Anger at last month's decision by the European Union and 22 of its member states to sign the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) has led to widespread protests, hacked Web sites, and legislators backing away from the treaty.
The anti-ACTA protests that saw Polish politicians don Guy Fawkes masks in parliament have borne fruit. After experiencing a considerable backlash in Poland, Prime Minister Donald Tusk has suspended ratification of the controversial agreement, acknowledging that the consultation surrounding it was inadequate and that he approached it from a "20th century perspective."
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Yesterday, several sports streaming sites had their domain names seized by the Department of Justice and Homeland Security’s ICE unit.
Leading up to the Super Bowl this weekend, a total of 307 domain names were seized, 16 of which provided access to online streams of popular sporting events.
Commenting on the actions, ICE Director John Morton was quick to declare victory, but perhaps this came a little too soon. Firstrow, one of the largest sites which had several of its domains taken over by the US government, is not planning to give up the ‘battle’ anytime soon.
Quickly after its firstrow.tv, firstrowsports.tv, firstrowsports.net and firstrowsports.com domains were seized, the service was operating as normal under a new domain – Firstrowsports.eu. Talking to TorrentFreak, one of the owners said that the US has stepped out of line by simply taking away their property.
“The US has prided itself on their ‘innocent before proven guilty’ mantra, yet is clearly hypocritical when it comes to this,” the Firstrow co-owner told us. “Numerous times the US has seized domains, before the defendants have been proven guilty in a court of law.”
“What is the point of trying to approve SOPA and PIPA if they do the same without these laws,” he questioned, referring to the pending US bills that would make it even easier to seize allegedly infringing domains.
The response of Firstrow stands in sharp contrast with that of ICE Director John Morton yesterday.
“In sports, players must abide by rules of the game, and in life, individuals must follow the laws of the land. Our message is simple: abiding by intellectual property rights laws is not optional; it’s the law,” Morton said.
This comment forms the base of the dispute. What is the law of the land? The people who operate Firstrow don’t live in the US, and neither are their servers located there. In fact, Firstrow says that their site is perfectly legal where they are based, so they will continue business as usual.
“Since we don’t live in a third-world country here, the courts decide if something is illegal not the entertainment industry lobbies. We will continue until a court decides that the site is illegal, but for now we’ve seen three court decisions on this matter that say it is not.”
Firstrow’s co-owner is referring to the court cases in Spain, where sites that merely link to copyrighted works have been declared legal. Rojadirecta, a site very similar to Firstrow, won in Spanish courts twice.
In the US, however, things work differently. Two operators of streaming sites have already been arrested and await criminal trials. And if the domains are linked to foreigners, the US believes it has the authority to take them over if they are deemed to infringe copyrights.
This stance has raised eyebrows among foreign governments. A few months ago the European Parliament adopted a resolution which criticized US domain name seizures. According to the resolution these measures need to be countered as they endanger “the integrity of the global internet and freedom of communication.”
Yesterday’s actions show that the US authorities are not impressed by the international critique, just as Firstrow refuses to change course after yet another domain seizure. Firstrow says ICE is wasting its time and continues to provide access to sports fans all across the world, who are otherwise unable to see their beloved games.
“ICE must have a lot of spare time if they can waste it on these domain seizures,” Firstrow’s co-owner says. “They should invest time in the real important stuff , instead of chasing people who have no other option than to watch a sports game for free.”
Source: Seized Sports Streaming Site Makes a Blazing Comeback
Additionally, Yonjo Quiroa, 28, of Comstock Park, Mich., was arrested Wednesday by special agents with HSI. He is charged with one count of criminal infringement of a copyright related to his operation of websites that illegally streamed live sporting event telecasts and pay-per-view events over the Internet. Quiroa operated nine of the 16 streaming websites that were seized, and he operated them from his home in Michigan until yesterday's arrest. The website seizures during Operation Fake Sweep represent the 10th phase of Operation In Our Sites, a sustained law enforcement initiative targeting counterfeiting and piracy on the Internet. The 307 websites are in the process of being seized by law enforcement, and will soon be in the custody of the federal government. Visitors to these websites will then find a seizure banner that notifies them that the domain name has been seized by federal authorities and educates them that willful copyright infringement is a federal crime.
