This Could Be The Most Important Email You Will Ever Send To Your MEP

As most people reading this will know by now, the deeply-flawed EU Copyright Directive faces one final vote in the European Parliament soon.  If it passes there, it will become law.  That means we have one final chance to stop it, by writing to our MEPs now.

Those with good memories will remember that we stopped the equally pernicious Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) at the last minute, against all the odds, by writing huge numbers of emails to MEPs, and taking to the streets.  People are already taking to the streets in Germany and elsewhere, and the emails have started flowing, much to the surprise of MEPs.  We need to increase their number greatly to convince MEPs to vote against the worst aspects of the proposed law.

I and others have written so much about the Copyright Directive and its three terrible ideas, that I will only present summaries here, along with links to more detailed information.

First there is Article 3, which covers text and data mining (TDM).  This is an exciting technique for discovering new information by analysing large quantities of text or data.  It is vitally important for the AI technique of machine learning.   And yet Article 3 stupidly limits permission to carry out TDM freely to research institutions.  This means EU startups will be unable to depend upon it as they grow, whereas those in the US and China can.  This guarantees that the EU will become an AI backwater.  More details here:

Why The Copyright Directive Lacks (Artificial) Intelligence

The Right To Read Is The Right To Mine

Article 11 is the "link tax" or "Google tax".  Neither is a very good name.  Really, it is about making every company pay to use even the tiniest snippets from news articles – perhaps even for using more than one word.  What's particularly ridiculous about this idea, is that it has been tried twice – in Germany and Spain – where it failed both times.  It will undermine the key innovation of the Web – hyperlinking information – with no benefit for the newspapers that are pushing for it.  More details here:

Article 11: Driven By Rhetoric, Not By Arithmetic

Finally, and most dangerously, there is Article 13.  Even though those drafting the proposal have cynically avoided the term, it makes the use of automated filters inevitable for most sites holding material uploaded by the public.  Those filters are unable to capture the complexities of EU copyright law, and will therefore over-block to be on the safe side.  In particular, it is impossible for such filters to tell the difference between unauthorised copies of material, and memes that use the same material.  So even if memes are not banned in the text, the end-effect will be for many of them to be blocked.  More details about all these aspects in the following pages:

You Wouldn’t Steal A Meme: The Threat From Article 13

MEPs’ Email Says Article 13 “Will Not Filter The Internet”; Juri MEP’s Tweet Says It Will

Article 13: Putting Flawed Upload Filters At The Heart Of The Internet

Article 13: Making Copyright Unfit For The Digital Age

Article 13: Even Worse Than The Us DMCA Takedown System

Time To Tell The Truth About Article 13

Why Article 13 Is Not Just Dangerous Law-Making, But Deeply Dishonest Too

Fix The Gaping Hole At The Heart Of Article 13: Users’ Rights

Article 13 Is Not Just Criminally Irresponsible, It’s Irresponsibly Criminal

As well as the serious harm the proposed Copyright Directive will cause to the Internet as we know it – born of ignorance or indifference on the part of those drafting it – what is extraordinary about the whole saga is the contempt shown for EU citizens and their views.  Recently, the European Commission published an article that called those opposing the Copyright Directive part of a "mob".  The European Parliament put out a tweet that was full of half-truths and intentionally misleading statements.

The continuing and concerted attempt to belittle EU citizens who dare to argue against the EU's proposed Copyright Directive mean that this is no longer just about copyright or the Internet.  It is about democracy in the EU.  The European Commission and European Parliament are trying to shut down dissent on this topic, just as they did for ACTA.  It is therefore vitally important for EU citizens to write to their MEPs to express their concerns about the Copyright Directive, and also about the way their right to participate in the law-making process has been seriously harmed.  You can use this page to search for MEPs in any EU Member State; in the UK you can use WriteToThem.

I normally provide a sample email text, but on this occasion, I won't.  That's because one lie that is being put about by supporters of the Copyright Directive is that emails to MEPs are being sent by "bots", paid for by Google and others, and not by real people.  For this reason, it is vital that you use your own words when you write to your MEP.  Your email does not need to be long or detailed, but it must be genuine (and polite) if it is to be convincing.  Helping us is the fact that elections for the European Parliament are imminent, so MEPs should be keen to be seen to listen their constituents – something you may wish to mention.

Despite constant claims that the EU Copyright Directive won't affect the Internet, this is simply not true.  It is, without doubt, the most serious threat we have faced since ACTA.  It is vital that, like ACTA, we stop it.  We did it then, we can do it now.  Please write to your MEPs today - it could be the most important email you will ever send them.

