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.

WURFL: a cautionary tale

A few months ago, I wrote about the library management program Koha, and how the irruption of money into the previously tranquil world of open source led to some painful arguments. Sadly, that's not a unique example, as the recent case of WURFL demonstrates.

On The H Open.

DMCA Takedown Service Tells Copyright Companies: 'Adapt Your Business To The New Digital World'

Although DMCA takedown notices figure quite frequently here on Techdirt -- especially abusive ones that use the system to remove material covered by fair use or even in the public domain -- the industry that has grown up around them remains somewhat in the shadows. That's what makes the site with the self-explanatory name "Takedown Piracy", found via the 1709 Blog, so fascinating: it offers a glimpse of the world of DMCA takedowns as seen from the other side. 

On Techdirt.

Democratising OpenCourseWare

OpenCourseWare - putting texts and videos of educational lectures online for anyone to download, use and often build on - is a great idea.  But it's still a case of knowledge being handed down from on high by the university priesthood.  What about if anyone could upload lectures they have attended?

Enter LectureLeaks.org:

Welcome to LectureLeaks.org, your personal OpenCourseWare repository. You can now record, save, and upload your college lectures directly from your iPhone or Android device. You can also browse our library of recordings and learn any time, anywhere.

We believe that higher education should be available to all, for the good of society. Anybody who wants to learn should be able to, so we're trying to develop technology which allows that.


Begin recording by pressing Record during all of your lectures, then upload them to us so we can share them with the rest of the world.


Before sharing any recordings, we encourage you to ask your instructor's permission. We are affirmative for open access education, but we also maintain full compliance with the Digital Millenium Copyright Act.


All recordings are released under the Creative-Commons Attribution license, and our server doesn't record any personally identifying information like IP addresses.
LectureLeaks is a 100% Free and Open Source Project, and uses technology produced by the OpenWatch Project.


Only you can spread knowledge from the privileged few to curious minds everywhere, one lecture at a time.

Fab idea.

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

Those that Live by the DMCA....

This was a pleasant surprise, a *summary* judgment against Viacom in favour of Google:

Today, the court granted our motion for summary judgment in Viacom’s lawsuit with YouTube. This means that the court has decided that YouTube is protected by the safe harbor of the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA) against claims of copyright infringement. The decision follows established judicial consensus that online services like YouTube are protected when they work cooperatively with copyright holders to help them manage their rights online.

On Open Enterprise blog.

DVD Copying Software is "Illegal", but Copying?

In a decision that shows how ridiculously unclear the situation around copying DVDs is:

A federal judge ruled here late Tuesday that it was unlawful to traffic in goods to copy DVDs.

U.S. District Judge Marilyn Hall Patel’s ruling came in a decision in which she declared RealNetworks’ DVD copying software was illegal. She barred it from being distributed.

Patel said the RealDVD software violates the Digital Millennium Copyright Act of 1998 that prohibits the circumvention of encryption technology. DVDs are encrypted with what is known as the Content Scramble System, and DVD players must secure a license to play discs. RealDVD, she ruled, circumvents technology designed to prevent copying.

But the decision, although mixed, left open the door that copying DVD’s for personal use “may well be” lawful under the fair use doctrine of the Copyright Act, although trafficking in such goods was illegal.

Making backup copies etc. is so eminently reasonable that it needs spelling out by the courts. Paradoxically, not spelling it out is worse for the film industry, since the boundary of what is and is not (morally) acceptable are ill-defined, letting people make it up as they go along.

Why Copyright, O Canada?

Over on the Open Enterprise blog, I have been extolling the virtues of James Boyle's new book, The Public Domain. I still urge you to read it (freely available here), but recognise that not everyone has the time (or energy) to snuggle down with 300 pages of deep meditation on intellectual monopolies.

For those of you who want something a little more, er, oyster-like in terms of slipping down the cognitive gullet, can I also recommend this video from the irrepressible Michael Geist?

Although it's entitled "Why Copyright? Canadian Voices on Copyright Law", and it's largely about the battle to stop Canada making the same mistakes as the US (and Europe) by bringing in its own DMCA, the issues it raises apply around the world. And it's refreshing to hear all the old arguments I and others have been peddling for a while from a fresh bunch of talking heards.

IOC Stays True to Olympic Spirit...

...the Beijing Olympics spirit, that is:

the IOC sent a take-down notice to YouTube for a video posted by Students for a Free Tibet.