On Thursday, 26th January, 2012, I signed the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) on behalf of the Republic of Slovenia, following the directive and authorisation of the Slovenian government. A somewhat longer clarification of the signature can be found on the Media section of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website, which explains the role of the Ministry and my role as the Slovenian Ambassador to Japan. This explanation states that I signed the agreement because I was instructed to do so by the government, and because it is a part of my job. And yet, why did I sign ACTA. Every day there is a barrage of questions in my inbox and on Facebook from mostly kind and somewhat baffled people, who cannot understand how it occurred to me to sign an agreement so damaging to the state and citizens. With this reply, which is of a purely personal nature and expresses only my personal views, I wish to respond to all those people, all my friends and acquaintances who have remained quiet, all Anonymous, and not least also to myself and to my children. I signed ACTA out of civic carelessness, because I did not pay enough attention. Quite simply, I did not clearly connect the agreement I had been instructed to sign with the agreement that, according to my own civic conviction, limits and withholds the freedom of engagement on the largest and most significant network in human history, and thus limits particularly the future of our children. I allowed myself a period of civic complacency, for a short time I unplugged myself from media reports from Slovenia, I took a break from Avaaz and its inflation of petitions, quite simply I allowed myself a rest. In my defence, I want to add that I very much needed this rest and that I am still having trouble gaining enough energy for the upcoming dragon year. At the same time, I am tackling a workload that increased, not lessened, with the advent of the current year. All in line with a motto that has become familiar to us all, likely not only diplomats: less for more. Less money and fewer people for more work. And then you overlook the significance of what you are signing. And you wake up the following morning with the weight of the unbearable lightness of some signature. First I apologised to my children. Then I tried to reply to those acquaintances and strangers who expressed their surprise and horror. Because there are more and more of them, I am responding to them publicly. I want to apologise because I carried out my official duty, but not my civic duty. I don’t know how many options I had with regard to not signing, but I could have tried. I did not. I missed an opportunity to fight for the right of conscientious objection on the part of us bureaucrats. But there is a second, very important reason why I am writing this. There has been a demonization of “some sneak”, that is me, who in far-off Tokyo secretly signed something on her own initiative. This was heard in the Slovenian parliament and in the Slovenian media, and it is spreading on the web. It is dangerous particularly because it conceals the responsibility of those who had the power to decide, and did in fact decide, that Slovenia would be a signatory of ACTA. This was decided by the Slovenian government and by the parliamentary committee for EU matters, and before that, Slovenia was for quite some time involved in coordinating the agreement. All this was done with too little transparency, judging by the outraged responses that have appeared following the signing. Back then, the Slovenian media did not demonise this decision to the same extent as they now demonise my signature. This I consider very dangerous for the continuous (non-)development of democracy in Slovenia. At the same time, this means that I was not the only one whose attention slipped, that we, as Slovenian citizens, neglected our civic duty. And that there may be a little known party in the Slovenian political space that missed an excellent opportunity to gain votes in the recently concluded electoral struggle. On Saturday, 4th February, a protest is planned in Ljubljana for those who object to the ratification of ACTA. The true concern and determination of those Slovenian citizens who feel that the agreement must be stopped will be reflected in the number of people who attend this protest. I would like to ask for somebody to please attend in my name. One of my concerned correspondents asked me what my brother, the late Dr. Janez Drnovsek , would have thought of my signature. The struggle to protect civic freedoms is most certainly in the spirit of his heritage, much more so than the removal or non-removal of some statue. Let my example be a cautionary tale of how swiftly we can make mistakes if we allow ourselves to slip. And if nothing else, we then sleep very badly. Helena Drnovsek Zorko
On Thursday, 26th January, 2012, I signed the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) on behalf of the Republic of Slovenia, following the directive and authorisation of the Slovenian government. A somewhat longer clarification of the signature can be found on the Media section of the Ministry of Foreign Affairs website, which explains the role of the Ministry and my role as the Slovenian Ambassador to Japan. This explanation states that I signed the agreement because I was instructed to do so by the government, and because it is a part of my job.
And yet, why did I sign ACTA. Every day there is a barrage of questions in my inbox and on Facebook from mostly kind and somewhat baffled people, who cannot understand how it occurred to me to sign an agreement so damaging to the state and citizens. With this reply, which is of a purely personal nature and expresses only my personal views, I wish to respond to all those people, all my friends and acquaintances who have remained quiet, all Anonymous, and not least also to myself and to my children.
