iPhone Data Debunks Recording Industry's Report On How French Three Strikes Law Increased Sales

The annual Digital Music Report (pdf) of the International Federation for the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) is a curiously conflicted production. On the one hand, it must celebrate "a healthy 8 per cent increase in our digital revenues in 2011 -- the first time the annual growth rate has risen since records began in 2004 "; on the other, it must continue to push the party line about how the industry is being destroyed by piracy. 

On Techdirt.

Leading French Presidential Candidate Would Repeal HADOPI But Keep Net Surveillance

As a recent Techdirt post noted, France's HADOPI "three strikes" policy has effectively criminalized vast swathes of that country. Despite widespread opposition, the law was pushed through in 2009 by the current French President, Nicolas Sarkozy, as one of his pet projects - it's probably no coincidence that he is married to a pop singer. 

On Techdirt.

The Origins of Europe's Suicidal Copyright Policies

One of the most important recent pieces of research to appear in the field of copyright and its enforcement was "Media Piracy in Emerging Economies".  If you haven't read it, please do so now - I'll wait...

The author of that study, Joe Karaganis, has now penned perhaps the best short explanation of why Europe's policy on strong enforcement of copyright does not make economic sense:

where do the EU’s economic interests lie?  Let’s look at the numbers:

*** According to the World Bank, Europe’s audiovisual imports exceed its exports by a ratio of around 4-1.  In 2008, Europe (EU 27) imported roughly $14.7 billion in audiovisual and related services (basically, licenses for movies, TV, radio, and sound recording).  In contrast, it exported about $3.9 billion, for a net trade deficit of $10.8 billion  (International Trade Statistics 2010: 156).

*** About 56% of those imports ($8.35 billion) come from the US.  The EU, in turn, exports about $1.7 billion to the US, resulting in a net negative trade balance of around $6.65 billion.  This does not include software licenses, where US companies monopolize larger parts of the European consumer and business markets.

*** The US, in contrast, is a large net exporter of audiovisual goods, with roughly $13.6 billion in exports and $1.9 billion in imports.

 Therefore:

For countries or regions that are net importers of copyrighted goods, higher IP standards and stronger enforcement will result in increased payments to foreign rights holders.  Because the US thoroughly dominates European audiovisual markets, stronger enforcement in these areas is, in practice, enforcement on behalf of Hollywood.

So pirating of US audiovisual products actually reduces the outflow of money from the European economy.  Ah, yes, the industry pundits will retort, but what about the loss of revenue due to pirating of copyright works that circulate purely within the EU?

Domestic piracy may well impose losses on specific industrial sectors, but these are not losses to the larger national economy. Within a given country [or in this case, region], the piracy of domestic goods is a transfer of income, not a loss. Money saved by consumers or businesses on CDs, DVDs, or software will not disappear but rather be spent on other things—housing, food, other entertainment, other business expenses, and so on. These expenditures, in turn, will generate tax revenue, new jobs, infrastructural investments, and the range of other goods that are typically cited in the loss column of industry analyses. To make a case for national economic harms rather than narrower sectoral ones, the potential uses of lost revenue need to be compared: the foregone investment in the affected industries needs to represent a better potential economic outcome than the consumer surplus generated by piracy (Sanchez 2008). The net impact on the economy, properly understood, is the difference between the value of the two investments. Such comparisons lead into very complicated territory as marginal investments in different industries generate different contributions to growth and productivity. There has been no serious analysis of this issue, however, because the industry studies have ignored the consumer surplus, maintaining the fiction that domestic piracy represents an undiluted national economic loss.

For our part, we take seriously the possibility that the consumer surplus from piracy might be more productive, socially valuable, and/or job creating than additional investment in the software and media sectors. We think this likelihood increases in markets for entertainment goods, which contribute to growth but add little to productivity, and still further in countries that import most of their audiovisual goods and software—in short, virtually everywhere outside the United States.

This is a point I've made elsewhere, and which is almost universally overlooked in analyses of the economic impact of piracy.

