Kicking People Off The Internet Not Enough In South Korea, Copyright Lobbyists Demand More

from the it-never-ends dept

If you thought that the entertainment industry would stop at having the ability to force ISPs to kick people they accuse (not convict) of file sharing offline, you might want to pay attention to what's happening in South Korea. South Korea, of course, is home to very high broadband penetration, with exceptionally high speeds. And, not surprisingly, there's a lot of unauthorized file sharing going on there. Of course, if you looked at the Korean cultural world, you'd immediately learn that smart entrepreneurs and entertainers quickly learned to adapt and take advantage of this new world. Entrepreneurs like JY Park recognized the changing marketplace, and adapted -- and the massive success he's had with artists like Rain and Wonder Girls, suggests that perhaps "piracy" wasn't a big deal. All you need is some smart business people who can adapt.

But, of course, we've all seen what sorts of companies are afraid to adapt. The big record labels and the big movie studios couldn't be bothered with the tricky proposition of actually understanding the new marketplace and adjusting their business model. So, they went to the US government and said "something must be done." That "something" turned out to be a new "free trade" (ha ha!) agreement with South Korea, that had little to do with free trade, but plenty to do with pushing ridiculously draconian copyright laws on South Korea (i.e., protectionism for the entertainment industry, not free trade). Of course, these new laws went way beyond what any other country had, and included getting the government to shut down file sharing sites while restricting how user-generated content sites could work as well. Not surprisingly, once the law passed, various sites began restricting how they could be used, even limiting the uploading of any songs, even ones that users themselves had created. And, of course, with all that, a "three strikes" plan to kick people off the internet was also included.

You would think that the industry would be happy and leave well enough alone, right?

Of course not. Reader Dan alerts us to the news that some entertainment industry lobbyists are now demanding that all file sharing services must use content filters. Otherwise, they plan to sue. Just another reminder that for some of these folks, enough will never be enough. They will keep pushing for more and more, just as consumers keep pushing back on having their own rights stripped away.

And, don't think this is limited to South Korea. Many of the "leaked" points about the needlessly secretive ACTA deal are supposedly "based on" the trade agreement that was done with South Korea. So take a look at what's happening there and see if that's how you think copyright law should work in the US.

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Scribd Lawsuit Even More Bizarre: It's The Filter That Infringes?

from the good-luck-on-that-idea dept

We already wrote about the somewhat odd class action lawsuit against Scribd, but it turns out it's even more bizarre than we first thought. That's because not only is the lawsuit complaining about authors works appearing on the site without authorization, but, according to Wired, the lawsuit also claims that Scribd's own filtering system infringes. Yes, the very system that it uses to try to prevent works from being uploaded is being called infringing, because it stores a copy to pattern match against uploads. I can't see how it's infringing in any way whatsoever. It's a tool that isn't used for infringement, but to prevent infringement. Perhaps I'm missing the point on how Scribd's filter works, but most filtering tools work on the principle of someone complaining about the unauthorized work being on the site, thus alerting the service provider of the need to filter. That seems like an authorization. But, more importantly, it's difficult to see how such a filter could be seen as infringing even absent such an authorization.

Copyright law grants five different exclusive rights to the copyright holder: the right to reproduce, to prepare derivative works, to distribute, to perform and to display. A filter doesn't really do any of those things. You could somehow try to interpret "reproducing" in such a way to claim that Scribd does that with its filter, but even that seems like a stretch. The only reason that the work is being reproduced is to stop any distribution or display of the work. No one actually gets to see it.

Still, it's quite a bizarre lawsuit that not only sues Scribd for failing to block an uploaded book, but at the very same time also sues the company -- under the same law -- for trying to block an uploaded book. Hopefully this one gets tossed out quickly.