I signed ACTA out of civic carelessness, because I did not pay enough attention. Quite simply, I did not clearly connect the agreement I had been instructed to sign with the agreement that, according to my own civic conviction, limits and withholds the freedom of engagement on the largest and most significant network in human history, and thus limits particularly the future of our children. I allowed myself a period of civic complacency, for a short time I unplugged myself from media reports from Slovenia, I took a break from Avaaz and its inflation of petitions, quite simply I allowed myself a rest. In my defence, I want to add that I very much needed this rest and that I am still having trouble gaining enough energy for the upcoming dragon year. At the same time, I am tackling a workload that increased, not lessened, with the advent of the current year. All in line with a motto that has become familiar to us all, likely not only diplomats: less for more. Less money and fewer people for more work. And then you overlook the significance of what you are signing. And you wake up the following morning with the weight of the unbearable lightness of some signature.
First I apologised to my children. Then I tried to reply to those acquaintances and strangers who expressed their surprise and horror. Because there are more and more of them, I am responding to them publicly. I want to apologise because I carried out my official duty, but not my civic duty. I don’t know how many options I had with regard to not signing, but I could have tried. I did not. I missed an opportunity to fight for the right of conscientious objection on the part of us bureaucrats.
But there is a second, very important reason why I am writing this. There has been a demonization of “some sneak”, that is me, who in far-off Tokyo secretly signed something on her own initiative. This was heard in the Slovenian parliament and in the Slovenian media, and it is spreading on the web. It is dangerous particularly because it conceals the responsibility of those who had the power to decide, and did in fact decide, that Slovenia would be a signatory of ACTA. This was decided by the Slovenian government and by the parliamentary committee for EU matters, and before that, Slovenia was for quite some time involved in coordinating the agreement. All this was done with too little transparency, judging by the outraged responses that have appeared following the signing. Back then, the Slovenian media did not demonise this decision to the same extent as they now demonise my signature. This I consider very dangerous for the continuous (non-)development of democracy in Slovenia. At the same time, this means that I was not the only one whose attention slipped, that we, as Slovenian citizens, neglected our civic duty. And that there may be a little known party in the Slovenian political space that missed an excellent opportunity to gain votes in the recently concluded electoral struggle.
On Saturday, 4th February, a protest is planned in Ljubljana for those who object to the ratification of ACTA. The true concern and determination of those Slovenian citizens who feel that the agreement must be stopped will be reflected in the number of people who attend this protest. I would like to ask for somebody to please attend in my name. One of my concerned correspondents asked me what my brother, the late Dr. Janez Drnovsek , would have thought of my signature. The struggle to protect civic freedoms is most certainly in the spirit of his heritage, much more so than the removal or non-removal of some statue. Let my example be a cautionary tale of how swiftly we can make mistakes if we allow ourselves to slip. And if nothing else, we then sleep very badly.
Helena Drnovsek Zorko
No Net Neutrality Protections. Forget your feelings about the FCC’s formal Open Internet Rules. An amendment by Rep. Marsha Blackburn would prevent any restrictions on network management, block any requirements to make connectivity available on a wholesale basis (which would increase competition), and stop the FCC from passing a rule allowing users to attach any non-harmful device to the network. As a result, the winner of the spectrum auction would be able to throttle, block, and discriminate however it sees fit – something that runs counter to any definition of network neutrality.No Safeguards Against Further Consolidation. It is no secret that one of the reasons that there are only four nationwide wireless carriers (and two dominant ones) is that only a few companies control most of the available spectrum in the United States. This amendment would prevent the FCC from making sure that new spectrum goes towards new or under-provisioned competitors instead of being further consolidated by AT&T and Verizon. That’s probably why AT&T is pushing so hard for this amendment.No Super-Wifi. One of the greatest boons of the transition from analog to digital TV broadcasting was supposed to be the creation of unlicensed “whitespaces” or “super-wifi.” This new spectrum – which is much better at communicating long distances and through walls than current wifi spectrum – would be used cooperatively by everyone and usher in a new era of wireless devices. However, a third amendment would destroy the FCC’s power to allocate some of this great spectrum for unlicensed uses. That means that opportunity would simply pass us by.