The paper then provides a fascinating analysis of one particular industry, that of films.  It looks at what films are made in which countries, and who really benefits.  Not surprisingly, it reveals that the European film industry is completely in thrall to Hollywood, and it is this that is guiding copyright policy in Europe:

It’s this junior partnership that should be weighed against the wider sacrifices of privacy and freedom of speech built into so many recent national and EC-level IP enforcement policies, such as the French ’3-strikes’ plan, which will cut French citizens off of the Internet for the piracy of Hollywood productions.  Strong enforcement reinforces status quo positions in the market, but at an escalating public cost as consumer behavior becomes the real focus of enforcement activities.  There is nothing in these policies will alter the balance of cultural power or change the direction of payments.  That’s why I’ve characterized the EC enforcement plan as: “send money to the US.”

Moralizing IP rhetoric is also a handicap in this context.  Continuing to defend IP as a fundamental right long after it has been made an object of trade policy is to surrender any real leverage in making deals.  A trade negotiator would be very lucky have such a partner on the other side of the table.  

And that's precisely what the US has in Europe, not least thanks to Sarkozy, who has been the main proponent of Europe's counterproductive copyright infringement agenda.  The key statement of that topsy-turvy policy was made by him during the global joke known as the e-G8 meeting:

I know and understand that our french conception of author’s rights isn’t the same as in the United States or other countries. I simply want to say that we hold to the universal principles proclaimed in the American constitution as much as in the Declaration of the Rights of Man in 1789: that no one should have the product of their ideas, work, imagination–their intellectual property–expropriated with impunity.

Each of you understands what I say here because each of you is also a creator, and it is in virtue of these creator’s rights that you have founded businesses that today have become empires. The algorithms that give you your strength; this constant innovation that is your force; this technology that changes the world is your property, and nobody contests it. Each of you, each of us, can thus understand that the writer, the director, or the performer can have the same rights. – French President Sarkozy, opening the ‘e-G8? conference that he convened this past April.

As Karaganis points out:

With this fulsome praise of tech and media CEOs at the e-G8, Sarkozy expressed the basic European cognitive dissonance on IP:  the embrace of universal rights as a way of pretending equality with the real powers in the room.

The rest of his piece looks at how Europe ended up in this position where it would be arguing strenuously for an approach that was against its own best interests.  As such, it provides invaluable context for today's moves, and should be read by anyone wanting to understand them - and to counter them.

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Fighting Openness with New Corporate "Rights"

The opposition between openness and so-called "rights" - which are typically state-granted monopolies like copyright and patents - becomes clearer by the day. But it is extraordinary is that those holding those monopolies think they need more - not least to fight recent minor gains in the field of openness and transparency. Here's some deeply troubling news:

To what extent will a right-wing French MP sympathetic to big business and French government's ongoing manoeuvres to create a "corporate confidentiality" label endanger critical reporting on corporations and business transparency?

Last week, French right-wing MP Bernard Carayon in an interview for the website Rue89 boldly stated "I claim that the State and private companies should also benefit from physical persons' right to privacy. [...] Companies should be allowed to define for themselves which information remains secret [...]."

Specifically:

Carayon wants to increase protection for "economic information" by introducing a three-year prison sentence and a 375.000€ fine for anyone found guilty of breaching “the confidentiality of information of an economic nature".

This would clearly have a chilling effect on efforts by whistle-blowers to expose corporate wrong-doing. But it gets worse, much worse.

The French government, already one of the chief enemies of a free and open Internet (think HADOPI) wants all of Europe to give business this new "right":

the French government, through the Inter-ministerial Delegation on Economic Intelligence (a high-level informal body gathering officials from the Ministries of Defence, Interior, Research, Budget, Environment, Foreign Affairs and the Economy, and that now directly reports to the French Presidency), is also working with a number of big French business lobbies (Medef, AFEP, CDSE, CGPME, Chambers of Commerce...) to design new legislation intended to create a new legal label, “corporate confidentiality”, to protect corporate information that is not covered by existing intellectual property laws. According to the head of this body, Olivier Buquen, this will cover “all strategic information, which can be, depending on the company, a client's database, a business plan or the details of a partnership […] we wish to simplify legal procedures for companies, and to create penalties that are severe enough to act as a deterrent. Our text will foresee legal proceedings against whoever steals or leaks a company's key information.”