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Mininova Told To Remove Infringing Material

from the good-thing-there's-none-on-the-site? dept

Earlier this year, we noted that torrent search engine Mininova was being sued, with Dutch anti-piracy group BREIN asking the court to force Mininova to block certain content. It's difficult to see how or why this should be Mininova's responsibility. As a search engine, it has no way of knowing which content is authorized and which is infringing. Yet, a court has sided with BREIN and told Mininova it needs to remove all infringing torrents from its site. The court is giving the site 3 months to implement a filter system, or face a fine of 1,000 euros per infringing torrent. Of course, Mininova already takes down torrents when alerted to the fact that they're infringing. Demanding that the company pre-determine which torrents are considered "infringing" doesn't make much sense (especially since the torrents themselves are not the "infringing" content). This seems to be yet another ruling with a court finding that assisting with potential copyright infringement somehow needs to be stopped.

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Internet Filter Blocked Educational Sites, But Left Open Porn

from the reverse-filters dept

The Australian gov't has been pushing for widespread internet filters for a while, but perhaps they should take a look at some of the smaller scale tests being done in the country. Someone who prefers to remain anonymous, alerted me to the news that filters installed for high school students by the NSW education department were found to block educational sites, while letting porn flow through. Of course, with any filter there's going to be some Type I and Type II errors, so this shouldn't be a surprise. But, for some reason, there are many people who seem to think that filters must work, when they really tend to just give a false sense of security - people think that if filters are in place, they no longer need to worry.

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Local Version Of China's Great Firewall Now Required On All PCs In China

from the yeah,-that'll-work... dept

There have been plenty of stories on the inner workings of China's "Great Firewall," whereby various ISPs are threatened with liability if they don't block "bad stuff." Yet, it's all been done at the ISP level. Apparently, that's about to change. A report is making the rounds that, as of July 1st, all PCs sold in China will be required to have client-side censorship software. You have to wonder if the censorship software also includes spying software.... Either way, you have to imagine it won't take long at all for people to figure out how to disable such software.

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Less Than A Third Of Australia's Censor List Actually About Underage Images

from the moral-panic-for-censorship dept

For years and years and years, the Australian government has been looking to come up with a rationale for censoring the internet. The most recent plan has gone through some hiccups with mass protests. But, of course, the gov't has continued to push on, claiming that such a censored blacklist is important to stop child porn. Except... a few months back, the censored list was leaked, and a review of the list now shows that less than 32% of the sites were actually about child porn (via Michael Scott).

This is one of the (many) reasons why such secret blacklists are always a bad idea. Given the opportunity to censor content, it's too tempting not to expand the list with general stuff the censors "don't like" rather than the actual intended purpose of the list. And that, of course, is why gov'ts always insist that such lists should be secret rather than publicly reviewable. Of course, it's worth noting that as part of the admission that the list has such a small percentage of what was supposed to make up the entire list, the Australian government says that it's having the police look into the leak of the list. Why? The only thing the leak exposed was how the gov't was lying to the public. That shouldn't be illegal. That should be welcomed whistle-blowing of gov't abuse.

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BT Blocking Pirate Bay; Claims It's Part Of A Voluntary Self-Regulation Code

from the say-what-now? dept

Slashdot points us to the news that BT is blocking its mobile broadband subscribers from accessing The Pirate Bay, claiming that it's a self-regulation effort in order to remain in "compliance with a new UK voluntary code." It appears to have something to do with the already controversial self-censorship program being managed by the Internet Watch Foundation, which has already blocked access to parts of Wikipedia and the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. At what point do people realize that any such demand to "block" certain types of content will overblock and harm perfectly legitimate sites and technologies?

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Austalian ISP Stands Up For Users In Court -- Claims They're Not Violating Copyright

from the this-could-get-interesting... dept

Late last year, a bunch of movie studios sued Australian ISP iiNet (which already has a reputation for standing up for its users) for not waving a magic wand and stopping any unauthorized file sharing that occurred among its customers. iiNet responded by pointing out the obvious: if the studios feel they've been wronged, they should take it up with the police, not iiNet. In fact, they said they pass such complaints directly to the police:

They send us a list of IP addresses and say 'this IP address was involved in a breach on this date'. We look at that say 'well what do you want us to do with this? We can't release the person's details to you on the basis of an allegation and we can't go and kick the customer off on the basis of an allegation from someone else'. So we say 'you are alleging the person has broken the law; we're passing it to the police. Let them deal with it'.

