Some EU Nations Still Haven't Implemented The 2013 Marrakesh Treaty For The Blind

from the copyright-trumps-compassion dept

The annals of copyright are littered with acts of extraordinary stupidity and selfishness on the part of the publishers, recording industry and film studios. But few can match the refusal by the publishing industry to make it easier for the blind to gain access to reading material that would otherwise be blocked by copyright laws. Indeed, the fact that it took so long for what came to be known as the Marrakesh Treaty to be adopted is a shameful testimony to the publishing industry's belief that copyright maximalism is more important than the rights of the visually impaired. As James Love, Director of Knowledge Ecology International (KEI), wrote in 2013, when the treaty was finally adopted:

It difficult to comprehend why this treaty generated so much opposition from publishers and patent holders, and why it took five years to achieve this result. As we celebrate and savor this moment, we should thank all of those who resisted the constant calls to lower expectations and accept an outcome far less important than what was achieved today.

Even once the treaty was agreed, the publishing industry continued to fight against making it easier for the visually impaired to enjoy better access to books. In 2016, Techdirt reported that the Association of American Publishers was still lobbying to water down the US ratification package. Fortunately, as an international treaty, the Marrakesh Treaty came into force around the world anyway, despite the US foot-dragging.

Thanks to heavy lobbying by the region's publishers, the EU has been just as bad. It only formally ratified the Marrakesh Treaty in October of this year. As an article on the IPKat blog explains, the EU has the authority to sign and ratify treaties on behalf of the EU Member States, but it then requires the treaty to be implemented in national law:

In this case, the EU asked that national legislators reform their domestic copyright law by transposing the 2017/1564 Directive of 13 September 2017. The Directive requires that all necessary national measures be implemented by 12 October 2018. Not all member states complied by this deadline, whereby the EU Commission introduced infringement procedures against them for non-compliance. The list of the non-compliant countries is as follows:

Belgium, Cyprus, Czech Republic, Germany, Estonia, Greece, Finland, France, Italy, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Latvia, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovenia, UK

The IPKat post points out that some of the countries listed there, such as the UK and France, have in fact introduced exceptions to copyright to enable the making of accessible copies to the visually impaired. It's still a bit of mystery why they are on the list:

At the moment, the Commission has not published details regarding the claimed non-compliance by the countries listed. We cannot assume that the non-compliance proceedings were launched because the countries failed to introduce the exceptions in full, because countries can also be sanctioned if the scope of the exception implemented is too broad, so much so that it is disproportionately harmful to the interest of rightsholders. So we will have to wait and see what part of the implementation was deemed not up to scratch by the Commission.

As that indicates, it's possible that some of the countries mentioned are being criticized for non-compliance because they were too generous to the visually impaired. If it turns out that industry lobbyists are behind this, it would be yet another astonishing demonstration of selfishness from publishers whose behavior in connection with the Marrakesh Treaty has been nothing short of disgusting.

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Filed Under: belgium, blind, copyright, eu, finland, france, germany, greece, italy, marrakesh treaty, poland, publishers, uk

Copyright Takes Down High-Profile Translation Of Thomas Piketty's Comments On Germany & Greek Debt

from the because-copyright dept

Here we go again with copyright taking content away from the public, rather than the other way around. You've probably heard about everything going on in Greece these days, with the big vote and the fight over Greek debt and how it will deal with it. Leading up to it, my social media stream suddenly filled up with people linking to a story at Medium with an English translation by Gavin Schalliol of an interview famed economist Thomas Piketty gave to the German publication DIE ZEIT. Whether you like/agree with Piketty or not (and I'm in the camp that thinks he's overrated), the interview itself was pretty interesting, making a key point that has gotten lost in much of the debate: that for all the pressure that Germany has been putting on Greece to repay its debts, Germany itself didn't repay its debts after World War II (or earlier wars). Lots of people have been talking about it, and tons of English-language news reports wrote up the story, with nearly all of them linking to Schalliol's translation. Just for example, here's the Washington Post, the Huffington Post, Quartz, Slate, Business Insider, Fortune, Marketwatch, and Vox, all of whom link to Schalliol's translation on Medium.

But, if you visit it now, you will not see the translation. Instead, you see this: If you can't read it, it says:

I am currently in touch with DIE ZEIT to ensure my compliance with German copyright law. Updates will follow very soon. The original German interview with Thomas Piketty can be found here.

To be fair, it's quite likely that Schalliol's translation violated the copyright in the original. While some may debate whether or not a translation should ever really be subject to copyright (nothing is actually copied), it is pretty widely set in stone that translations are derivative works, and as such are subject to copyright. However, the simple fact is that DIE ZEIT did not choose to publish an English translation, and even if it now chooses to do so, it will happen after the big vote happened, rather than before, when Schalliol initially published his translation.