For a land that once believed in liberty and equality, never mind the fraternity, these are shameful proposals, and confirm the present French government's pro-big business, anti-consumer attitudes. We need to fight these now before they get too far in the system and thus harder to root out - do read the whole of the excellent and detailed post from which these excerpts were taken. (Via @CountCulture.)

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The Limits to Openness

Unless you live in certain countries or read certain newspapers, you will have been deluged over the last few days with “revelations” from those US diplomatic cables that have been released by Wikileaks (if you somehow missed all this fun, try this excellent “Wikileaks Cablegate Roundup”.)

On Open Enterprise blog.

The World of the Open World Forum

Last week I went along to the Open World Forum in Paris. By that, I don't mean to imply I just bowled along there on the off-chance it might be a groovy place to be. I went there because I had been asked to chair a round-table discussion on the subject of “Open Democracy”, about which more anon (disclosure: the conference organisers paid the majority of my travel and hotel costs as a result).

On Open Enterprise blog.

Are We Entering the Golden Age of Forks?

In July 1998, the Frenchman Gaël Duval released his new GNU/Linux distribution called Mandrake-Linux. It was a fork of Red Hat using the KDE desktop - something that Red Hat itself was unwilling to provide because at that time the underlying Qt libraries were not open source. In 2005, the company set up to develop Mandrake-Linux further, MandrakeSoft, purchased the Brazilian open source company Conectiva, and the resulting distribution of the combined forces was re-named Mandriva. And now Mandriva is returning to its roots as a fork by being forked, as a new distro called Mageia:

On Open Enterprise blog.

Big Win for GNU GPL in France

One of the fallback positions for purveyors of FUD is that the GNU GPL may not be valid, because it hasn't been properly tested in court. That's getting increasingly implausible as a stance. After being upheld in Germany a few times, here's a big decision in its favour in France:

In a landmark ruling that will set legal precedent, the Paris Court of Appeals decided last week that the company Edu4 violated the terms of the GNU General Public License (GPL) when it distributed binary copies of the remote desktop access software VNC but denied users access to its corresponding source code. The suit was filed by Association pour la formation professionnelle des adultes (AFPA), a French education organization.

...

The events of the case go back to early 2000, when Edu4 was hired to provide new computer equipment in AFPA's classrooms. Shortly thereafter, AFPA discovered that VNC was distributed with this equipment. Despite repeated requests, with mediation from the Free Software Foundation France, Edu4 refused to provide AFPA with the source code to this version of VNC. Furthermore, FSF France later discovered that Edu4 had removed copyright and license notices in the software. All of these activities violate the terms of the GNU GPL. AFPA filed suit in 2002 to protect its rights and obtain the source code.

There are a couple of important points about this decision. The first is noted in the post quoted above:

"what makes this ruling unique is the fact that the suit was filed by a user of the software, instead of a copyright holder. It's a commonly held belief that only the copyright holder of a work can enforce the license's terms - but that's not true in France. People who received software under the GNU GPL can also request compliance, since the license grants them rights from the authors."

The other point flows from this. The French legal system has many novel aspects, so it's important that the GNU GPL was upheld here, just as it was in Germany. It means that not only is the approach that the GPL takes being upheld by courts, it is being upheld in courts that look at things from different legal perspectives. That augurs well for future rulings in other jurisdictions.

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Has HADOPI Had It?

Well, not quite, but this judgment that its sanctions are unconstitutional certainly punches its teeth out:

Le Conseil constitutionnel a censuré, mercredi 10 juin, la partie sanction de la loi Hadopi - la "riposte graduée" - sur le téléchargement illégal. Considérant qu'"Internet est une composante de la liberté d'expression et de consommation", et qu'"en droit français c'est la présomption d'innocence qui prime", le Conseil rappelle que "c'est à la justice de prononcer une sanction lorsqu'il est établi qu'il y a des téléchargements illégaux". "Le rôle de la Haute autorité (Hadopi) est d'avertir le téléchargeur qu'il a été repéré, mais pas de le sanctionner", conclut le Conseil.