A key element of the political rhetoric around SOPA/PIPA was the idea that it was about jobs, and that jobs are so critical in the current economic climate that safeguarding them overrides any other concern the Net world might have about the means being proposed to do that. But then the key question becomes: who are really more important in terms of those jobs - the copyright industries, or companies exploiting the potential of the Internet that would be harmed if the Net were hobbled by new legislation?
A timely new McKinsey report entitled "Internet matters: The Net's sweeping impact on growth, jobs, and prosperity" provides us with some independent evidence on the topic. Here are the relevant findings: The Internet is a critical element of growth. Both our macroeconomic approach and our statistical approach show that, in the mature countries we studied, the Internet accounted for 10 percent of GDP growth over the past 15 years. And its influence is expanding. Over the past five years, the Internet’s contribution to GDP growth in these countries doubled to 21 percent. The latest information (pdf) from the International Intellectual Property Alliance (IIPA) claims the GDP contribution from the "core copyright industries" in the US in the years 2007-2010 went from 6.43% to 6.36% - that is, its contribution to the overall GDP was largely unchanged over this period. So the contribution of the "core copyright industries" to GDP growth over this period was also around 6%. The "core copyright industries" are defined as follows: The core industries are those industries whose primary purpose is to create, produce, distribute or exhibit copyright materials. These industries include newspapers and periodicals, motion pictures, recorded music, radio and television broadcasting, and computer software. That is, they include software companies, some of which are doubtless active on the Internet. So the contribution of the non-Internet core copyright industries to the GDP growth from 2007-2010 was less than the 6% figure above. That compares with an overall contribution of the Internet to GDP growth in the mature countries as a whole of 21% (but over five years, not four).
The Internet is a critical element of growth. Both our macroeconomic approach and our statistical approach show that, in the mature countries we studied, the Internet accounted for 10 percent of GDP growth over the past 15 years. And its influence is expanding. Over the past five years, the Internet’s contribution to GDP growth in these countries doubled to 21 percent.
The core industries are those industries whose primary purpose is to create, produce, distribute or exhibit copyright materials. These industries include newspapers and periodicals, motion pictures, recorded music, radio and television broadcasting, and computer software.
So what about the jobs? Here's McKinsey again: The Internet is a powerful catalyst for job creation. Some jobs have been destroyed by the emergence of the Internet. However, a detailed analysis of the French economy showed that while the Internet has destroyed 500,000 jobs over the past 15 years, it has created 1.2 million others, a net addition of 700,000 jobs or 2.4 jobs created for every job destroyed. This conclusion is supported by McKinsey’s global SME survey, which found 2.6 jobs were created for every one destroyed. Again, the IIPA report offers some figures: the core copyright industries employed 5,496,100 workers in 2007. These workers represented 3.99% of the total U.S. workforce in 2007. By 2010, the number of core copyright employees in the United States had declined by 398,500 workers to 5,097,600. In an earlier report (pdf), the number of people employed by the core copyright industries in 2002 is given as 5.48 million – roughly the same as in 2007. That is, whether or not the numbers are really representative, there was a net decline in the workforce of the "core copyright industries", which include software and probably some Internet companies, from 2002 to 2010.
The Internet is a powerful catalyst for job creation. Some jobs have been destroyed by the emergence of the Internet. However, a detailed analysis of the French economy showed that while the Internet has destroyed 500,000 jobs over the past 15 years, it has created 1.2 million others, a net addition of 700,000 jobs or 2.4 jobs created for every job destroyed. This conclusion is supported by McKinsey’s global SME survey, which found 2.6 jobs were created for every one destroyed.
the core copyright industries employed 5,496,100 workers in 2007. These workers represented 3.99% of the total U.S. workforce in 2007. By 2010, the number of core copyright employees in the United States had declined by 398,500 workers to 5,097,600.
By contrast, in France, whose population is roughly a fifth of that of the US, the Internet created some 700,000 jobs net. That was from 1995, but in the early years it is likely that relatively few jobs were created by the then-new Internet, so most of those 700,000 would have been created later on - say 400,000 for the last eight years. In the US, we might expect at least a pro rata number – 2.4 million jobs. That's probably an underestimate, since the US is in the Net vanguard, but even if it's an overestimate, the figure is likely to be much better than the net loss of the core copyright industries.