It's that translation that spread the interview far and wide and made it a big part of the public discussion over how Greece should deal with the German-led EU proposal, which it eventually voted down. I'm sure the copyright system supporters among you will leap to the defense of DIE ZEIT and the fact that, by law, its "rights" were violated. But, if you take a step back and look at the overall situation, it's difficult to see how the world is better off under such a result. If Schalliol had never been able to publish his translation, it's likely that Piketty's comments would have had a much smaller and more limited audience, limiting the role it played in the overall discussion. It wouldn't likely have had much of an impact on the end result, but at the very least, it helped provide a lot of context to people around the globe.

And, it's difficult to argue DIE ZEIT was somehow worse off. First, most of the articles actually linked back to the original as well, likely driving some amount of traffic. But, more importantly, it's difficult to argue that Schalliol's translation was a substitute for the original, given that even considering the small population that speaks both languages, it's likely that Schalliol's translation was almost entirely read by an audience that did not see the original and could not read it even if they wanted to.

If the intention of copyright is to better encourage the dissemination of ideas and knowledge, as we're often told, then shouldn't that kind of thing be encouraged, rather than discouraged? Instead, we get yet another story of copyright stepping in to stifle a public discussion of ideas.

Filed Under: copyright, debt, derivative work, gavin schalliol, germany, greece, thomas piketty, translation
Companies: die zeit

Greece Wants To Use Amateur Snoopers Wired For Sound And Video To Catch Business Tax Dodgers

from the not-so-virtual dept

Greece has been much in the news recently over concerns that it would not be able to obtain an extension of international loans made to it previously, with serious knock-on effects for both itself and other EU countries. As part of a deal that was reached, the Greek Finance Minister, Yanis Varoufakis -- formerly Economist-in-Residence at Valve Corporation -- was required to explain how Greece will reform its economy and find more money to pay back its debts. One way to do that is to try to recover some of the tens of billions of euros that Greek citizens owe their government in unpaid taxes (pdf). That's a pretty obvious thing to do, perhaps, but the way Varoufakis hopes to cut tax dodging by businesses isn't so conventional, as the Guardian explains:

[Varoufakis ] proposed recruiting large numbers of "non-professional inspectors" on short-term casual contracts of no longer than two months who would be paid by the hour. They would be "wired for sound and video", trained to pose as "customers" and "will be hard to detect by offending tax dodgers."

The idea here seems to be to obtain evidence that businesses are failing to give customers proper receipts, which would then allow shops and companies to avoid paying tax on those sales.

The data the amateur snoopers gathered would be used by the authorities "immediately to issue penalties and sanctions."

Varoufakis said the launch of the amateur snoopers would act as a deterrent, "engendering a new tax compliance culture" in Greece.

Well, it might do that, which will be good for the Greek economy, but it will probably also engender a deep distrust by businesses of all new customers and tourists, especially if they look at all shifty. It might even lead to heated, possibly violent, confrontations between business people and those suspected of being "amateur snoopers." That, in its turn, is probably not going to help social cohesion or international solidarity at a time when Greek society is under huge strains because of its economic problems. Still, you have to feel a certain sympathy for Varoufakis, who needs to come up with new ways to pull back some of the vast sums owed to the Greek government by tax dodgers. He must be longing for the good old days when the only economic problems he had to worry about were digital ones in virtual worlds.

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Filed Under: greece, neighbors, shops, snitches, snoops, tax evasion, yanis varoufakis

Anti-Piracy Group So Desperate To Go After Popcorn Time That It Threatens A Blog Software Maker

from the no,-it-doesn't-make-any-sense dept

We've seen, over the years, how copyright holders and anti-piracy organizations have continually moved up and down the stack in trying to shut off access to things they don't like. They've sued users for sharing, as well as companies and individuals who build tools that can be used for infringement, of course. Those were the obvious ones. But, lately, they've been targeting hosting providers, registrars, ISPs and ad networks as well. And, apparently, now some are so desperate that they're going after totally unrelated software providers. At least that appears to be the case in Greece, where the Greek Society for the Protection of Intellectual Property (AEPI), sent an angry threat letter to John O'Nolan, who created Ghost, an open source blogging system. Why go after Ghost? Well, apparently because one of the more popular forks of the Popcorn Time streaming system has a blog that uses Ghost. Ghost doesn't host it. Popcorn Time is just using its software. It would take one hell of a ridiculous interpretation of secondary liability to put any liability on Ghost. It would be like going after BIC because someone at Napster wrote notes using one of their pens. But such is the ridiculous state of the anti-piracy world today, where such moves seem sensible.