The video, which showed a pro-Tibet candle-light vigil in New York City and images from the March protests in Tibet, was dutifully pulled by YouTube. However, it was unclear what infringement the IOC was claiming. Although their famous interlocking rings were briefly shown, that would seem to be a trademark, not covered by the DMCA. Even if they claimed the rings were copyrighted creative content, their creation in 1913 places them firmly in the public domain (on copyright, the trademark remains -- but the DMCA isn't for trademark). Luckily after a number of sites questioned the action, the IOC withdrew their complaint.

Associated Press Hoist By Its Own Petard

Mr TechCrunch can be slightly obnoxious at times, but on this one I can only applaud him:

now the A.P. has gone too far. They’ve quoted twenty-two words from one of our posts, in clear violation of their warped interpretation of copyright law. The offending quote, from this post, is here (I’m suspending my A.P. ban to report on this important story).

Am I being ridiculous? Absolutely. But the point is to illustrate that the A.P. is taking an absurd and indefensible position, too. So I’ve called my lawyers (really) and have asked them to deliver a DMCA takedown demand to the A.P. And I will also be sending them a bill for $12.50 with that letter, which is exactly what the A.P. would have charged me if I published a 22 word quote from one of their articles.

If nothing else, this shows the value to the blogosphere of having a few A-list bloggers with deep pockets.

More Unspeakable Acts

Michael Geist has been warning about this for a while, and now the beast is out:

Today the Government of Canada introduced long-overdue and much-needed amendments to the Copyright Act that will bring it in line with advances in technology and current international standards.

"Our government has committed to ensuring Canada's copyright law is up to date, and today we are delivering by introducing this "made-in-Canada" bill that balances the interests of Canadians who use digital technology and those who create content," said the Honourable Jim Prentice, Minister of Industry. "It's a win-win approach because we're ensuring that Canadians can use digital technologies at home with their families, at work, or for educational and research purposes. We are also providing new rights and protections for Canadians who create the content and who want to better secure their work online."

The phrase "made-in-Canada" would be funny if it weren't so pathetic: this bill has been dictated down to the last comma by Hollywood, and it would be hard to imagine anything less "made-in-Canada". Moreover, despite the misleading stuff about "win-win", this is simply a loss for Canadians, as Geist explains:

1. As expected, Prentice has provided a series of attention-grabbing provisions to consumers including time shifting, private copying of music (transferring a song to your iPod), and format shifting (changing format from analog to digital). These are good provisions that did not exist in the delayed December bill. However, check the fine print since the rules are subject to a host of strict limitations and, more importantly, undermined by the digital lock provisions. The effect of the digital lock provisions is to render these rights virtually meaningless in the digital environment because anything that is locked down (ie. copy-controlled CD, no-copy mandate on a digital television broadcast) cannot be copied. As for every day activities like transferring a DVD to your iPod - those are infringing too. Indeed, the law makes it an infringement to circumvent the locks for these purposes.

2. The digital lock provisions are worse than the DMCA. Yes - worse. The law creates a blanket prohibition on circumvention with very limited exceptions and creates a ban against distributing the tools that can be used to circumvent. While Prentice could have adopted a more balanced approach (as New Zealand and Canada's Bill C-60 did), the effect of these provisions will be to make Canadians infringers for a host of activities that are common today including watching out-of-region-coded DVDs, copying and pasting materials from a DRM'd book, or even unlocking a cellphone.

While that is the similar to the U.S. law, the exceptions are worse. The Canadian law includes a few limited exceptions for privacy, encryption research, interoperable computer programs, people with sight disabilities, and security, yet Canadians can't actually use these exceptions since the tools needed to pick the digital lock in order to protect their privacy are banned. In other words, check the fine print again - you can protect your privacy but the tools to do so are now illegal. Dig deeper and it gets worse. Under the U.S. law, there is mandatory review process every three years to identify new exceptions. Under the Canadian law, its up to the government to introduce new exceptions if it thinks it is needed. Overall, these anti-circumvention provisions go far beyond what is needed to comply with the WIPO Internet treaties and represents an astonishing abdication of the principles of copyright balance that have guided Canadian policy for many years.

So far, so bad - and pretty much expected. But what struck me was the following gratuitous comment at the end of the press release:

These amendments to the Copyright Act are part of the government's broader intellectual property strategy, which includes the recent amendments to the Criminal Code to combat movie piracy and the announcement that Canada will work with other international trading partners towards a possible Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).

In other words, all this stuff is just a prelude to the even more Draconian, even less democratic ACTA which is beetling towards us. Time to start protesting, people....