The case is moving forward now, and iiNet has kicked things off by suggesting that users sharing files on a one-to-one basis via BitTorrent don't seem to be violating Australian copyright law. Specifically, iiNet seems to be saying that using BitTorrent doesn't violate copyright because a one-to-one trade isn't distributing the content publicly (a version of the "making available" debate still going on in the US in some circles) and also pointing out that since BitTorrent breaks files up into so many small pieces, no individual user appears to be distributing enough to be considered copyright infringement.

While the argument does, in fact, make plenty of sense -- I wonder if it will actually fly in court. The entertainment industry has convinced so many people that any sort of unauthorized use of content is "piracy" that an emotional argument may prevail. In fact, the movie studios already seem to be going for the emotional argument expressing shock that iiNet can claim that its customers aren't violating copyright law.

The case will be an interesting one to follow -- though, you know if iiNet prevails, lobbyists will move quite quickly to push the Australian government to change copyright law to clarify the issue. Just watch: if it happens, there will be a rash of stories about how Australia "has to" do this to "comply with international treaties." It's how these things work.

To be honest, I'm surprised iiNet is taking such an extreme position. It seems like sticking with the "we're just the neutral service provider" response would have a higher likelihood of success.

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Australian Web Censorship Project Moves Ahead, Despite Lack Of Political Support

from the just-enough-rope-to-hang-themselves dept

At the end of last month, it looked like Australia's plan to censor the web had died after it lost support in the country's senate. But The Register reports that Australian regulators are going ahead and using the same blacklist that was part of that effort to threaten sites with fines. The Australian Communications and Media Authority threatened a broadband discussion forum with an A$11,000 ($7,250) daily fine after one of its users posted a link to an anti-abortion site on the blacklist. But it gets a little deeper, as the site was apparently put on the blacklist on the basis of a single complaint -- made by a guy who wanted to illustrate the stupidity of the system by getting a site listed that's got nothing to do with child porn, the supposed target of the censorship plan. When even politicians won't support something like this that's supposed to "protect the children," it should be pretty apparent that it's not a good idea. So why is the regulator moving ahead with it?

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Group Reveals There Are Ways To Fight Child Porn Other Than Useless Web Filters

from the progress,-perhaps dept

There has been something of a stink made in the UK after some children's charities complained that some ISPs weren't implementing web filters designed to stop people from accessing child pornography. While trying to stop child porn is certainly an admirable cause, the problem here is twofold: first, the filters simply don't work, and often do more to block access to legitimate content than to stop access to undesirable or illegal material. Second, simply thinking filters will solve the problem focuses only on catching consumers, rather than working to stop the producers and distributors of such reprehensible material. Stopping it at the source would seem to be a much more effective way to combat child pornography, rather than to just focus on the point of consumption. With that in mind, it's nice to see that a new pan-European alliance has been formed to go after child-pornography producers by tracking the flow of money around trade in it. The goal is to track the money back to those who are abusing children and making the porn, which would seem a much better way to fight the real problem. By only focusing on stopping consumption through filters, little is done to actually prevent kids from being abused, or to put the dirtbags who make this stuff out of commission.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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British Charities Discover Web Filters Don't Work

from the figuring-it-out dept

A number of British children's charities are complaining that some ISPs in the country aren't using the Internet Watch Foundation's blacklist to "block" access to child porn. Firms providing some 5% of the country's broadband connections haven't implemented the blacklist, either because they recognize that it doesn't work, or because of the expense. Keep in mind this is the same blacklist that blocked Wikipedia and screwed up UK edits of the site, and also blocked the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine. The charities say that households connected by the non-conforming ISPs have "easy access" to child porn, but given the long history of filters and blacklists of not actually working, it's hard to imagine that the filters have a significant effect beyond breaking access to noninfringing content. There's no doubt that child porn is reprehensible, but by presenting the blacklist as the be-all, end-all solution, these charities risk pulling attention and resources away from better solutions. After all, blocking consumption of child porn seems a less satisfying solution than working to stop its production.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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YouTube Bans Video Essayist; Apparently Commentary No Longer Considered Fair Use