Filed Under: blog, copyright, ghost, greece, john o'nolan, popcorn time, takedowns
Companies: aepi

Greek Politician Tries To Use Defamation Lawsuit To Gag Wikipedia, Is Rewarded With Streisand Effect

from the seems-fair dept

For those of us that tend to take Wikipedia and the way it works for granted, it comes as something of a shock to encounter someone who clearly doesn't understand it at all. That seems to be the case in a lawsuit brought by the Greek politician and academic Theodore Katsanevas against the Greek Wikipedia user and administrator Dimitris Liourdis, also known as "Diu". A post on the Wikimedia blog explains the situation:

Mr. Katsanevas complains that the Greek-language Wikipedia article about him contains some unflattering statements. Instead of addressing his concerns with the Greek-language Wikipedia community through the appropriate processes, Mr. Katsanevas chose to file a lawsuit against Diu.

The controversial statements in question reference the will of Andreas Papandreou, former Prime Minister of Greece and father-in-law of Mr. Katsanevas. The will allegedly characterized Mr. Katsanevas as a "disgrace" to the family and reportedly accused Mr. Katsanevas of "attempting to politically exploit George Papandreou", also a former Prime Minister of Greece. The statements were properly sourced and in accordance with Wikipedia policies.

It's not clear why Katsanevas thinks Diu had anything to do with the passage in question or, indeed, how he found out Diu's name, as this detailed article about the case on The Press Project points out:

An interesting question is how Mr Katsanevas identified the particular administrator. The latter has not made his personal information public. Despite this, the administrator told us in a telephone telephone interview that Mr Katsanevas had located him in 2009 at which point he had sent him notice demanding parts of the wikipedia entry be deleted.

Fortunately -- and wisely, given the broader implications of this attack on Wikipedia's editorial independence -- the Wikimedia Foundation is standing behind Liourdis:

Diu faces serious monetary and criminal penalties as a result of Mr. Katsanevas’s lawsuit. We have offered -- and Diu has accepted -- assistance through our Legal Fees Assistance Program.

The case won't reach the courts until 2016, but in a preliminary hearing the Greek judge too seemed not to grasp how Wikipedia functioned :

In an e-mail interview with Ars [Technica], Liourdis described the situation in the courtroom last week. The hearing lasted just a few minutes, he wrote, and only the lawyers were allowed to speak. "My lawyer tried to explain [to the] judge how Wikipedia works and that I couldn't effectively remove the text," he wrote. "Anybody who knows how Wikipedia works knows that if he removes ... a text, which is verified by reliable sources, finally he will [be] banned from the project. We pointed that [out], but unfortunately she didn't understand."

Liourdis followed the judge's instructions to delete the text, but sure enough, it was quickly replaced.

Techdirt readers will not be surprised to learn that this attempt to gag Wikipedia not only failed, but also provoked a familiar online response from the Wikipedia community:

The administrator noted that the lawsuit and publicity had produced a Streisand effect and that the original Greek article was now hosted in translation on multiple Wikipedias in English, Catalan, Polish, Yakut, French, German, Dutch, Spanish and Italian.

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Filed Under: dimitris liourdis, greece, theodore katsanevas, wikipedia

Despite Financial Destruction, Greece Not Favoring Open Source Software

from the all-inclusive dept

As you may have heard, Greece isn't having the best fiscal time of things these days. Oddly, as Glyn Moody noted previously, such dire straits haven't really gotten the country to focus on the important things when it comes to the internet and technology. Now, unless a few open source software groups get their way, it appears that the country with money problems will once again turn a blind eye to open source software in upcoming government purchases.

The ministry published a request for tender in November, seeking suppliers of 26,400 laptops, 1760 servers and 1760 wifi access routers. The value of the contract is set at just over 15 million euro. The purchase will be partly financed by the European Regional Development Fund. The ministry is asking for laptops and servers that can run either a ubiquitous proprietary operating system or Linux. But, say the Greek Linux User Group (Greeklug) and Eel/lak, a Greek open source advocacy organisation founded by 25 universities and research centres, the technical requirements clearly favour proprietary solutions over open source. "The specification is a copy of the proprietary vendor's e-mail and office software."

As someone who gets to deal with government bid contracts, I can assure you that this is extremely common. It's often the case that these kind of request for bids begin with an end product in mind and then develop the bid language to conform to that product. For anyone who wants to actually put together their own effective solution for consideration, it's incredibly annoying. But for a country with the kind of money problems that would make a homeless guy with an addiction to gambling on crack consumption laugh, to linguistically exclude an open source and less expensive software option is simply dumb.

Unfortunately, Greeklug and Eel/lak aren't expecting the Greek government to listen, so they may have to take their complaints elsewhere.