Adobe Flash - Now with Added Evil

Another reason to hate Flash:

Now Adobe, which controls Flash and Flash Video, is trying to change that with the introduction of DRM restrictions in version 9 of its Flash Player and version 3 of its Flash Media Server software. Instead of an ordinary web download, these programs can use a proprietary, secret Adobe protocol to talk to each other, encrypting the communication and locking out non-Adobe software players and video tools. We imagine that Adobe has no illusions that this will stop copyright infringement -- any more than dozens of other DRM systems have done so -- but the introduction of encryption does give Adobe and its customers a powerful new legal weapon against competitors and ordinary users through the Digital Millennium Copyright Act (DMCA).

(Via Techdirt.)

The (I)Meem They've Been Waiting for

The music industry has finally found an online music model it can live with:

Imeem, a social networking site that was in the recording industry's crosshairs earlier this year for allowing file-sharing on its network, has pulled off an impressive feat. This summer it settled its lawsuit with Warner Music by promising to give Warner a cut of advertising revenues from the site. Now the Wall Street Journal is reporting that it's signed similar deals with all four major labels, meaning that Imeem is now the first website whose users have the music industry's blessing to share music for free.

But wait, even though it's a streaming site, it's not actually much different from all the download sites the music industry professes to hate:

it's quite easy to download music files from Imeem using third-party tools. And because Imeem's site doesn't use DRM, Imeem downloading tools are probably legal under the DMCA. So what we have here is the de facto legalization of Napster-like sites, as long as the record labels get a cut of the advertising revenue. It's an exciting development, albeit one that should have happened seven years ago.

MPAA: The Biter Bit

Although I am a frequent critic of the more outrageous excesses of copyright, I don't deny it has its place, in moderation. For example, this blog is licensed thanks to copyright, and the whole of the GNU GPL is based on it. So it seems only right that the free software world should be able to avail itself of the really horrible DMCA to slap down violations of the GPL:

The MPAA's "University Toolkit" (a piece of monitoring software that universities are being asked to install on their networks to spy on students' communications) has been taken down, due to copyright violations. The Toolkit is based on the GPL-licensed Xubuntu operating system (a flavor of Linux). The GPL requires anyone who makes a program based on GPL'ed code has to release the source code for their program and license it under the GPL. The MPAA refused multiple requests to provide the sources for their spyware, so an Ubuntu developer sent a DMCA notice to the MPAA's ISP and demanded that the material be taken down as infringing.

A hit, a palpable hit.

What's also deeply ironic is that the MPAA choose to use Xubuntu in the first place, rather than intellectual monopoly-friendly Windows. When even your brothers-in-shame shun you, you know you've got problems.

Intellectual Monopolies Go Virtual

This was bound to happen:

Eerily ergonomic, infinitely adjustable, incredibly expensive, the Aeron chair is a fetish item in the computer industry, so it's not surprising that Residents have made virtual versions of them in Second Life since the very beginning. All that's changed, however, because Herman Miller, the company behind the Aeron, has just set up their own official store in SL, and is giving away chairs made with their official imprimatur. For a limited time, Residents with knock-off Aerons can bring them to the Herman Miller outlet in Avalon and exchange them for an officially branded SL version, for free.

...

And with that announcement, the first public salvo has been fired: a real world corporation is loudly and actively asserting its real world intellectual property rights against Resident-made objects which allegedly infringes them. Many wondered when this moment would come, and though DMCA notices have been quietly filed by companies through Linden Lab, this is the first move I'm aware of that's being done in conjunction with an official move into Second Life, and a marketing offer.

Google's Gift of Taking

Absolutely:

It's not often that Google kills off one of its services, especially one which was announced with much fanfare at a big mainstream event like CES 2006. Yet Google Video's commercial aspirations have indeed been terminated: the company has announced that it will no longer be selling video content on the site. The news isn't all that surprising, given that Google's commercial video efforts were launched in rather poor shape and never managed to take off. The service seemed to only make the news when embarrassing things happened.

Yet now Google Video has given us a gift—a "proof of concept" in the form of yet another argument against DRM—and an argument for more reasonable laws governing copyright controls. How could Google's failure be our gain? Simple. By picking up its marbles and going home, Google just demonstrated how completely bizarre and anti-consumer DRM technology can be. Most importantly, by pulling the plug on the service, Google proved why consumers have to be allowed to circumvent copy controls.

DVD-Unlocking in Europe Ruled Lawful

I'd seen this decision, but missed its broader significance:

A Finnish Court has unanimously ruled that the Content Scrambling System (CSS) computer code, which unlocks DVD movies, is lawful in Europe. The decision was a first to interpret the legality of DVD decoding software under the 2001 European Copyright Directive.

...

What is so exciting about this week’s Finnish Court decision is that it will apply throughout the European Community, since it was an interpretation of the EU-wide Copyright Directive’s definition of the key term “effective” in Article 6. If CSS is not an “effective” technological protection measure regulated by the directive, then its decryption is lawful throughout the European Community.

