Vietnamese Officials Say New Censorship Law Is About Protecting Copyrights

Copyright

from the copyright-as-censorship dept

For years we’ve pointed out that copyright law is often used for censorship, and plenty of authoritarian governments figured that out a long, long time ago. So, when the US goes around strongly advocating for stricter copyright laws, it’s really not that surprising to see some countries turn around and use that to justify censoring of political speech and free speech. Last week, we wrote about how Vietnam had passed an incredibly broad new censorship law, which says that blogs and social media cannot “quote, gather or summarize” information from the media or government websites. Instead, people using such social media can only talk about things having to do with their own lives, rather than the news.

This is incredibly broad censorship, designed to massively stifle public participation, especially in the political process. So, wouldn’t you know it? Among the ways that Vietnamese officials are defending this program is by claiming it’s necessary to “protect intellectual property.”

State media reported that the vice minister of information and communications, Do Quay Doan, said the curbs aren’t designed to limit free speech but to manage the rapid growth of the Internet in Vietnam. Other officials said the rules also will protect intellectual property.

Expect to see this more and more as authoritarian governments realize that US pressure to ratchet up copyright laws gives them the perfect excuse to hide behind when they focus on censoring the public: just say it’s to protect intellectual property, and frame it in the same language that the US is pushing, and it’s a free ticket to censor nearly anything.

Filed Under: censorship, copyright, intellectual property, social media, vietnam

New Vietnam Decree Says Blogs And Social Media Must Contain Only Personal Information, Not News Reports

Free Speech

from the content-free-content dept

Around the world, we have been watching the gradual taming of social media, especially in countries where governments keep mainstream media on a tight leash. But even against that background, this news from the Bangkok Post about Vietnam’s latest moves to censor online content is pretty extraordinary:

That’s even more extreme than China’s approach, which may take down troublesome material as soon as it is put up, but at least allows the possibility of putting it up in the first place. Vietnam’s rules mean that online news can only be carried by “official” channels, which are closely regulated. For everyone else, it seems, the Internet must by law become the realm of entirely content-free narcissism — and pictures of cats.

In response, the US Embassy in Vietnam has released a statement expressing its “concerns” about this move:

Who says Americans don’t do irony?

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Filed Under: blogs, free speech, independent journalism, journalism, news, social media, vietnam

Ridiculous: Vietnam Sentences Musicians To Jail For Songs That Protest Government Actions

Free Speech

from the freedom-isn't-free dept

We talk a lot about the importance of free speech here in the US, and worry tremendously about any efforts to chip away at such free speech rights. Even as we worry about how free speech issues are dealt with at home, we’re very aware that most other countries have significantly less respect for basic free expression concepts. It’s somewhat horrifying to learn that last week, a court in Vietnam sentenced two Vietnamese musicians to years in prison for writing, recording and posting online some “protest” songs:

Both were accused of posting songs on a Web site of Patriotic Youth, a opposition group based overseas. Mr. Tri, 34, who uses the stage name Viet Khang, has criticized the government in his songs for not taking a harder line against China in territorial disputes. A video for his song, “Viet Nam Toi Dau” (“Where Is My Vietnam?”), has become a YouTube hit, with 700,000 views. Mr. Binh, 37, recorded the song “Courage in the Prison” (“Nguc Toi Hien Ngang”) in support of an imprisoned blogger, Nguyen Van Hai. The song urges people to mount nonviolent protests.

And we’re not just talking about a few weeks in prison, either. Tri got four years and Binh got six years. Binh’s situation is especially ridiculous since his song is about an equally ridiculous prison sentence for a blogger. Basic political dissent is important to any free society, and to completely lock people up over some rather straightforward protest songs (that don’t advocate violence or anything like that) is really quite horrifying. The US, thankfully, has condemned these sentences, but this is an issue that more people need to know about and speak out about.