Response to EU Ombudsman's Consultation on TTIP Transparency

The EU Ombudsman is running a consultation on how to improve the transparency of the TTIP negotiations.  This shouldn't be hard, since there is currently vanishingly small openness about these secret talks.  However, to keep things simple, I have just one very easy suggestion, as my response to the consultation below explains:

My name is Glyn Moody, and I am a journalist who has written over 40 columns on TTIP (available at http://www.computerworlduk.com/blogs/open-enterprise/ttip-updates--the-glyn-moody-blogs-3569438/.) My comments are based on following trade negotiations closely for many years, including those for TPP, TISA and ACTA. Please find below my responses to the consultation's questions.

1. Please give us your views on what concrete measures the Commission could take to make the TTIP negotiations more transparent. Where, specifically, do you see room for improvement?

There is one one very simple measure that would make the TTIP negotiations highly transparent without limiting the European Commission's ability to keep its negotiating strategy secret - something it claims is necessary.

This would be to make all EU documents and proposals public as soon as they are tabled.

There can be no objection that this will reveal the Commission's strategy to the US side, since the latter can, by definition, see all documents once they are on the table. Releasing them to the public would therefore reveal nothing that the US negotiators did not already know. The US cannot object, since it only concerns the EU proposals, and reveals nothing of the US position (not that this should be secret.) In short, no one could possibly object, unless, of course, the real purpose of negotiations being held behind closed doors is precisely to keep the public ignorant of what is nominally being carried out in their name.

2. Please provide examples of best practice that you have encountered in this area.

Negotiations at WIPO go far beyond simply making tabled documents available, as this article explains in detail (http://infojustice.org/archives/30027). Here are the main points:

"The elements of WIPO’s transparency processes are varied. they start with ongoing releases of draft negotiating documents dating back to the beginning of the process."

"WIPO webcasted negotiations, and even established listening rooms where stakeholders could hear (but not be physically present in) break rooms where negotiators were working on specific issues. "

"WIPO set up a system of open and transparent structured stakeholder input, including published reports and summaries of stakeholder working groups composed of commercial and non-commercial interests alike."

"Transparency in WIPO continued through the final days of intense, often all night, negotiations in the final diplomatic conference. When negotiators reached a new breakthrough on the language concerning the controversial “3-step test” limiting uses of limitations and exceptions in national laws, that news was released to the public (enabling public news stories on it), along with the draft text of the agreement."

This clearly shows how complete transparency is possible, and that negotiations can not only proceed under these conditions, but reach successful conclusions.

3. Please explain how, in your view, greater transparency might affect the outcome of the negotiations.

Real transparency - for example, by publishing all tabled documents - would have a profoundly important impact, since it would offer hope that any final agreement would enjoy public support. Without transparency, TTIP will simply be a secret deal among insiders, imposed from above, rather than any legitimate instrument of democracy.

European Commission Admits It Plans To Put 'Corporate Christmas List' Of IP Demands Into TAFTA/TTIP

A few months ago, we quoted the EU trade commissioner Karel De Gucht, who is responsible for handling the TAFTA/TTIP negotiations on the European side, as saying: 

On Techdirt.

TTIP Updates - The Glyn Moody blogs

At the start of 2012 I began a series of posts about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement - ACTA. These took the form of updates on how ACTA was developing. I did this because I had a sense of how quickly things were moving, and how complicated the issues were, and I wanted to try to track those as they happened.

To make that easier, Computerworld UK brought those updates together on a single page. It turned out to be an extremely exciting ride as opposition to ACTA grew across Europe, culminating in the rejection by the European Parliament on 4 July last year.

However, one thing we have learned is that those behind unbalanced laws like SOPA and treaties like ACTA, never give up. If they fail with one, they just try again with another. And so it turns out in the wake of ACTA's demise. We are now witnessing exactly the same secretive approach being applied to TTIP - the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership - originally known as TAFTA, the Transatlantic Free Trade Agreement.

Although TTIP only began a few months ago, it is becoming increasingly controversial as more people begin to realise what is at stake. As I explain in several updates below, one of the key problems is the presence of "investor-state dispute settlement" - ISDS - which I predict will prove to be the most contentious part of TTIP.

Indeed, I think it is likely that ISDS will generate so much resistance among the European public that ultimately it will be removed from TTIP completely in order to give other parts more chance of being passed by the European Parliament, which must approve the agreement once it has been negotiated. What follows is my attempt to track the twists and turns of the journey to that final, fateful vote.