Moreover:

Besides applying across the EU, European experts believe this ruling will apply across media platforms and not restricted only to DVDs.

I always said those Finns were an intelligent bunch.

Deranged Millennium Copyright Act

If you thought the DMCA was bad, take a look at this:

Attorney General Alberto Gonzales is pressing the U.S. Congress to enact a sweeping intellectual property bill that would increase criminal penalties for copyright infringement, including "attempts" to commit piracy.

The best bit, though, is the following:

* Create a new crime of life imprisonment for using pirated software. Anyone using counterfeit products who "recklessly causes or attempts to cause death" can be imprisoned for life. During a conference call, Justice Department officials gave the example of a hospital using pirated software instead of paying for it.

This would be funny if it weren't so sad: life imprisonment for using "pirated" software? What planet are they on? But I like to look on the bright side: in the face of this utterly deranged legislation, I think a lot of people are going to start looking rather favourable on free software....

Taking the DMCA Biscuit

This is almost Jesuitical in its contorted logic:

Media Rights Technologies and BlueBeat.com have issued cease and desist letters to both companies and to Adobe Systems Inc and Real Networks -- which produce the Adobe Flash Player and Real Player respectively -- for actively avoiding their X1 SeCure Recording Control, which they said is an effective copyright protection system.

MRT and Bluebeat said the failure to use an available copyright protection solution contravenes the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which prohibits the manufacture of any product or technology designed to circumvent a technological measure that effectively controls access to a copyrighted work or protects the rights of copyright owners.

How do they come up with this stuff?

13 AE 01 56 46 3C 13 30 2E 9E CA 2B 13 30 FE 14

No, it's not that number, it's my number:

First, we generate a fresh pseudorandom integer, just for you. Then we use your integer to encrypt a copyrighted haiku, thereby transforming your integer into a circumvention device capable of decrypting the haiku without your permission. We then give you all of our rights to decrypt the haiku using your integer. The DMCA does the rest.

The haiku is copyright 2007 by Edward W. Felten:

We own integers,
Says AACS LA.
You can own one too.

Here is your very own 128-bit integer, which we hereby deed to you:

13 AE 01 56 46 3C 13 30 2E 9E CA 2B 13 30 FE 14

Why Their Number is Up

There is an incredible - nay, pivotal - event unfolding on Digg. And it all revolves around a number. As the excellent Brownian Emotion explains:

This number is the key to unlocking the encryption for all high-definition DVDs, the possible successor to the popular DVD format. Using this key in a special program could allow one to copy an HD-DVD, and would thus violate the DMCA and the copyright of the content owners who produce those HD-DVDs.

Of course, the existence of this number is further demonstration of the fact that those in the content industry really don't understand technology: it was bound to be found, and once found, disseminated. But where the story gets really interesting is after those behind the broken HD-DVD technology started trying to block the publication of that number. As we know (from about 15 years of Internet history), this can't be done. But it turns out that it's even better than that. People started posting links to the number on Digg; Digg was then hit with legal orders to take those posts down, which it did. Digg was then flooded - utterly flooded - with posts about that number and diggs for those posts, until finally, Digg's Kevin Rose decided to do the brave thing:

after seeing hundreds of stories and reading thousands of comments, you’ve made it clear. You’d rather see Digg go down fighting than bow down to a bigger company. We hear you, and effective immediately we won’t delete stories or comments containing the code and will deal with whatever the consequences might be. If we lose, then what the hell, at least we died trying. Digg on, Kevin

Kudos, Kev. As a result, the Digg front page is currently awash with stories that contain the number, most with huge levels of diggs (to which I am proud to have added my widow's mite). This shows two things. First, when the diggnation get it into their head to make a point, there's little even Kev can do about it, short of shutting down the site. Secondly, that attempts to stop the publication of this kind of information is even more doomed than it was ten years ago. The reason is not just that Web 2.0 has given even more power to the digital people, but because of the nature of what is being published. It's a number: - pure information. There is simply no way that a number can be kept secret, as all the witty Digg postings which just "happen" to mention that particular number, show. Since everything in the digital world, ultimately, is a number, this also shows why it is impossible to stop the copying of any digital artefact: it's just a number, that has no meaning of itself, only through context and interpretation. So while a number might be the digital representation of a document or song or picture to you, to me it's just my favourite number. There is currently no law against sharing favourite numbers. And the Digg revolt shows what will happen if anyone is foolish enough to bring one in. For all those trying to defend digital content against copying in this way, their number is truly up.