from the sigh dept

On Wednesday, at the Congressional Internet Caucus' State of the Net 2009 conference, during the panel on digital copyright, NBC Universal's Alec French made the case for technology-based filters on various websites, claiming that the filtering technology is so incredibly good these days that it can even understand fair use, and not block it. That seemed like quite a claim, and one at odds with pretty much everything we've seen. Of course, it may be in how he (and the entertainment industry) defines fair use. The example he gave was a Saturday Night Live video that was stitched together from clips from various newscasts, rather than the original SNL video. French pointed out that the software could tell the difference, and such a clip would be allowed to stay up.

Unfortunately, things don't always work that way in reality. Michael Geist points out that YouTube has banned a video essayist, claiming that his commentary videos, which included clips from various movies, had to be taken down due to copyright violations -- and since it happened three times (yay, three strikes), his entire account was banned. So, here's a case where it seems that since the clips were used for commentary -- which is a clearly accepted fair use -- and, yet not only were the videos taken down, the guy's entire account was banned.

Geist points out that this isn't YouTube's fault, since it's just obeying the DMCA. But he does fault the DMCA for creating such a chilling effect on commentary and creativity. But there's a larger point too. French insists that computers can somehow tell what's fair use and what isn't -- at a time when humans still argue about it pretty much every day. I'm sure there will be some copyright system supporters who speak up in the comments (as they often do) that we're crazy to think such videos were fair use. Given that, how can anyone actually believe that a technology system can accurately determine in any automated way what is and what is not fair use?

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British Net Filter Now Says No To The Wayback Machine

from the if-you-can-read-this... dept

Last month, the Internet Watch Foundation, which maintains a child porn blacklist used by British ISPs, gained some attention after it blocked a Wikipedia page, making it impossible for UK web surfers to make any edits to the online encyclopedia. While they later relented, the episode highlighted the folly of trying to use blacklists and filters to limit access to certain online content. The IWF is back in the news this week, and it's being blamed for blocking access to the Internet Archive's Wayback Machine, an online store of old web pages. But unlike the Wikipedia episode, only users on some IWF blacklist-using ISPs are having the problem. Perhaps that's a bit better than a blanket ban, but once again, it provides a perfect illustration of why blacklists and filters often do much more harm than good. Are British child-porn surfers really being stopped by the blacklist? That's very doubtful. Meanwhile, plenty of people trying to access harmless content are being effected.

Carlo Longino is an expert at the Insight Community. To get insight and analysis from Carlo Longino and other experts on challenges your company faces, click here.

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Australian Net Censorship Plan Delayed Temporarily

from the getting-censorship-ducks-in-a-row dept

There's been plenty of protests against Australia's latest plan to censor the internet, but it appears that the reason the filtering plan has been delayed yet again has little to do with tone deaf government officials suddenly having second thoughts -- but much more to do with the government's own inability to get its censorship act together in time. The whole process has been a bit of a mess from the beginning, so no surprise that the government would screw up its own launch efforts as well.

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Australian Filtering Boss: Turning Off Blog And Comments

from the but-listening...-we-swear... dept

With the story earlier this week about Australia's Broadband Minister, Stephen Conroy, considering adding BitTorrent filtering to the country's ISP filtering/censorship program, it was notable that Conroy said he was paying close attention to the commentary about the program online -- including various blogs and social network systems like Twitter. That was actually a small glimmer of hope mixed in with the ridiculous policy -- but it appears that Conroy has decided he'd really rather not listen to the conversation on his own blog. While that post about BitTorrent filtering got a lot of attention, it also got a ton of comments, and now Conroy and his team are turning off their blog and closing down the comments. Way to communicate with the people...

