skip to main |
skip to sidebar
Last week we reported on the suspension
of Hadopi's one and only suspension, as France moved away from using
Internet disconnection as a punishment. That manifest failure of the
scheme that pioneered the three strikes approach makes a new paper from
the Australian scholar Rebecca Giblin, called "Evaluating graduated response",
particularly timely. As its title suggests, this is a review of the
three strikes approach in the light of the experiences in the five
countries that have adopted it: France, New Zealand, Taiwan, South Korea
and the UK -- even though the latter has still not put it into
practice.
On
Techdirt.
Back in June we wrote about Hadopi's first and only successful disconnection
case. As we also noted then, in the wake of its abject failure, Hadopi
was being dramatically curtailed. In particular, disconnection is no
longer available as a punishment for those alleged to have downloaded
files without authorization.
On
Techdirt.
Techdirt readers may recall that over three years ago, the UK's Digital Economy Act was passed in totally disgraceful
circumstances. Since then, almost nothing has been heard about it, as
British civil servants grapple with the fact that this poorly-drafted
law is almost impossible to implement in any sensible way. If you were
wondering what is going on behind the scenes, James Firth has put
together a fascinating post piecing together the information that he was
able to glean. The main point is that the UK's "three-strike" warning letters won't be going out for years:
On
Techdirt.
As Mike noted a couple of days ago, international trade agreements often have the effect of constraining
the power of national legislatures. Indeed, that's doubtless one of
the reasons why they have become so popular in recent years: they allow
backroom deals between politicians and lobbyists to set the agenda for
law-making around the world, without the need for any of that pesky
democratic oversight nonsense. In particular, the trade agreement
between South Korea and the US is turning out to be a key limiting factor for both TPP and what US politicians might try to do about phone unlocking. This makes two recent moves to loosen South Korea's harsh copyright laws potentially important far beyond that country's borders.
On
Techdirt.
As Techdirt noted last year, France has a regrettable habit of dreaming up really bad ideas
when it comes to the Internet, most famously with the three-strikes
scheme, now known there by the name of the body the oversees it --
Hadopi. Guillaume Champeau points us to a piece in the French newspaper Libération, which contains yet more appalling possibilities (original in French).
On
Techdirt.
New Zealand has the unhappy distinction of being in the vanguard of
using the "three strikes" approach of punishment for people accused of
sharing unauthorized copies online. As in France and the UK, this was
brought in without any preparatory research to ascertain its
effectiveness, and without any real thought about the practical
implications. That makes a post by Susan Chalmers on the blog of
InternetNZ, a "non-profit open membership organisation dedicated to
protecting and promoting the Internet in New Zealand", particularly
valuable.
On
Techdirt.
Not content with giving the world the "three strikes" approach to
copyright enforcement, France has recently shown signs of wanting to
undermine one of the Internet's foundations: net neutrality. This has
come about as a consequence of the French ISP Free's decision to block
ads on its service. As Mike noted,
this was essentially an attempt to persuade Google to pay the ISP an
extra fee to carry its traffic, even though Free's customers already do
that. That was resolved, at least for the moment, when France's Digital Economy minister Fleur Pellerin stepped in and persuaded Free to restore the ads.
On
Techdirt.
One of the extraordinary aspects of the "three strikes" approach to
copyright enforcement is its blind vindictiveness. After three or so
alleged acts of infringing on copyright, it's not one individual that's
punished, but the entire household that depends on the family Internet
connection in question, irrespective of the personal situation of those
affected. This kind of collective punishment is something that is
regarded as abhorrent in other contexts, but the power of the copyright
industries is such that several governments around the world followed
the French lead and introduced precisely this kind of scheme, and to
hell with the damage it might cause to innocent and vulnerable people
caught up in it.
Techdirt.
One of the biggest problems with the current approach to dealing with
alleged copyright infringement is the totally disproportionate nature
of the action undertaken in response to it. The "three strikes"
collective punishment of households that is available in France, New Zealand and South Korea is one example of this. From Finland, we learn about another completely over-the-top action:
On
Techdirt.
Last week, Techdirt wrote about a US teenager being banned
from using the Internet until his 21st birthday as punishment for his
involvement with some Web site break-ins. That seems incredibly harsh,
and as Mike noted, earlier bans have been tossed out on the grounds that they were unreasonable.
On
Techdirt.
The implicit justification for various new copyright enforcement
laws, such as the "three strikes" approach, is that they will encourage
people to buy more authorized digital goods and thus support artists and
their works. Naturally, those in favor of this logic like to produce
figures that purport to show that it is working.
On
Techdirt.
As Techdirt noted
recently, policy-making behind closed doors is no longer acceptable.
Until the end of the 20th century, it was hard for the general public to
make their views heard, and so governments didn't really bother asking
them. But that's no longer the case: the Internet has blown government
wide open, and there is now no excuse for not consulting as widely as
possible -- including the public -- before passing legislation or
signing treaties.
On
Techdirt.
Nicolas Sarkozy, the President of France, has the sad distinction of
being in the vanguard when it comes to really bad ideas concerning the
Internet. On his initiative, France became the testing-ground for the
three-strikes approach of throwing people off the Internet upon multiple
accusations of copyright infringement, without the need for proof or a
court order, known there as HADOPI. He also helped put into circulation a view that is much in vogue at the moment:
On
Techdirt.
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.
One of the useful side-effects of the groundswell of protest against
SOPA and PIPA is that a surprising number of people in positions of
power have come out against their approach, notably in Europe. First,
we had Neelie Kroes, Vice President of the European Commission
responsible for the Digital Agenda for Europe, who tweeted:
On
Techdirt.
Perhaps there's something about the German legal system that encourages
judges to push their interpretation of the law to the limit, without any
concern for whether the results of that logic are absurd. At least
that is the impression you might get from two recent cases whose
judgments both make use of the internet by ordinary citizens increasing
fraught with legal risks.
On
Techdirt.
The contentious nature of the "three strikes" response to unauthorized
sharing of copyright materials can be seen by the legal battles being
fought around it across Europe. That's particularly the case in
Ireland, which has emerged as a key testing ground for the approach and
its legality.
On
Techdirt.
Posts