[Via Google Translate: The Constitutional Council censored, Wednesday June 10, the sanction of the law Hadopi - the "graduated response" - on illegal downloading. Considering that "the Internet is a component of freedom of expression and consumption", and "french law is the presumption of innocence which prevails, the Council recalled that" it is justice impose a sanction if it is established that there are illegal downloads.""The role of the High Authority (Hadopi) is to warn the downloader has been spotted, but not to punish,"]

So what will that nice M. Sarkozy do now?

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Has HADOPI Driven the French Insane?

One of the things I have been unable to understand is why the French, well known for their love of liberté, égalité, fraternité and all that jazz, seem hell-bent on getting rid of large chunks of said liberté in the digital sphere.

I refer, of course, to the infamous HADOPI law, which aims to deprive French citizens of their Internet connection purely on the say-so of French media companies. Doesn't sound like much égalité, fraternité there, does it? That's bad enough; but it seems that this bad legislation is leading to even worse knock-on consequences.

For example, it's emerged that the Head of the Web Innovation Centre for the French television company TF1 was fired for daring to write to his MP to express his opposition to the HADOPI law. Here's a good summary of what happened:

Yesterday’s Liberation carried a detailed report on the dismissal of a TF1 (Télévision française 1) employee for having expressed his opposition to the law. TF1 is a private TV network, whose boss Martin Bouygues is a close friend of Sarkozy. Jérôme Bourreau-Guggenheim was employed there in the web innovation unit. In February he wrote a personal mail to his MP, Françoise de Panafieu (UMP), expressing his opposition to the law and outlining his reasons as well as explaining his involvement in the sector. At the beginning of March he was summoned by his boss at TF1 online, Arnaud Bosom, who read his letter back to him, verbatim. Bosom explained that the letter had been forwarded to TF1’s legal adviser, Jean-Michel Counillon, by the Ministry of Culture! In April he was summoned to a disciplinary meeting and was sacked on April 16th.

Note that this was a personal opinion, expressed from home, and yet he lost his job because one of the strongest supporters of Sarkozy's drive against file sharing, Martin Bouygues, seems to think he has the right to tell his employees what to think, even outside work.

That's clearly outrageous, and I imagine that TF1 will regret the storm of protest it has provoked, and that maybe even a politician or two will find themselves in trouble. But other side-effects are more subtle – and more insidious.

The same site that carries the post about the TF1 sacking has this useful explanation of another knock-on effect of HADOPI:

An element of Hadopi which hasn’t received much or enough attention as yet, is a section which specifies steps that can be taken by computer users to ensure that they will not be found liable under the new regime. The following is a rough translation of the relevant sections, taken from the text of the law in its current state, as found here. Bear with me, it is torturous, some explanatory notes are added in bold…

« Art. L. 331-30. – After consultation with those developing security systems designed to prevent the illicit use of access to a communication service to the public online (internet!), or electronic communications, people whose business it to offer access to such a service as well as those companies governed by title 2 of the book (Intellectual Property Code) and rightsholders organizations (ie SACEM etc), the High Authority will make public the pertinent functional specifications that these measures must comprise so as to be considered, in its eyes, as valid exoneration of the responsibility of the access subscriber (internet user!) as defined in article L. 336-3.

At the end of a certified evaluation procedure, and taking into consideration conformity with the specifications set out in the previous paragraph and their effectiveness, the High Authority will issue a list certifying the security software whose use will validly exonerate the access holder (internet user!) from their responsibility under the terms of article L. 336-3. This certification will be periodically revised.

Mmmh. So what the law intends is to set up a meeting between security software vendors, antipiracy organizations and ISPs to decide what software you need to install on your machine, so that they can be sure that you behave yourself. If you don’t fancy installing their device, then you’ll just have to swallow any liability consequent to someone else using your machine or accessing your connection.