Filed Under: bloggers, free speech, musicians, political protests, vietnam

DailyDirt: In Money, We Trust (Sometimes)

Economics

from the urls-we-dig-up dept

Money is an interesting concept. Government institutions create a supply of money and try to control the value of it within some acceptable ranges. But when the value of money goes out of control, the solutions for getting it stabilized seem a bit illogical. Still, if you can get enough people to switch their faith from one money to another, it seems to work. Here are a few more stories on the topic of money and currency.

• It’s intriguingly difficult for any country that currently uses the euro to try to stop using it and switch to some other form of currency. So difficult, in fact, there’s a $400,000 prize for anyone who can figure out a process that would actually work and not create monetary chaos. [url]
• Some Brazilians are using locally-printed currencies instead of its national reais — such as the capivari, which is just one of the 63 local kinds of money. The capivari is a printed bill (with a picture of a rodent on it!), equal in value to the reai, but retailers give customers discounts for using capivaris (making these local bills into fancy coupons, essentially). [url]
• Last year, the IMF’s Dominique Strauss-Kahn proposed an alternative to the dollar in central banks’ foreign currency reserves. A system of special drawing rights (SDRs) for central banks would be priced according to international trade instead of any single nation’s currency. (It’s not an entirely new idea, but it’s never caught on.) [url]
• In Vietnam, there’s a penalty for posting prices in dollars instead of the local currency. The local currency suffers from high inflation rates, so they might want to look into Brazil’s monetary history for some lessons…. [url]
• To discover more stuff on economics, check out what’s currently floating around the StumbleUpon universe. [url]  

As always, StumbleUpon can also recommend some good Techdirt articles, too.

Filed Under: brazil, capivari, currency, dollar, dong, euro, money, real, sdrs, vietnam
Companies: imf

Vietnam Continues Online Censorship; Outlaws 'Subversive' Blogs; Puts Liability On ISPs

Culture

from the define-subversive dept

Vietnam has a long history of online censorship and suppression of dissent. Back in 2002, a law was put in place requiring registration with the government before creating a website, and soon after that there were reports of arrests of people for putting “questionable” material online. Given that, it’s hardly surprising to find out that the country has now officially banned “subversive” blogs. Of course, I’m sure the definition of subversive is left open to whoever is enforcing the law. But what’s really bad about this law, is that it puts the liability on internet service providers — saying that they’ll be held responsible for any subversive blogs that are hosted by them. It’s not entirely clear how this will impact foreign blog hosting companies, but it can’t be a good thing. Apparently, the Vietnamese government is specifically planning to talk to Yahoo and Google to get them to “cooperate” in “creating the best and healthiest environment for bloggers.” There’s been plenty of controversy for both Yahoo and Google for how they’ve dealt with government censorship in China, so the last thing they need is another such controversy.

Filed Under: blogs, censorship, liability, vietnam

How Pursuing Software Piracy Hurts Proprietary Software Firms

News You Could Do Without

from the highlights-the-alternatives dept

While organizations like the BSA and the SIIA play silly games and announce bogus numbers about the “costs” of software piracy, it’s nice to see the whole thing beginning to backfire. We’ve already pointed to the backlash against the BSA for its activities, and now we’re seeing how these kinds of crackdowns are doing exactly the opposite of what BSA/SIIA members would want: they’re looking for open source alternatives. Following the ongoing “international crackdown” on software piracy, it appears that the Vietnamese government is the latest to start promoting open source alternatives. Of course, for proprietary software makers, this should be seen as worse than piracy. After all, as Microsoft and others have long admitted, you’re much better off if someone is using an unauthorized version of your software, than if they’re using the competition (especially if that competition is free). If they’re using an unauthorized version of your software, then at least there’s a chance that they’ll either buy it at a later date or convince others to buy it. However, by putting such a big effort into cracking down on software piracy, all the industry has done is highlight why people are better off going with free alternatives. This is a key point we’ve tried to highlight in the past. The issue isn’t piracy at all, but the fact that the competition will eventually learn to embrace “free.” Focusing on “piracy” only helps accelerate that process.

Filed Under: open source, software piracy, vietnam
Companies: bsa, siia