often actively backfired and been mocked and parodied. And yet, if you talk to politicians and industry folks, they still seem to think that "more education" will magically work next time. One can only wonder what the hell the geniuses at the Software Alliance (the BSA -- which used to be the "Business Software Alliance" but has dropped the "Business" part, but not the "B" in its name) were thinking when they decided to "settle" with a guy who apparently uploaded some Microsoft software in the Czech Republic. The terms of the settlement required him to take part in a "professionally produced" anti-piracy video and that the video needed to get 200,000 views on YouTube or he might face having to pay damages in court.

The BSA is a well-known front for Microsoft, and has a long history of rather ridiculous claims about "piracy," so I guess it's little surprise that it's now engaged in out and out propaganda, but done so badly that it's turned the whole thing into a laughingstock. The whole "compelled speech" aspect of the settlement, including the requirement to get so many views, strikes basically everyone as ridiculous and stupid. Press attention has of course propelled the video to well over 200,000 thousand views at this point, and many of the YouTube comments are completely mocking the campaign -- and noting that they're watching the video to help the accused be let off the hook. The video is in Czech, but even so it's hilarious. It has the same sort of ominous production values as the old "You wouldn't download a car!" ads that have been mocked for years as well: It really highlights just how out of touch folks at the BSA are, in that anyone actually thought this kind of thing would help it in any way, rather than making it a continued laughingstock.

Filed Under: czech republic, piracy, punishment, settlement, video
Companies: bsa, microsoft

Latvia Joins Countries Putting The Brakes On ACTA Approval

from the join-the-party dept

Following the news that Poland and the Czech Republic have put the brakes on ACTA ratification, we can now add Latvia to the bunch:

The Economy Minister Daniels Pavluts has decided to block the ratification of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), which has caused wide protests in the society.

On Wednesday, February 8, the Minister announced that he made the decision taking into account the mood of various groups of the society, as well as worries of several experts about the possibility of ACTA implementation in Latvia.

He thinks that it is already too late for a proactive and timely explanation of what ACTA really means. So now there is no rush with its ratification in the Parliament. “First we need a constructive and reasoned dialogue and a discussion with all the interested parties,” he says.

Of course, Poland, the Czech Republic and Latvia are "smaller" players in the EU, and there are disputes over whether or not having some countries decide not to ratify kills the whole process. Basically, there are different interpretations of how things work under the Lisbon Treaty, with some saying that even if some countries don't ratify, the EU could still ratify and issue a directive forcing the various member states to "harmonize." So it's good to see these countries putting the brakes on what was going to be a pure "check the boxes" approval process -- but ACTA is still very likely to move forward overall.

Filed Under: acta, copyright, czech republic, latvia, poland

Czech Government Suspends ACTA Ratification

from the check-off-another-one dept

Following Poland's lead, the Czech Prime Minister, Petr Necas has announced that the government there will suspend the ACTA ratification process until the country has had more time to analyze the agreement. This follows a "wave of protests" across Europe, in which this agreement, that everyone assumed was going through with no questions asked, has suddenly generated significant public interest:

"By no means would the government admit a situation where civic freedoms and free access to information would be threatened," Necas said.

That is why the government will analyse the issue and have it assessed by experts. "We really must look into the impact it would have in real life," Necas said.

Unfortunately, it sounds like some of the protesters are still claiming things about ACTA that were removed ages ago, as Necas is also telling people that it won't require checking laptops at borders or monitoring internet usage. While some of those things were floated in very early drafts of ACTA, all of those have been gone for years at this point. Once again, we have to urge people to keep the ACTA debate fact-based, because misinformation like this makes it easier for countries like the Czech Republic to come back later and say that they're still ratifying the document, because the complaints turned out not to be true. There are plenty of real problems with ACTA, and hopefully people can focus on those. Otherwise these milestone moments in the Czech Republic and Poland will be for nothing....

Filed Under: acta, copyright, czech republic, protests

Czech Pirate Party Tries To Show That Linking Is Not A Crime

from the will-this-backfire? dept

The Pirate Party in the Czech Republic is trying to show that linking is not a crime by putting up sites that merely link to some infringing material. The party is doing this to support a high school student facing massive fines for linking to some works covered by copyright. I do wonder, however, if this will backfire. Law enforcement, industry folks and politicians who simply don't understand the technology will not realize the point of such a site, and merely assume that it's yet another "piracy" site. I would think a more effective means of doing this would be to merely iframe the results of a Google search...