Now, one aspect not evident from the legalistic mumbo-jumbo above is that this spyware may well not support GNU/Linux:

The Assembly also postponed a handful of amendments that sought to exempt the subscriber if the system is not interoperable with software security, with the first assumption that it uses a system that is too old. An "old" Windows with expensive software installed on, for example. Or a free software ...

An amendment sought to nip in the bud the potential for discrimination technological and financial background of interoperability ( "the means of secure, freely available to consumers, are interoperable). But again, it was rejected by the rapporteur implacably Franck Riester and the Minister of Culture, Christine Albanel.

Now, normally I would assume that good sense would prevail, and that this casting into the outer darkness of GNU/Linux users would be rectified by those rational French people (after all, France is one of the biggest users of free software in the world). But given the rampant insanity that has broken out around HADOPI, I'm no longer confident that is the case. Instead, I fear that France is about to consign itself into the digital dark ages. Quel dommage.

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HADOPI Law Passed - by 12 Votes to 4

What a travesty of democracy:

Alors que le vote n'était pas prévu avant la semaine prochaine, les quelques députés présents à l'hémicycle à la fin de la discussion sur la loi Création et Internet ont été priés de passer immédiatement au vote, contrairement à l'usage. La loi a été adoptée, en attendant son passage en CMP puis au Conseil Constitutionnel.

On peine à en croire la démocratie dans laquelle on prétend vivre et écrire. Après 41 heures et 40 minutes d'une discussion passionnée sur le texte, il ne restait qu'une poignée de courageux députés autour de 22H45 jeudi soir lorsque l'Assemblée Nationale a décidé, sur instruction du secrétaire d'Etat Roger Karoutchi, de passer immédiatement au vote de la loi Création et Internet, qui n'était pas attendu avant la semaine prochaine. Un fait exceptionnel, qui permet de masquer le nombre important de députés UMP qui se seraient abstenus si le vote s'était fait, comme le veut la tradition, après les questions au gouvernment mardi soir. Ainsi l'a voulu Nicolas Sarkozy.

...

Quatre députés ont voté non (Martine Billard, Patrick Bloche et deux députés non identifiés), et une dizaine de mains se sont levées sur les bancs de la majorité pour voter oui. En tout, 16 députés étaient dans l'hémicycle au moment du vote.

[Via Google Translate: While the vote was not expected until next week, the few members in the chamber at the end of the discussion on the Creation and Internet law were invited to proceed immediately to vote, contrary to custom.The law was passed, until it passes then CMP in the Constitutional Council.

It is difficult to believe in democracy in which we aim to live and write. After 41 hours and 40 minutes of passionate discussion on the text, there remained only a handful of courageous members around 22:45 Thursday evening when the National Assembly decided, on the instructions of the Secretary of State Roger Karoutchi to pass immediately to vote on the Creation and Internet law, which was not expected before next week. One exception, which allows you to hide the large number of UMP deputies who would have abstained if the vote had been, as tradition dictates, after the government issues Tuesday night. Thus wished Nicolas Sarkozy.

...

Pack is voted. Four members voted no (Martine Billard, Patrick Bloche and two unidentified deputies), and a dozen hands were raised on the banks of the majority to vote yes. In all, 16 MPs were in the chamber for the vote.]

So one of the most important, and contentious piece of legislation in recent years is passed by trickery. In this way, those pushing this law have shown their true colours and their contempt for the democratic process.

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Save the European Internet – Write to Your MEPs

Things seem to be going from bad to worse with the EU's Telecoms Package. Now, not only do we have to contend with French attempts to push through its “three strikes and you're out” approach again, which the European Parliament threw out, but there are several other amendments that are being proposed that will effectively gut the Internet in Europe.

The Open Rights Group has a good summary of two of the main threats (also available from its Blackout Europe Facebook group):

One of the most controversial issues is that of the three-strikes strongly and continuously pushed by France in the EU Council. Although most of the dispositions introducing the graduate response system were rejected in first reading of the Telecom Package, there are still some alarming ones persisting. France is trying hard to get rid of Amendment 138 which seeks to protect users’ rights against the three-strikes sanctions and which, until now, has stopped the EU from applying the three-strikes policy. Also, some new amendments reintroduce the notion of lawful content, which will impose the obligation on ISPs to monitor content going through their networks.