If the backers of SOPA and PIPA were really as concerned about jobs as they profess to be, they would be doing everything in their power to defend the Internet so as to preserve this incredible engine of growth, not attack it. And they would be pushing the copyright industries to embrace the Internet as rapidly and completely as possible, since the McKinsey report also points out: Although the Internet has resulted in significant value shifts between sectors in the global economy, our research demonstrates that all industries have benefited from the Web. Indeed, in McKinsey’s global SME survey, we found that 75 percent of the economic impact of the Internet arises from traditional companies that don’t define themselves as pure Internet players. The businesses that have seen the greatest value creation have benefits from innovation leading to higher productivity triggered by the Internet. Sounds like a perfect solution: instead of fighting the digital revolution tooth and nail, the copyright industries could embrace it like everyone else, stop demanding to be treated like a special case, and start innovating.
Although the Internet has resulted in significant value shifts between sectors in the global economy, our research demonstrates that all industries have benefited from the Web. Indeed, in McKinsey’s global SME survey, we found that 75 percent of the economic impact of the Internet arises from traditional companies that don’t define themselves as pure Internet players. The businesses that have seen the greatest value creation have benefits from innovation leading to higher productivity triggered by the Internet.
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Dear Hollywood,
You don’t need us to tell you that your position on anti-"piracy" laws has been unpopular recently. Last month’s historic protests, with millions of Americans registering their opposition, have made that point pretty clear. Instead, we’re writing today to tell you that the Internet can be great for creators and their community, but your own leadership refuses to recognize and take advantage of its promise. It seems they’d rather spend your membership dues on lawyers, lobbyists and astroturf than innovation. We suspect many of you are realizing this, especially when you see how successful new business models can be.
We humbly suggest that you stand up and tell them to either embrace the age of the Internet or get out of the way so that new, forward-thinking industry leaders can take their place.
Hollywood’s leadership painted the push for the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and the PROTECT IP Act (PIPA) as a defense of your jobs — a stance that was cynical at best, as they know the only jobs the bill would save were those of their lawyers. What is worse, by framing a stance against SOPA and PIPA as a betrayal of creators everywhere, they’ve poisoned the debate about the legislation and attempted to mislead you into fighting for bills that won’t put a dent in online infringement but will interfere with the development of ways for creators like you to profit from Internet technologies.
An honest discussion of proposed legislation needs to start with the questions: Is this law necessary? And is it the best solution to the problem? Americans stood up against SOPA and PIPA not because they are “corporate pawns,” as MPAA Chairman Chris Dodd says, but because the answer to both of these questions is a big no.
For one thing, although the studio heads and MPAA leadership claim this legislation is about your jobs, they’re curiously silent about the fact that entertainment spending and revenues are up across the board. In the words of one recent study, the sky isn’t falling — it’s rising. So if you’re concerned about your job, please realize the primary threat does not come from unauthorized downloading. The actor Wil Wheaton suggests that the problem might be closer to home:
I have lost more money to creative accounting, and American workers have lost more jobs to runaway production, than anything associated with what the MPAA calls piracy.
Moreover, as the publisher Tim O’Reilly has explained for a decade now, “obscurity is a far greater threat to authors and creative artists than piracy.” The Internet is the best tool for publicity and distribution the world has ever known – if you know how to use it.
And though the handful of executives at the top might not have realized that yet, individual creators among you have reached this conclusion and are already profiting from it. At last week’s Sundance festival, even as Dodd and others were lamenting the web’s impact on film, ten percent of the films were financed by pledges through the online fundraising platform Kickstarter. And after film, music projects are Kickstarter’s second largest funding recipients. The music publishing platform Bandcamp now regularly pays out a million dollars to artists each month through sales made on the site. Some of those sales are even made to people who were looking for free content, but were enticed by the friendly purchase process.
Even some label executives, like Craig Davis at EMI, have realized that unauthorized downloading is "a service issue." Or to put it simply, as the musician Jonathan Coulton has written: "Make good stuff, then make it easy for people to buy it. There’s your anti-piracy plan."
The tech community loves creativity, and it wants to support artists, but it’s got a real problem with the people who run Hollywood. As long as it’s worried about Hollywood leadership doing damage to civil liberties and online freedom, the kind of profitable partnerships we know are possible will be difficult to make.
