Canadians Opposed Surveillance Legislation

The governing party of Canada – the Conservatives – was planning an omnibus crime legislation which was supposed to include surveillance provision. Although the bill is not yet tabled, opposition to this bill is already growing.

Recently the web was hit by the suggestions that the Canadian surveillance bill may be bundled in to omnibus crime legislation and tabled in the near future. That wasn’t exactly news for industry observers, but the news was that multiple experts, academics and organizations have stepped up to formally oppose the bill in question. They have recently sent an open letter to Prime Minister where they voiced their concerns about the proposed legislation. The opposers cited previous laws making up the surveillance legislation in the last government session and expressed their concerns about them. The particular concern is that three of the proposed bills would have serious negative implications for the privacy rights of the citizens. In addition, the controversial aspects would not receive the scrutiny they deserve if they were rolled into an omnibus bill.

The main focus of concern was the ease by which the country’s ISPs, social networks, and even their handsets and cars can be turned into instruments to spy on their activities, thus implicating fundamental rights and freedoms. In addition, the letter contains a very detailed list of other concerns, warning that the costs of enforcing such measures would finally be passed on to consumers, because it is a new cost of doing business for Internet service providers. Actually, it has precedent: in France, when the country’s government forced Internet service providers to adopt a “three-strikes” regime, the broadband providers just passed the costs of implementing the system on to their subscribers.

Although the letter was signed by a lot of people and organizations, there’s a difference between when the citizens were fighting dangerous bills in the past and today. The matter is that the Conservatives have a majority government, which means they are able to pass whatever bills they want without fearing an opposition. In other words, no evidence or reason would matter to the government, it will simply legislate how it likes, and this is the government the country is stuck with.

UK Will Enforce Internet Filtering

Blocking access to websites has been widely discussed in the United States with the PROTECT IP act first proposed this past spring. However, with the Senate approving the legislation, it turned out that the US isn’t the only country discussing the possibility of filtering the web.

Some leaked document, labeled “confidential”, has been posted on Open Rights Group website. The document in question details a proposal by the entertainment industry to pressure UK broadband providers to take part in a voluntary website blocking agreement. Such system is described as an approach to preventing access to online services which are focused upon copyright violation.

Meanwhile, for the public there are many reasons to be concerned, the main one being that the proposal is being discussed behind closed doors. In fact, this is the same as when pro-copyright outfits were trying to push for many controversial provisions in ACTA. This time, everything is being planned behind closed doors as well. However, when Wikileaks published the documents relating to ACTA back in 2008, it caused a major outcry from the public and human rights groups, and the same is expected now with the filtering proposal.

Indeed, according to the leaked document, “voluntary” Great Firewall of Britain will be just the same. Criticisms of the current proposal are all the same as well: was the system so bad that the industry decided to hide it from the public?

In addition, there are more reasons to be concerned. For example, the document, whilst mentioning evidence gathering, “prior warning and liberty”, also notes a turn-around time which is quick enough for “live events”, as well as a balance between swift action and evidence. Anyway, it’s hard to imagine a technical solution enabling Internet service providers to enforce an effective block within the time scale of a “live event”, regardless of the time it takes a court to act.

The Open Rights Group was the first to express concern for this policy, saying that it sets out a dangerous voluntary scheme involving so-called “expedited court procedures” as well as a “balance” between evidence and speed of action. Meanwhile, definitions of which content should be blocked are quite scarce, and there are no references to exactly how filtering would work. In the end, everyone understands that ISPs won’t be able to really prevent Internet users from accessing blocked services, since all it really takes to access them is the right proxy.

Aussie ISP Proposes To Treat Piracy As “Traffic Offenses”

In 2008 the Australian Federation Against Copyright Theft filed its first lawsuit against Aussie ISP iiNet, stating that iiNet did not manage to undertake any measures to stop their network customers’ unlawful file-sharing. The Internet Service Provider succeeded in the first court trial and the trial’s verdict was upheld on the AFACT appeal.

Recently, iiNet has offered a number of rational ways out of this controversial situation, which were published in its report “Encouraging Legitimate Use of Online Content”. The company underlines the importance of diversifying legal options applied to the pirated content. According to the report, limiting the content accessibility is unreasonable, especially if it is much sought after by the network users. Meanwhile, the number of unsatisfied users keeps growing. They allege that they do not have any other choice but to turn to piracy simply because of the copyright holders’ inability to provide them with reasonable legal options. It is ridiculous that Australian residents cannot enjoy their beloved movies or TV shows until they show up in the US. As a result, the growing public demand is not satisfied.