The UK government is pushing for the “wikipedia amendments” (so-called because one of them has been created by cutting and pasting a text out of the wikipedia) in order to allow ISPs to make limited content offers. The UK amendments eliminate the text that gives users rights to access and distribute content, services and applications, replacing it with a text that says “there should be transparency of conditions under which services are provided, including information on the conditions to and/or use of applications and services, and of any traffic management policies.”

To these, we must now add at least one more, which the indispensable IPtegrity site has spotted:

Six MEPs have taken text supplied by the American telecoms multi-national, AT&T, and pasted it directly into amendments tabled to the Universal Services directive in the Telecoms Package. The six are Syed Kamall , Erika Mann, Edit Herczog , Zita Pleštinská , Andreas Schwab , and Jacques Toubon .

AT&T and its partner Verizon, want the regulators in Europe to keep their hands-off new network technologies which will provide the capability for broadband providers to restrict or limit users access to the Internet. They have got together with a group of other telecoms companies to lobby on this issue. Their demands pose a threat to the neutrality of the network, and at another level, to millions of web businesses in Europe.

As you can read, this is a grave danger for the Internet in Europe, because it would allow telecom companies to impose restrictions on the services they provide. That is, at will, they can discriminate against new services that threaten their existing offerings – and hence throttle online innovation. The Internet has grown so quickly, and become so useful, precisely because it is an end-to-end service: it does not take note of or discriminate between packets, it simply delivers them.

What is particularly surprising is that one of the MEPs putting forward this amendment is the UK's Syed Kamall, who has a technical background, and in the past has shown himself aware of the larger technological issues. I'm really not sure why he is involved in this blatant attempt by the telecoms companies to subvert the Internet in Europe.

Since he is one of my MEPs (he represents London), I've used the WriteToThem service to send him the following letter:

I was surprised and greatly disappointed to learn that you are proposing an amendment to the Telecoms Package that would have the consequence of destroying the network neutrality of the Internet – in many ways, its defining feature.

Your amendment 105, which requires network providers to inform users of restrictions and/or limitations on their communications services will allow companies to impose arbitrary blocks on Internet services; instead, we need to ensure that no such arbitrary restrictions are possible.

As the inventor of the Web, Sir Tim Berners-Lee, has pointed out when net neutrality was being debated in the US (http://dig.csail.mit.edu/breadcrumbs/node/144):

“When I invented the Web, I didn't have to ask anyone's permission. Now, hundreds of millions of people are using it freely. I am worried that that is going end in the USA.

I blogged on net neutrality before, and so did a lot of other people. ... Since then, some telecommunications companies spent a lot of money on public relations and TV ads, and the US House seems to have wavered from the path of preserving net neutrality. There has been some misinformation spread about. So here are some clarifications.

Net neutrality is this:

If I pay to connect to the Net with a certain quality of service, and you pay to connect with that or greater quality of service, then we can communicate at that level.

That's all. Its up to the ISPs to make sure they interoperate so that that happens.

Net Neutrality is NOT asking for the internet for free.

Net Neutrality is NOT saying that one shouldn't pay more money for high quality of service. We always have, and we always will

There have been suggestions that we don't need legislation because we haven't had it. These are nonsense, because in fact we have had net neutrality in the past -- it is only recently that real explicit threats have occurred.”

He concludes:

“Yes, regulation to keep the Internet open is regulation. And mostly, the Internet thrives on lack of regulation. But some basic values have to be preserved. For example, the market system depends on the rule that you can't photocopy money. Democracy depends on freedom of speech. Freedom of connection, with any application, to any party, is the fundamental social basis of the Internet, and, now, the society based on it.”

