EU Commissioner Says 'Right To Be Forgotten' Compliance Will Be Just As 'Easy' As Fighting Piracy

from the either-way,-it-will-all-be-Google's-fault dept

This is interesting. Just a couple of days after Geoff Taylor (the head of BPI -- the UK's RIAA) declared that Google's acquiescence to the "right to be forgotten" proved that it could do more to fight piracy, EU commissioner Viviane Reding delivered a statement that approached the subject from a wholly opposite direction.

If Google can handle the millions of requests it gets to take down content that infringes copyright, it should be able to handle the few requests it gets to enforce the EU's "right to be forgotten", according to Viviane Reding, the European commissioner for justice, fundamental rights and citizenship.

Speaking on BBC Radio 5 Live, Reding said that "there are relatively little numbers of requests" to take down information owing to the newly granted right to be forgotten, but that there are "some million requests to take down material because of copyright questions."

"So you see," Reding continued, "this is a small thing as compared to the copyright things. It is possible to handle the copyright question, so it should also be possible to handle the takedown requests on personal data questions."

This opposite take doesn't make it any less wrong than Taylor's extrapolations. There's nothing simple about managing millions of takedown requests and there's nothing simple about post facto reputation management. Both rely heavily on the requester's statements being true.

The DMCA takedown at least contains the notification that filing a false request is the equivalent of perjury (not that this part is ever strictly enforced…). The EU webform simply asks the requester to agree that the above declarations are true. There's no real legal weight behind the form at this point, so the only deterrent is that each submission must be accompanied by a copy of the submitter's legal identification.

As we all know, there are plenty of bogus DMCA takedowns issued every year. Even otherwise legitimate takedowns can be littered with bogus URLs, thanks to many rights protection companies' decision automate the process. (And, apparently, save money by releasing takedowns without vetting them...)

So, while the number of "right to be forgotten" requests may be incredibly small as compared to the millions of piracy-related URLs submitted every day, the same problems will still plague both. Because the processes don't lend themselves to human curation thanks to sheer volume, legitimate content will still be de-listed and infringing/unwanted content will still remain just a search away.

Reding is correct about it being "simple" -- at least in regards to those submitting requests. Both operate via automated webforms, making the barrier to entry low enough that abuse is inevitable. Raising that bar a little would only result in citizens and rights holders complaining that Google has made the job of taking down infringing content/clearing one's name too difficult to be useful.

Both methods can be easily utilized but neither truly solves the problem. Both are games of whac-a-mole. Just as certainly as infringing content will show up somewhere else when sites are shut down and links removed, so will the negative content that European citizens are asking to have de-listed. As Google's webform notes, "we may inform webmaster(s) whose content is removed from our search results as a result of your complaint."

This stipulation pretty much guarantees the content will be reposted/rehosted. Detractors may complain that Google is purposefully inviting this sort of behavior and that notifying webmasters makes the requesters look like the "bad guys." (We've seen this complaint before in terms of YouTube notification screens -- both from musicians and GEMA itself. Both feel it's "unfair" that viewers are notified about who requested the takedown.) But this needs to be in place to provide for any defense of the disputed content. You can't just hand out one-way "rights."

Adding to the problem is the fact that there may not even be a specific party who can file a counterclaim. Or even have that option. The EU's decision specifically states the a person's "right to privacy" outweighs the public's right to know, which seems to indicate that filing a counterclaim may not even be an option if the takedown request is approved. This is vastly different from DMCA takedown notices, which state who's filing the claim and who the takedown request targets. If the claim is disputed, there are established routes to challenge the claim. The way the "right to be forgotten" is currently set up offers no clear avenue for disputes, nor any guarantee that those who have content de-listed will be notified. (Note the word "may" in Google's statement above.)

Reding sees this as an easy win simply because the number of "forget me" requests will always be outnumbered by infringing content takedown requests. But both expect Google to simply accept every request as undisputed fact. Rights holders have been complaining for years that Google doesn't do "enough" to combat piracy, even when it's de-listing millions of URLs every month. These complaints will inevitably be echoed by users of the new webform and proponents of this law in the near future. Perception is the new reality. If it's not fast enough or thorough enough or too many claims are disputed then all blame will be routed towards Google, even if it's the Commission's failure to comprehend the impossibility of what it's demanding. The internet is by no means finite, but Google's resources -- and reach -- are.

Reding is correct about one similarity: the pursuit of the "right to be forgotten" will ultimately be as futile as fighting piracy via takedown requests.

Filed Under: censorship, copyright, dmca, free speech, piracy, right to be forgotten, search engines, takedowns, viviane reding

Blocking The Net 'Not The European Option' -- EU Commissioner Reding

from the quick,-get-that-in-writing dept

One of the useful side-effects of the groundswell of protest against SOPA and PIPA is that a surprising number of people in positions of power have come out against their approach, notably in Europe. First, we had Neelie Kroes, Vice President of the European Commission responsible for the Digital Agenda for Europe, who tweeted:

Glad tide is turning on #SOPA: don't need bad legislation when should be safeguarding benefits of open net.

And now she's been joined by her colleague, Viviane Reding, EU Commissioner for Justice, Fundamental Rights and Citizenship:

"The protection of creators must never be used as pretext to intervene in the freedom of the Internet," Reding told an international Internet conference in the southern German city of Munich, noting the "heated debate" surrounding the issue.

That's an interesting comment to make when the European Commission-supported ACTA is arguably doing precisely that. For example, the academics Douwe Korff and Ian Brown prepared a report on ACTA in October last year at the request of the Greens/European Free Alliance group in the European Parliament. Here's what they wrote in on the topic of ACTA and fundamental rights in their conclusion:

Overall, ACTA tilts the balance of IPR protection manifestly unfairly towards one group of beneficiaries of the right to property, IP right holders, and unfairly against others. It equally disproportionately interferes with a range of other fundamental rights, and provides or allows for the determination of such rights in procedures that fail to allow for the taking into account of the different, competing interests, but rather, stack all the weight at one end. This makes the entire Agreement, in our opinion, incompatible with fundamental European human rights instruments and standards.

In her comments at the German conference, Reding went on to make an even more interesting statement:

"You'll never have from Europe a blocking of the Internet -- that's not the European option," she said.

If she meant it, then that's an extremely important line in the sand given that the blocking of sites has already started in Finland, the Netherlands, and the UK. It will be interesting to see if she and her colleagues back those words up with any action.

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Filed Under: blocking, eu, free speech, viviane reding

EU Telco Chief: Business Model Failure Leads To Piracy... Not The Other Way Around

from the could-they-be-getting-it? dept

Could it be that some politicians are actually figuring this out? Reader Arhac alerts us to the news that the EU's telecommunications chief, Viviane Reding, gave a speech where she noted that it wasn't "piracy" that was destroying the recording industry's business model, but it was the failed business model that was leading to "piracy":

"In my view, growing internet piracy is a vote of no-confidence in existing business models and legal solutions. It should be a wake-up call for policy-makers."

Of course, it's not clear what sort of solution she's proposing -- and it sounds a bit like she's suggesting putting in place a universal licensing fee for online music, which isn't much of an improvement. Luckily the Pirate Party's Christian Engstrom points out the problem with where that thinking leads, by noting that citizens shouldn't just be thought about as "consumers":

"We are citizens... and we do have certain human rights according to the European convention on human rights which includes the right to information freedom."

Still, given where things are in the US, it's impressive enough to find multiple politicians who aren't just buying the major record labels' story that it's "piracy" that's killing their business models, rather than the other way around.

Filed Under: business models, eu, europe, piracy, viviane reding