We’ve seen this movie before, and we know how it ends. The right answer to the question that the Internet raised isn't to demonize the tech community and innovators. That strategy failed dramatically against earlier technologies like the VCR, which MPAA President Jack Valenti compared to "the Boston strangler" in a 1982 testimony to Congress. Of course, that innovation opened up the home video market, which is now the source of nearly half of all studio revenue.
SOPA and PIPA were a step in the wrong direction, but it’s not too late to turn this ship around. Please, tell your leaders to support innovation — or get new leaders.
Best of luck, The Internet
The transparency surrounding TPP must increase. If the public feels that the provisions included in TPP jeopardize the openness of the Internet, it will strongly oppose the adoption of TPP. To prevent this from happening, the negotiations concerning the IP chapter must become more transparent. Drafts must be made available online for public comment. The fact that in the past some trade negotiations have had little transparency is irrelevant. The SOPA experience demonstrates that a new era of public engagement in IP policy has begun
Internet users care deeply about its vitality. The overwhelming public opposition to SOPA and PIPA generated by just one day of online protests indicates that the members of the public will take strong and immediate political action to protect this medium which has become a central part of their lives at home, school, and work. IP, at least to the extent it intersects with the Internet, is no longer an issue of only narrow technical interest.
IP rules can have a significant impact on legitimate websites. The Internet democratizes commerce and communications. Platforms such as eBay or YouTube allow individuals and businesses of all sizes to reach large audiences and markets. But IP rules that place too heavy a legal burden on the platforms for user activities, as do SOPA and PIPA, will constrain the growth of this Twenty-First Century medium of trade and discourse. IP rules can affect international trade. The Internet does not recognize national boundaries. IP rules in one country can affect the operation of websites in another country. SOPA and PIPA would not only impose liability in the United States on non-U.S. websites that may be legal in their host countries; they also would interfere with the operation of these websites in their host countries. Provisions like SOPA and PIPA would allow countries – and indeed, individual companies – to erect trade barriers without following multilaterally agreed procedures with notice and due process.
Since announcing its uneasy compromise with censorship last week, Twitter has unsurprisingly taken a lot of heat–much of it on Twitter. The company blog raised flags immediately with its mealy-mouthed characterization of oppressive, censorious nations as places that merely have “different ideas about the contours of freedom of expression.” One of these nations, Thailand, has a particularly different idea about these contours–it thinks that if you disrespect their King, you should be imprisoned for up to 20 years (in the Internet age, this disrespect includes “liking” disrespectful Facebook content). This week, Thailand was the first country to high-five Twitter on their swell new policy. Can a gift-basket from Syria be far off?
The fact that Twitter is willing to cut a deal with the oppressive monarchs and tyrants of the world is unsettling at best, and an online protest movement has quickly mobilized. Hashtags like #TwitterCensored and #BoycottTwitter proliferated over the weekend, and groups including Reporters Without Borders condemned Twitter’s decision. But I’m not sure that they’re right.
The Internet hates censorship. Twitter is now the target of some of that hatred for its willingness to censor the Internet, but it is only willing to do so under certain conditions. When Twitter removes a tweet due to a government request, the tweet will be replaced with this:
I’ve never had the pleasure of being censored directly by my government. If I did, I can guarantee you this: I’d gain a lot of new Twitter followers. The Internet, let’s all say it together, hates censorship. But it also loves censorship. It loves finding and amplifying content that has been censored. Blogger Mike Masnick has dubbed this the Streisand Effect, after an infamous attempt by Babs to have a picture of her mansion removed from the Internet through legal threats. The result was the proliferation of said image across the world through blogs,and then newspapers, until millions had seen the diva’s digs.
Yes, Twitter has decided to work with censors, in effect becoming one. But Twitter has chosen to be a transparent censor. In addition to publicly displaying the above gray box when a tweet gets pulled, Twitter will also publish the “takedown” request they received from authorized government agents, through a partnership with Electronic Frontier Foundation’s Chilling Effects project. They will also inform the censored party about what has happened and who demanded it.