I'm afraid that what your amendment will do is to destroy that freedom. I am therefore asking you to withdraw your amendment, to preserve the freedom of the connection that allows new services to evolve, and innovations to be made without needing to ask permission of the companies providing the connection. Instead, the Internet needs net neutrality to be enshrined in law, and if possible, I would further request you and your colleagues to work towards this end.

If you are also based in London – or in a constituency represented by one of the five other MEPs mentioned in the IPtegrity story - I urge you to write a similar (but *not* identical) letter to them. It is vitally important these amendments be withdrawn, since most MEPs will be unaware of the damage they can do, and might well wave them through. Further letters to all MEPs will also be needed in due course, but I think it's best to concentrate on these particular amendments for the moment, since they are a new and distrubing development.

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South Korea Joins the "Three Strikes" Club

For years, the content industries having been trying to get laws passed that would stop people sharing files. For years they failed. And then they came up with the "three strikes and you're out" idea - and it is starting to be adopted around the world. First we had France, then countries like Italy, Ireland - and now South Korea:

On March 3, 2009, the National Assembly's Committee on Culture, Sports, Tourism, Broadcasting & Communications (CCSTB&C) passed a bill to revise the Copyright Law. The bill includes the so called, "three strikes out" or "graduated response" provision.

...

The provision gives authority to order ISP to send warning letters to the users, delete or stop transmission of illegal reproductions, suspend or terminate the accounts of the users, or close the bulletine boards to the Ministry. It also gives power to order information and telecommunication service providers to block connections to their information and telecommunication network of such ISPs.

...

The modified bill will be up for vote in April, and it is most likely that the bill pass in the National Assembly and come into force in April.

What's the secret? why has the "three strikes" idea caught on where others have failed? And what is the best way to stop it spreading further?

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EU Puts "Three Strikes" on Ice

Here's a turn-up for the books:

The European Commission is set to put proposals to tackle online piracy on ice until the end of its current mandate, following heavy pressure from telecoms companies and consumer organisations alike, EurActiv has learned.

The EU executive had been expected to bring forward two initiatives in the first half of 2009, both of which could have forced a more restrictive EU-wide approach to free and illegal downloading.

The most ancipated measure was a follow-up to a Communicationexternal on online content, presented at the beginning of 2008, which hinted at restrictive measures to curb online piracy. Proposals included a mandate for Internet service providers (ISPs) "to suspend or cut access to the web for those who illegally file-share," the so-called three-step model proposed by France (EurActiv 10/12/07).

That's surprising, but what's really striking is the reason for this pause:

Brussels had planned to present actual proposals in the form of a recommendation in April. But now the plan has been frozen "after a radicalisation of the debate which has left no space for manoeuvre," a Commission official told EurActiv, referring to strong lobbying by the content industry (in particular music), supported mainly by France, in negotiations over the telecoms package.

"There will be no recommendation. The Commission will only later present issue papers," which may be used by the next Commission after it is sworn in at the end of 2009 or in 2010, explained Martin Selmayr, spokesman for Viviane Reding, the EU's information society commissioner.
This suggests the increasingly outrageous demans from the content industries have been their own undoing. Perhaps the era in which lobbyists can dictate legislation at will is finally coming to a close.

But we're not in the clear yet:

Consumers can rejoice too, although restrictive measures at national level are planned in many EU countries. Meanwhile, a new EU-wide attempt to regulate may be made during the current negotiations over the telecoms package, where the Council and the Parliament have the final say.

The fight goes on.

Keeping the Czechs in Check

Hm, looks like bad news from the Czech Republic:

Die tschechische EU-Ratspräsidentschaft hat sich für die kommenden sechs Monate auch auf den Gebieten der IKT und Bürgerrechte viel vorgenommen. Beim Schutz des "geistigen Eigentums" und der Neuordnung des EU-Telekommunikationsmarkts wollen die Tschechen auf der Vorarbeit der Franzosen aufbauen.

Die EU hat 2009 zum Europäischen Jahr der Kreativität ausgerufen. Dass es dabei auch um den Schutz des "geistigen Eigentums" geht, versteht sich von selbst.