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Australia's Slippery Slope Of Censorship Gets Even Slicker With Plans To Filter Bittorrent

from the why-have-an-internet-at-all? dept

It's no secret that plenty of folks are up in arms over Australia's plan to censor internet connections. From the beginning, it was clear that this was quite a slippery slope, and that slope appears to be getting even more slippery. A bunch of folks have sent in the news that the country's Broadband Minister, Senator Stephen Conroy is already talking about using the system to filter and block file sharing and BitTorrent as well, falsely claiming that the technology exists to do so effectively.

It might just be something of an off-the-cuff statement, but so far Conroy and others in the Australian government appear to have been incredibly tone deaf to the complaints about the filtering system. It is worth noting that Conroy claims in a blog post that he's monitoring the complaints on various websites and social networks -- even to the point of following certain keywords on Twitter. That, at least, shows a surprising (but good) recognition of where he should be reading about the protests. Unfortunately, though, so far it doesn't appear that any of those complaints have resonated.

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Australian ISPs Refuse To Censor The Internet

from the thanks,-but-no-thanks dept

It looks like the Australian government's latest plan to censor the internet is running into a few snags. Earlier, one big ISP had agreed to take part, but only to show how stupid the plan was. However, a few readers have sent in the news that both Telstra and Internode have refused to take part in the trials that are starting up. Plus, the government is now claiming that the trials won't involve any actual customers. And, from the sound of things, there is growing opposition to the entire plan, with opposition politicians pushing to scrap the whole thing. Maybe the current government officials pushing this plan should have thought through how this would go before unilaterally announcing the plan, and spending plenty of money on it.

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Latest Australian Internet Censorship Campaign Begins To Widespread Protests

from the free-the-internet dept

The latest in a long line of attempts by the Australian government to censor the internet is now starting, as ISPs are beginning to filter the internet (sometimes under protest), agreeing to block access to sites on a government blacklist. This plan will cost Austrlian taxpayers hundreds of millions of dollars, on top of the large amounts already spent on earlier plans that failed.

In response to the start of the new filtering, Australian citizens are taking to the streets in protest, though it's unclear how much of an impact that will have. Once these "trials" fail, with both false positives and false negatives, maybe, just maybe someone in power down under will recognize that censorship is just a bad idea.

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Australian ISP Agrees To Filter... Just To Show How Stupid It Is

from the that'll-show-'em dept

Australian politicians have been pushing to censor the internet for years, with its latest initiative being the most extreme and most ridiculous. Of course, even though each and every past effort by the Australian government has failed miserably, they always seem to think that this time it will be different. At least the largest Australian ISP thinks the government is out of its mind. The CEO of iiNet has agreed to sign up for the filters, but only to collect hard data in order to prove to the government "how stupid" the plan is:

"They're not listening to the experts, they're not listening to the industry, they're not listening to consumers, so perhaps some hard numbers will actually help. Every time a kid manages to get through this filter, we'll be publicising it and every time it blocks legitimate content, we'll be publicising it."

Good for them, though it seems unlikely to work. In the past when similarly ineffectual filters were demonstrated, Australian officials just interpreted it to mean they needed to pass stricter laws.

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Australian Internet Filters Have No Real Opt-Out; Only Opt-In To Fewer Filters

from the can-i-have-my-porn-license-please? dept

We've covered the long history of Australian politicians looking to set up their own censored internet "to protect the children" (of course). The plans have changed over time, but the end goal has always been the same: to force ISPs to block a list of sites provided by the government. In the latest incarnation, the plan supposedly included an "opt-out" option, where a web surfer could specifically ask to opt-out of the filters (effectively asking someone to sign up for a "porn-surfing license"). That, on its own, might scare some people off, but now it turns out that the opt-out isn't really an opt-out. Instead, it's just opting you in to a somewhat less restrictive blacklist. Once again, this idea of mandatory filtering out of "bad" sites on the internet sets a dangerous precedent. Whoever has control over that list has tremendous power, and it will be abused. On almost every "filter" list we've seen sites that certainly don't belong there, and this will be no different. If a site is doing something illegal, then charge whoever is responsible for the site. Trying to deal with it through filters and blocklists is both bound to fail and dangerous to free speech.

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