Filed Under: copyright, czech republic, linking

Czech Court Says No To Data Retention Rules

from the good-for-them dept

There's been a big push around the globe, mainly by law enforcement but also with a helping hand from the entertainment industry, to force internet service providers to "retain data" for extensive periods of time, for various investigations. I've always been intrigued by the inherent conflict between data retention and privacy -- especially in Europe where they seem to be pushing quite strong for both conflicting concepts at the same time. Apparently, the two have come into legal conflict once again in a courtroom -- this time in the Czech Republic... and privacy has won out yet again.

In a ruling in the Czech Constitutional Court, the country's data retention rules have been ruled illegal, saying that it's a clear privacy violation. As the article notes, other countries, including Germany, Romania, Cyprus and Hungary have all run into similar problems trying to implement the European Data Retention Directive, and Sweden, Greece, Ireland and Austria have refused to implement the rules, because they don't see how it can be done and not violate privacy rules. Perhaps, at some point, the folks who wrote the original directive will realize that it can't be squared with Europe's privacy rules.

Filed Under: czech republic, data retention, privacy

Czech Proposal On Copyright Law Would Require Artists To Get Collection Society Approval To Use Creative Commons?

from the the-attack-on-creative-commons-continues dept

The various attacks on more free and open licensing options for artists continues. We've already detailed ASCAP's misguided attack on Creative Commons as some sort of attempt to undermine copyright, rather than simply a way to give copyright holders more options. And now, Slashdot points us to a report from ZeroPaid on a draft of a new copyright law in the Czech Republic, which seems like a direct frontal attack on alternative licensing schemes:

Under the draft text, anyone who wants to use a public license must report to a copyright collective administrator. The administrator would then review the work in question and the creator would have to prove that he or she has created that work in the first place. Then, and only then, can a creator legally use a public license of their choice.

Once again, it looks like the gatekeepers, despite their claims, aren't looking out for the best interests of content creators, but for the best interests of the gatekeepers.

Filed Under: copyright, czech republic, licensing creative commons

Future Of News? Newsroom As A Cafe

from the come-on-in-and-chat dept

Jeff Sonderman points us to the fascinating story of a newspaper in the Czech Republic that is experimenting with making newsrooms into cafes. One of my big complaints about newspapers these days is how little they've done to help enable their community to participate in the news process (whether it's finding, writing, discussing, distributing or sharing the news). However, it looks like Nase Adresa is going a step further than just enabling the community online. It's enabling it in real space as well -- creating a news cafe. It combines both a newsroom and a typical cafe, so people can come and interact with editors and reporters, see the paper being created -- or even chip in and help out as well. And they're also doing more to serve the community than just offering up coffee and bites to eat, but are also holding concerts at the cafes as well (rescuing news and the music industry in one shot?). Apparently circulation is growing -- with 50% of subscriptions coming from people who happened to stop into the cafe.

The other interesting bit is that it appears that each of the cafes is working on producing specialized local content for just that local community -- all supported by a more centralized newsroom/journalist training center in Prague. So, there's a main newsroom, and then each local cafe gets to produce its own version, mixing news from the central source as well as locally produced content. The local papers/cafes need about 5 full-time employees, with plenty of other local volunteers or part-timers. It's still early in this experiment, so I do have some questions about how it functions long-term, but it is still nice to see a newspaper that actually focuses on serving a community directly. Next up? The Techdirt cafe?

Filed Under: cafe, czech republic, journalism, news

How Is It Cyberbullying When Students Are Exposing Teacher Abuses?

from the trying-to-understand... dept

Over in the Czech Republic, the education ministry has drawn up "guidelines" for how schools can deal with "cyberbullies" and just like other recent stories, it's the teachers who are afraid of being bullied more than other students. But, as you read the details, it sounds that what the teachers define as "cyberbullying" is actually something more like "students exposing teacher abuses." We've seen this before. A school district in the US punished students for recording a teacher's outburst, and in another case, a student was suspended for filming the principal smoking on school grounds -- against regulations. In this case, the rules against cyberbullying came after students uploaded a video of a teacher hitting a kid. It's difficult to see how that's cyberbullying at all. It sounds like the students were effectively exposing a teacher abusing his position. Yet, the response, again, is to figure out a way to blame the kids and make it more difficult for them to expose teachers acting badly.

Filed Under: cyberbullying, czech republic, teachers