So hat die tschechische EU-Ratspräsidentschaft in ihre Prioritätenliste für die kommenden sechs Monate unter dem Punkt "Entfernung von Handelsbarrieren" auch das umstrittene Anti-Piratierie-Abkommen ACTA aufgenommen, das derzeit hinter verschlossenen Türen von EU-Kommission, US-Unterhändlern und Vertretern weiterer wichtiger Industriestaaten ausgehandelt wird.

[Via Google Translate: The Czech EU presidency has opted for the next six months also in the areas of ICT and Citizens' lot. As regards the protection of "intellectual property" and the reorganization of the EU telecommunications market to the Czechs on the preparatory work of the French build.

The EU has 2009 at the European Year of Creativity exclaimed. That it will also ensure the protection of "intellectual property" goes, goes without saying

Thus, the Czech EU presidency in their list of priorities for the coming six months, under the item "Removal of trade barriers", the controversial anti-Piratierie ACTA agreement, which is currently behind closed doors of the EU Commission, U.S. negotiators and representatives of other major industrialized countries will be negotiated.]

And as if intellectual monopolies and ACTA weren't enough:

"Die tschechische Ratspräsidentschaft wird auf ihrer aktiven Kooperation mit der französischen Ratspräsidentschaft aufbauen", heißt es dazu im Arbeitsprogramm aus Prag. Man werde sich um einen Kompromiss zwischen den Positionen des Rats und des Parlaments bemühen. Nur Österreich und Dänemark hatten sich auf der Ratssitzung im November dafür ausgesprochen, Zusatz 138 in der Universaldienstrichtlinie zu behalten. Der französische Vorsitz sorgte dafür, dass der Zusatz in der endgültigen Fassung entfernt wurde.

["The Czech presidency is at its active cooperation with the French Presidency Building," puts it in the work program from Prague. It will be a compromise between the positions of the Council and Parliament endeavor. Only Austria and Denmark had to the Council meeting in November, called for additional 138 in the Universal Service Directive to keep. The French Presidency has ensured that the addition in the final version has been removed.]

And to round things off:

Weit oben auf der Agenda der tschechischen Ratspräsidentschaft steht auch das Thema Kinderschutz und Internet. Zu diesem Thema soll es informelle Ministertreffen in Prag geben; auch hier wollen sich die Tschechen eng an die Vorarbeit der französischen Regierung halten.

[High on the agenda of the Czech presidency is also the issue of child protection and the Internet. On this issue, should it informal ministerial meeting in Prague type; also want the Czechs closely the preparatory work of the French government hold.]

This could be bad, people: start preparing the pushback.

Share This: The Internet is a Right

“They order, said I, this matter better in France.” So wrote Laurence Sterne in his 1768 book A Sentimental Journey Through France and Italy. Alas, things have changed much since then, at least as far as the Internet is concerned. In the light of recent events, now he would we have to say: they order this matter worse in France. Even more unfortunately, France's bad habits are spreading, and could have serious consequences for free software....

On Linux Journal.

Whatever Happened to La Liberté?

What on earth have the French got against the Internet? First the "three strikes and you're out", and now this:

The Soviet Internet where all software that runs on the internet needs to be certified by the State has arrived in France. The rapporteur over the law Hadopi (Internet and Creations) in the French Senate, Mr Tholliere (UMP, same party as Sarkozy), is proposing that all software running on the internet should have a stamp from the State in order to be legal.

I blame that Sarko, myself.

Thinking the World of Firefox 3

On Open Enterprise blog.

Polishing the Firefox 3.0 Download Pledge

Pledging to download Firefox 3 tomorrow is clearly a totally pointless activity (yes, I've done it, anyway), and yet some interesting factoids can be gleaned from the relevant page.

For example, despite - or maybe because of - its dismal showing in overal installed base, the UK's pledges stand at a decent 54,000 currently. This compares fairly well with Germany (55,000), Italy (56,000) and France (69,000). The real surprise, for me at least, is Poland, currently on 90,000: impressive.

OpenOffice.org Storms Away – on the Continent

On Open Enterprise blog.