On Open Enterprise blog.

TTIP Update IV

One of the key issues during the ACTA negotiations was transparency - or rather the lack of it. Despite a few token gestures from the European Commission initially, TAFTA/TTIP looks like it will be just as bad. Here's a rather cheap trick the negotiators have just played:

On Open Enterprise blog.

European Commission: ACTA Is Dead, Long Live ACTA?

The first six months of 2012 saw Europeans taking to the streets in order to kill off ACTA in the European Union. Against all the odds, they succeeded in that aim, as the European Parliament voted to reject ACTA on 4 July last year. That defeat has certainly been burned into the memories of Karel de Gucht, the EU Commissioner responsible for negotiating first ACTA and now TAFTA/TTIP. When he was asked whether the latter might see ACTA sneak in by the backdoor, here's what he replied: 

On Techdirt.

ISDS: ACTA by the Back Door?

As I noted in my last TTIP update, things are beginning to get moving again on this front. One reflection of the growing interesting in this important trade and investment agreement was the public discussion entitled "Internet, Trade and Democracy: Transatlantic Relations under the Shadow of Surveillance", held in Berlin, and organised by Internet & Society Collaboratory and the blogger project FutureChallenges.org of the Bertelsmann Stiftung.

On Open Enterprise blog.

TTIP Update II

As I noted in my first TTIP Update about the current negotiations between the EU and US over a massive trade agreement that is far from being only about trade, it is probably true that it will not include many of the more outrageous ideas found in ACTA last year. But that is not to say that TTIP does not threaten many key aspects of the Internet - just that the attack is much more subtle.

On Open Enterprise blog.

TPP Negotiations Deprive New Zealanders Of Promised Copyright Consultation -- For Secret Reasons

One of the myths perpetuated by governments taking part in major international treaty negotiations like ACTA, TPP and TAFTA/TTIP is that somehow no national sovereignty is given up during the process, and that therefore the public shouldn't worry about what goes on in those secret meetings. That's clearly absurd, because negotiations involve concessions, usually by the weaker parties, which often touch on national competences. 

On Techdirt.

TTIP Update I

At the start of this year I flagged up the likelihood that hugely important trade negotations between the EU and US would start in due course. A few months later, I gave some more background to that move, as well as the text of a document calling for the participants to avoid repeating the grave mistakes of ACTA, which ultimately led to that agreement being rejected in the European Parliament on July 4 last year.

On Open Enterprise blog.

EU Copyright: The Right to Read and the Right to Mine

A year ago the European Parliament rejected ACTA - a real milestone in the fight to bring some balance to copyright, since it was the first time that a major international treaty was thrown out in this way, largely because of its one-sided and disproportionate approach to that area.

On Open Enterprise blog.

EU Mandate For TAFTA Leaked: Includes Investor-State Dispute Resolution For Intellectual Monopolies

One of the concerns about TAFTA/TTIP is that it would repeat the mistakes of ACTA and SOPA as far as intellectual monopolies were concerned. This led to a call by a group of public interest organizations for things like copyright and patents to be excluded from TAFTA (disclosure: I was involved in the drawing up of the text.) Needless to say, no notice was taken of that, and a couple of weeks ago the European Parliament duly passed a resolution on TAFTA that said: 

On Techdirt.

Not Learning From ACTA: IPR Protection And Enforcement Seen As 'Less Difficult Issue' For TAFTA/TTIP

Despite increasing calls for the imminent TAFTA/TTIP trade negotiations to be conducted as openly as possible, it seems likely that, as with ACTA and TPP, everything will be decided behind closed doors. That means the rest of us are forced to take our information about what is likely to happen where we can find it. For example, a new survey entitled "The Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership: Ambitious but Achievable" (pdf), carried out by The Bertelsmann Foundation and Atlantic Council, offers some interesting thoughts on the subject. Here's the description: 

On Techdirt.

Please Write to MEPs *Now* about TAFTA/TTIP

Sorry to trouble you again this week, but there's an important vote in INTA today (25 April) on the transatlantic trade agreement (TAFTA/TTIP), and there are some crucial issues that you might like to convey to your MEP, especially if they are on the INTA committee. 

On Open Enterprise blog.

Why CISPA Shows We Need Strong EU Data Protection

It seems hard to believe that it was only a little over a year ago that the threat from the US SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act) was averted (and that ACTA was still with us in the EU). But of course the war is never won: new threats to freedom and openness on the Internet just keep on coming. 

On Open Enterprise blog.