As far as the above mentioned problem needs serious consideration, iiNet offers the following legal solutions. First, it is required to organize an independent body, the implementation of which into the process will enable to consider all the raised infringement claims as well as complaints of the network customers, access providers and content holders. Second, iiNet suggests making up a special copyright infringement penalty scheme, similar to that applied for traffic offenses.

For example, if traffic offense happens only once, the person will be fined or get demerit points. In case the offender keeps overlooking traffic regulations, demerit points will be accumulated, which may eventually result in the offender’s driving license suspension. In accordance with the iiNet’s report, the same penalty scheme should be applied to copyright infringements as well.

It is emphasized that just as even the most serious traffic offenses caused by speeding never result in complete prohibition to use different means of transport, copyright infringement should never end up with Internet termination. Here everything should depend on the gravity of copyright infringement. The more serious the infringer’s fault is, the more severe penalty should be imposed. Thus, copyright infringements may be subdivided into minor, major and serious, depending on the seriousness of the infringer’s fault, starting with fines and demerit points that will range according to the ISP’s financial loss related to the copyright infringement and up to the involvement of the infringer’s treatment fees set by the court.

European Commission Will Force ISPs Fight Piracy

European Commission describes its status as “intermediaries between all Internet users and the copyright owners”. Thus, due to “unprecedented increase in opportunities to violate copyright”, the Commission has to explore the possibility of using their “favorable position” to fight digital piracy. In addition, the EC said that online market places and search engines will be forced to take some preventive measures.

A recent report from European Commission seems to suggest involvement by broadband providers, Internet marketplaces and search engines in the fight against digital piracy. The report recalls an earlier directive that was implemented 7 years ago and helped improve enforcement efforts. However, since then the web has created increased opportunities for copyright violation that the Directive didn’t foresee back in 2004. On the one side, the web has provided creators with the new opportunity to market their works. On the other side, Internet has also opened the door to new forms of violations.

The Commission says that part of the problem lies with rights owners who have been “unable” to keep up with the demand of legitimate digital content. Due to this unmet demand, a number of websites are currently hosting or facilitating the unauthorized distribution of copyrighted content, while the existing legislation isn’t suited to solve this problem. In short words, the report suggests that “intermediaries” between users and copyright owners be enlisted to help fighting piracy.

For example, Internet service providers are identified as a “key” component of the web, which allows users to access unauthorized content. Considering the fact that today’s efforts have so far failed to effectively stop or at least decrease the level of Internet infringement, it is decided that more powerful instruments are required.

The report admits that any regulations it considers should respect privacy laws and the protection of personal information. Meanwhile, it also says that it needs to find “a balance between the rights of both parties”.

The problem with the suggestion is that the Commission could never properly address unauthorized file-sharing, because it simply lacks an inherent profit motive. Moreover, it’s impossible to fully quantify what damages have been done to rights owners by each individual file-sharer. 

RIAA Calling For Forcing ISPs To Fight P2P

President of the Recording Industry Association of America Cary Sherman said recently they were looking forward to the law formalizing the “voluntary” cooperation between rights owners and service providers to tackle unauthorized file-sharing. Moreover, they want such cooperation to extend to advertisers, payment processors, and search engines.

Another day, another announcement from the RIAA, keeping telling and doing the things more disturbing than ever before. For example, recently the RIAA President Cary Sherman told the public at a Technology Policy Institute forum held in Aspen, Colorado that the DMCA is completely failing rights owners. He insists that the Digital Millennium Copyright Act needs to be revised and include another provision allowing Internet service providers and others to filter the web of copyrighted content.

Cary Sherman said that day that the DMCA was not working for content people. All the infringements can’t be monitored on the Internet, because it’s just not possible. The music industry isn’t able to search all the locations containing infringing material, like cyberlockers, as it appears new every second.

That is the exact reality of the new digital world, but the RIAA would prefer to make another attempt to break the Internet to satisfy its own economic demands rather than to give it a try and figure out how to adapt to the new reality. Everyone understands there’s no way to completely stop the unauthorized transfer of copyrighted content short of information packet inspection.

The RIAA President highlights that they are looking for a “voluntary” cooperation with broadband providers, and even advertisers, search engines, and payment processors. They believe such co-operation would help stop unauthorized file-sharing. The only thing, he believes, they lack now is the law that would encourage this kind of cooperation, though not mandate it.

In fact, the story of the RIAA’s partnership with ISPs is not a long one, if any. Two years ago the outfit claimed to switch from its strategy of fighting individual file-sharers to cooperation with service providers to filter copyrighted content and disconnect repeat infringers (in other words, implement voluntary “three-strikes” regime. So far no ISPs have chosen to cooperate with the RIAA, and you can guess why. So why can’t the RIAA?