While citizens of the censorious nation in question will be blocked from viewing a banned tweet, the rest of the Internet will still be able to read it. Each time this happens, the narrative will shift from “random person says controversial thing on the Internet” to “government bans thing that random person said on the Internet, click here to read it.”
It’s an instant news story, every time. It will amplify the global reach of controversial content, and ultimately make governments think twice about censoring in the first place. I also suspect that at this very moment someone is coding an app that will instantly pull censored tweets from other nations through the use of I.P. proxies. It would also be cool to subscribe to a feed of censored tweets, to get a running ticker of the topics that are annoying the world’s insecure despots.
I’m not saying that Twitter is doing the right thing here. It might be a more principled (and uncomplicated) stand for Twitter to simply not offer its service in countries that lack free expression, thus shaming these backward nations and depriving them of access to one of the world’s most popular communications platforms. On the other hand, if you were a Syrian revolutionary, what would you prefer: a censored Twitter or no Twitter at all?
Let’s not sugar coat things: facing a moral quandry with reasonable arguments for either course of action, Twitter chose the path that lets them make more money. Yet it may also be setting a new and better standard for how Internet companies come to terms with the ever-bending “contours” of human rights around the world.
Jesse Brown is the host of TVO.org’s Search Engine podcast. He is on Twitter @jessebrown
Federal authorities said Thursday they had seized and shuttered 307 domains, 16 allegedly engaged in unauthorized live sports streaming and the remainder accused of selling fake professional sports merchandise, including National Football League paraphernalia.
The seizure, the biggest to date under the Immigration and Customs Enforcement crackdown known as Operation in Our Sites, (PDF) brings the total to more than 650 domains shuttered since the program began in June of 2010. The latest seizures, which quietly began in October, were announced days ahead of Super Sunday, when the New England Patriots play the New York Giants in the NFL Super Bowl, one of the world’s most popular sporting events.
Earlier today we reported that leading up to the Super Bowl this weekend, several sports streaming sites had their domain names seized by the Department of Justice and Homeland Security’s ICE unit.
At the time there was no official announcement from the authorities, but ICE has now confirmed that this, their 10th round of domain seizures, is being branded ‘Operation Fake Sweep.’
In total the authorities took down a record breaking 307 domain names. The majority, 291, sold counterfeit NFL merchandise and the remaining sites allegedly linked to copyrighted streams.
The full list of seized streaming domains is firstrow.tv, xonesports.tv, firstrowsports.tv, firstrowsports.net, firstrowsports.com, hq-streams.tv, robplay.tv, soccertvlive.net, sports95.net, sports95.com, sports95.org, sportswwe.net, sportswwe.tv, sportswwe.com, youwwe.net and youwwe.com.
In addition to the seizures, police also arrested 28-year old Yonjo Quiroa of Comstock Park, Michigan. According to the press release Quiroa is the owner of nine of the sixteen sites, which he operated from his home.
Responding to the arrest and domain seizures, ICE Director John Morton declared victory.
“While most people are focusing on whether the Patriots or Giants will win on Sunday, we at ICE have our sights on a different type of victory: defeating the international counterfeiting rings that illegally profit off of this event, the NFL, its players and sports fans,” Morton said.
“In sports, players must abide by rules of the game, and in life, individuals must follow the laws of the land. Our message is simple: abiding by intellectual property rights laws is not optional; it’s the law.”
NFL’s Vice President of Legal Affairs Anastasia Danias welcomed the support of the authorities.
“We are grateful for Homeland Security Investigations’ tireless efforts in combating intellectual property theft and are pleased to be working along with them and the Indianapolis Metropolitan Police Department on this important issue,” he said.
The controversial seizures which started early 2010 have now resulted in the takeover of 669 domain names. The majority of the sites in question offered counterfeit goods and three dozen were linked to copyright infringements. One domain name has been returned because it was seized by mistake.
Source: Feds Arrest Streaming Site Operator for Copyright Infringement
San Francisco - The Electronic Frontier Foundation (EFF) today formally requested the preservation of the data seized when the U.S. government shut down Megaupload.com and related sites, notifying the court and attorneys involved in the case that Megaupload's innocent users deserve a fair process to control and retrieve their lawful material.