Please Write to MEPs *Now* about TAFTA/TTIP

There's an important vote in INTA today (25 April) on the transatlantic trade agreement (TAFTA/TTIP), and there are some crucial issues that you might like to convey to your MEP, especially if they are on the INTA committee. La Quadrature du Net has put together a splendid page explaining which amendments to the proposed draft resolution need to be adopted, and which rejected. There's also a list of MEPs on the INTA committee, so you can check if there's yours.

Here's what I've sent to my MEP:

My fear is that attempts may be made to turn this treaty into ACTA by the backdoor, and I'm sure that none of us really wants to go through all that again. I'd therefore like to urge you and your colleagues on INTA to reject Amendment 115, and to adopt Amendment 121.

I'd also like to mention the problems with investor-state disputes. As you doubtless know, Eli Lilly is suing the Canadian government for $100 million because the Canadian courts decided that Eli Lilly's patent application did not meet the stated requirements (I wrote an article about it here: https://www.techdirt.com/articles/20130208/03441521918/canada-denies-patent-drug-so-us-pharma-company-demands-100-million-as-compensation-expropriation.shtml).

Eli Lilly wishes to use the investor-state dispute mechanism to overturn a legal, valid decision by the courts, following established Canadian law, simply because the company is not happy with it. As you can see, this threatens the sovereignty of any nation that agrees to such mechanisms, which were brought in for countries that had poor legal systems.

That is not the case for the EU and US, so the investor-state dispute mechanism is unnecessary, but represents a grave threat to not just every country in the EU, but the European Parliament itself, which could see its laws overruled by secret arbitration courts. I would thus urge you to accept Amendment 164 and exclude investor-state dispute mechanisms from the mandate.

Finally, I would like to ask that Amendment 174 be accepted. This requires the US to agree to transparency – something that was sadly lacking in ACTA, and which caused huge problems there. To those who say that it is not possible to reveal secret documents without compromising the negotiations, there is a simple answer: make public only those documents that are tabled for discussion. At that point, they are no longer secret, and therefore no advantage can be lost by releasing them. Documents that have not yet been tabled can be kept secret. Transparency would allow European citizens to follow and be engaged by the negotiations, rather than kept in the dark and alienated from them.

Follow me @glynmoody on Twitter or identi.ca, and on Google+

How Multilateral Free Trade Agreements Are Bypassing Democratic Decision-Making Around The World

One of the most worrying aspects of ACTA -- which began life as a "simple" treaty about combatting counterfeit goods -- was how it morphed into a new approach to global policy making. This had two key aspects. First, the treaty would be negotiated in secret, with minimal input from the public, but plenty from lobbyists, who were given access to key documents and to negotiators. Secondly, the results of those secret negotiations were designed to constrain the participating governments in important ways that nullified ordinary democratic decision-making. If at all, representative bodies were presented with a take-it-or-leave it choice; changing individual details was not an option.

On Techdirt.

Public Well-Being Must Be 'Primary Measurement' Of US-EU Trade Agreement

Now that the US and EU have officially announced the start of talks on a new bilateral free trade agreement -- sorry, a "trade and investment partnership" -- groups in both regions are trying to work out what this will mean for them and their constituents. Arguably the most important constituency of all is the public, and yet it is also the one that until now has been systematically shut out of previous negotiations for things like ACTA or TPP. One representative of that huge group -- though not, obviously, the only one -- is the Transatlantic Consumer Dialogue (TACD), which describes itself as follows: 

On Techdirt.

Why Site Blocking Orders Need To Be Challenged In Court

There is an extremely dangerous trend to remove proper judicial review from cases involving alleged copyright infringement. Sometimes that means "voluntary" actions by ISPs -- the SOPA and ACTA approach. Sometimes, it means appearances before tribunals by members of the public without adequate legal representation, as is happening under New Zealand's "three strikes" law. And sometimes it might involve a judge, but consist of the latter simply agreeing to requests from the copyright industry, without anyone challenging the grounds for doing so. 

On Techdirt.

European Court Of Human Rights: No, Copyright Does Not Automatically Trump Freedom Of Expression

As many know, copyright had its origins in censorship and control. But over the last few hundred years, that fact has been obscured by the rise of the powerful publishing industry and the great works it has helped bring to the public. More recently, though, laws and treaties like SOPA and ACTA have represented a return to the roots of copyright, posing very real threats to what can be said online. That's not because their intent was necessarily to crimp freedom of expression, but as a knock-on effect of turning risk-averse ISPs into the copyright industry's private police force. 

On Techdirt.