Both are also appealing to the European Commission, hoping that Commissioner for the Digital Agenda Neelie Kroes and Commissioner for Regional Policy Johannes Hahn will pressure the ministry to correct the tender request. "To give free and open source a fair chance, the technical specification will have to be improved", the groups plead.

We'll see if that route works. Regardless, to have money trouble and not consider open source software is just plain irresponsible.

Filed Under: greece, open source

Greece Stares Into the Abyss; Meanwhile, Local Music And Audiovisual Collecting Society Gets Court Order To Block Web Sites

from the question-of-priorities dept

As you may have heard, Greece is having a spot of bother at the moment. Its economy shrank by 6.2% in the last three months alone, and the austerity measures imposed in return for international loans to keep the country running have contributed to a 40% jump in the suicide rate.

But the Greek music and audiovisual collecting society hasn't let a little thing like a national meltdown prevent it from tackling the really serious problems in life -- like stopping people sharing files online (Greek original):

The Court of First Instance Court in Athens accepted the request of the collecting society for music and audiovisual works to order, among other things, that the Greek ISPs should take technical measures to make it impossible for their subscribers to access Web sites through which illegal posting and exchange of works can take place.

Amidst the deepening Greek tragedy, it's good to see someone offering a little comedy.

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Filed Under: collection society, file sharing, greece

Greek Site That Links To Legal Videos By Rightsholders... Sued For Infringement

from the the-illegality-of-linking dept

TorrentFreak has the details on yet another ridiculous story of "anti-piracy" groups going way too far. In this case, it's the Greek Society for the Protection of Intellectual Property (AEPI), who has sued the site LiveMovies.gr for infringement, claiming the site is making available unauthorized content, and saying that it has "suffered damages worth 10,000 euros for each illegal act." The only problem? LiveMovies.gr does not link to unauthorized content. It only links to content that is being officially streamed by the authorized rights holders. In other words, they've set up a "TV guide" of sorts to legitimate online streaming of content. They've explained this to the AEPI who apparently can't comprehend that the site is only linking to authorized content, and continues to press forward with the lawsuit. In response, LiveMovies.gr is filing a countersuit against AEPI, claiming both fraud and perjury. Should be interesting to see what happens next...

Filed Under: greece, infringement, legal
Companies: aepi

Greek Apple Support Company Sues Customer For Complaining About Service

from the not-a-way-to-win-business dept

A bunch of folks have been sending in this story about how Greek firm Systemgraph, which is an official support partner of Apple in Greece, is apparently suing a customer who complained online about the bad experience he had with Systemgraph. Apparently, the customer, Dimitris Papadimitriadis, brought his iMac into Systemgraph to be repaired because he had noticed "dark patches" on the screen. The company said it would clean out the machine and replace the LCD. However, after Papadimitriadis got the machine back, he felt the problem had become worse, not better. The company offered to try to do the fix all over again, but the guy no longer trusted the company -- and noted that under Greek law, he's entitled to ask for a refund or a replacement for the machine. Systemgraph responded by noting that since the machine wasn't bought through them, they weren't responsible for offering a replacement machine.

I actually agree that it seems like a stretch to demand a new machine from the repair company, but I'm not familiar with the specifics of Greek consumer protection law on the subject. Even so, what happened next is pretty silly on the part of Systemgraph. After Papadimitriadis wrote about his bad experience with the company, Systemgraph sued him for defamation, demanding €200,000 for damaging its reputation. Of course, it wasn't Papadimitriadis who damaged the company's reputation -- but the company's failure to properly fix his machine. And, in the long run, it seems like suing a customer -- even a disgruntled one -- is much more likely to damage one's reputation, than any random online review.

Filed Under: defamation, greece, reviews
Companies: apple

Japan, Greece The Latest To Join The Anti-Street View Party

from the jump-on-the-bandwagon dept

Lots of people around the world have worked themselves into a lather over the supposed privacy invasions of Google Street View, as well as the security threat they say it creates. These fears are largely unfounded, since Street View displays images of public spaces, and since it really doesn't give would-be criminals information they couldn't easily find elsewhere; and most courts and governments have agreed. Still, the Street View backlash continues to spread, with groups in Japan and Greece the latest to take exception to it. Officials in Greece have forced Google to stop the project there until it provides more details on how long it will store photos and how it will protect people's privacy. In Japan, Google is being forced to re-shoot photos in a dozen cities because its car-mounted cameras were too high. It will lower its cameras there by 16 inches so they can't see over fences around people's homes. That's a nice gesture from Google, but will Japan also ban multi-story buildings that let people see over fences? Will ladders and scaffolding be next?

Filed Under: greece, japan, privacy, street view