"The government knows that Megaupload had many customers who followed the law. Yet it gave those users no notice that their data was at risk and no information about how they might be able to eventually get that data back," said EFF Staff Attorney Julie Samuels. "Our client, and the many other innocent Megaupload users, are entitled to a clear process for obtaining access to their own property, and the first step is to make sure that property is not deleted or damaged until the court can sort this out."
Instead of assisting the innocents caught up in the seizure, the U.S government summarily announced this week that it had finished its examination of Megaupload's servers and announced that the companies that owned those servers – Carpathia and Cogent – were free to delete the contents. The government even stated that deletions could start as soon as February 2, leaving innocent users with very little time to protect themselves. Thankfully, both hosting services have agreed not to destroy users' data for the time being, and it appears that Megaupload is trying in good faith to help users get access. But there is still no clear path for customers to get their content back.
"Megaupload's innocent users are entitled to access their property," said EFF Legal Director Cindy Cohn. "We hope that everyone involved can work together to comply with the law and ensure basic fairness to the millions of people who have done nothing wrong."
This week, Carpathia Hosting and EFF announced that Carpathia created a website at www.megaretrieval.com so that Megaupload’s lawful customers could contact EFF and provide information about the scope of the issue and the material made unavailable by the seizure. If you are one of these users, are based in the United States, and are looking for legal help retrieving your data, please email your contact information to megauploadmissing@eff.org.
For the full letter sent to the court:https://www.eff.org/document/letter-court
For more on this case:https://www.eff.org/cases/megaupload-data-seizure
Contacts:
Julie Samuels Staff Attorney Electronic Frontier Foundation julie@eff.org
Cindy Cohn Legal Director Electronic Frontier Foundation cindy@eff.org
Read more of this story at Slashdot.
Ars Technica's Nate Anderson takes a good look at the Trans-Pacific Partnership, the secret copyright treaty whose latest negotiation round just took place in Hollywood (see last night's post about the scandalous abuse of authority by the US Trade Rep in bullying the hotel to keep out civil society groups).
Now, this is a secret treaty, so we don't know most of what's going on in the room, but one jaw-dropping leak is that that the treaty contemplates requiring licenses for ephemeral copies made in a computer's buffer. That means that the buffers in your machine could need a separate, negotiated license for every playback of copyrighted works, and buffer designs that the entertainment industry doesn't like -- core technical architectures -- would become legally fraught because they'd require millions of license negotiations or they'd put users in danger of lawsuits.
This isn't the first time that buffer licensing was proposed. Way back in 1995, the Lehman white paper, proposed by Clinton's copyright czar to Al Gore's National Information Infrastructure committee, made the same demand. It was roundly rejected then, because the process was transparent and the people who would be adversely affected by it (that is, everyone) could see and object to it.
This is about legislating chip designs and software architecture, and the only people allowed in the room are entertainment execs. The future of silicon itself hangs in the balance. Will Intel and other giants demand a fair, transparent, equitable negotiation process?
Last year, versions of the TPP's US-written IP chapter leaked; its provisions went well beyond even ACTA, which was already the new high-water mark for IP enforcement. Where do things stand now? Are the other TPP countries on board with the US approach? Who knows! It's all secret. While ACTA at least claimed not to exceed US law, Flynn and other professors allege that the leaked TPP IP chapter does go beyond what's in US law, doing things like extending copyright protection even to temporary "buffer" copies so crucial to digital devices. As for USTR, it claims to be conducting "an unprecedented fifty-state domestic outreach strategy for TPP," and it's even hosting a largely worthless TPP blog. People can send comments to USTR through a special Web form, and negotiators do take in presentations from civil society groups on some occasions.
Last year, versions of the TPP's US-written IP chapter leaked; its provisions went well beyond even ACTA, which was already the new high-water mark for IP enforcement. Where do things stand now? Are the other TPP countries on board with the US approach? Who knows! It's all secret.
While ACTA at least claimed not to exceed US law, Flynn and other professors allege that the leaked TPP IP chapter does go beyond what's in US law, doing things like extending copyright protection even to temporary "buffer" copies so crucial to digital devices.
As for USTR, it claims to be conducting "an unprecedented fifty-state domestic outreach strategy for TPP," and it's even hosting a largely worthless TPP blog. People can send comments to USTR through a special Web form, and negotiators do take in presentations from civil society groups on some occasions.
Beyond ACTA: next secret copyright agreement negotiated this week—in Hollywood