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An open letter from Boards.ie to Minister Sean Sherlock
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So I've been sending emails to all the ministers and only one of them had the courtesy to reply.
Here it is if anyone is interested:Hi there,
Thank you for your e-mail. There has been a lot of correspondence received on this issue, which I have been following very closely and which I will continue to do.
I have asked a Parliamentary Question this week seeking detailed information from Minister Sherlock's department on the issue, which should be answered in the coming days.
Minister Sherlock has issued a statement (see below my signature and contact information) about the issue to clarify what he is trying to do.
The Statutory Instrument that has been released today also states that -
"In considering an application for an injunction under this subsection, the court shall have due regard to the rights of any person likely to be affected by virtue of the grant of any such injunction and the court shall grant such directions (including, where appropriate, a direction requiring a person to be notified of the application) as the court considers appropriate in all the circumstances.".
The full Statutory Instrument can be seen here - http://www.djei.ie/press/2012/20120126a.htm
You can be certain that I will continue to observe the issues surrounding digital copyright carefully.
Yours sincerely,
__________________________
Seán Kenny, T.D.
44 Woodbine Road, Raheny, Dublin 5
Ph. (Home) 01 8481806; (Dáil) 01 6183744
Contact detail: email sean.kenny@oir.ie or info@seankenny.ie
Web www.seankenny.ie0 -
OK i will deal with your issues, I have allready and no one showed how I may be incorrect.
1. It is vague in the extreme. There are no details of what is considered a transgression. It isn't clear if the site targeted will even be informed of the proceedings.
Yes so is the Directive, it is vague because the Law on Injunctions is very clear, in Ireland.
2. The mere threat that allowing a user to post content could land the service in court will ensure that no service allows it. The implications are no more social media for Ireland, who the hell is going to take that risk?? This scares us greatly but will TERRIFY the likes of Google, Twitter, Facebook. Of course we have to stay here and live with it. They and their thousands of jobs, don't.
If Google which has an office in Ireland is so worried, why has it not spoken out, simple unlike the SOPA they know that the Irish High COurt will not allow this law to be abused, as they have discovered in the past.
3. Its not fair. This is akin to letting Bank of Ireland take proceedings against the National Toll Roads Ltd when a getaway-driver uses the M50. Pretty soon, no one will want to build roads.
It is nothing like that, it allows a copyright owner, to get an injunction to stop a third party assist in the stealing of their property. What it is more like is requesting from the High Court and order, to tell NTR to not allow a named car pass through the Toll until AGS arrive
4. It kills innovation and scares away foreign investment. Boards might have the clout and money to fight some of these injunctions. Smaller operators simply won’t.
This directive has been in the EU since 2001, I can not see how the allowing of the stealing of someones property to be a killer to investment.
5. This wont even work. This will take the pirates 10 minutes to circumvent and I can demonstrate that easily if anyone wants to see.
Yes of course you are right, in the same way making murder or drug dealing illegal does not stop either.
BTW if I am wrong and boards.ie ever unfairly have an injunction granted against it, I will free of charge arrange for a solicitor, myself as barrister and one of the SC in constitutional law to represent you.0 -
I know I'm not going to succeed in changing your mind but I'll try using an example from my work.ResearchWill wrote: »I have also seen lawyers say they did not know how the minister could bring this in by SI, the 1972 Act has been around for 40 years what lawyer would not know that most directives come in by way of SI.
If the law is bad, then it will be challenged in the High Court and if needs be will be struck down. My own opinion of our Dail is they could not pass a good well written Act if we paid them, which we do and they still don't. But I am still waiting for someone to show me how this SI is illegal or does not reflect the directive or goes beyond the directive.
To be honest I bet most people have not read the 1972 Act, the directive and the SI, but yet have opinions on it. No wonder this country went property mad despite the evidence to the contrary. Please anyone a good argument why this SI is wrong any well thought out argument please.
ICH Q7A states that "3.23 Smoking, eating, drinking, chewing and the storage of food should be restricted to certain designated areas separate from the manufacturing areas." that was brought into EU law and hence to Irish law by SI so we have to comply with that.
I'm a lazy Quality person so I introduce an SOP (local law in effect) that states "no Food, Drinks, Snacks or Cigarettes shall be brought on site, any employee found with such will be subject to immediate dismissal for Gross misconduct". My site has well established procedures for dealing with gross misconduct and everyone has agreed in their contract to obey SOPs and management sign off on my SOP. So we comply with the legislation but it is completely unworkable. People need to eat during work, they may have food or drink in their cars which are parked on site etc.
"(5A)(a) without prejudice to subsections (3) and (4), the owner of the copyright in the work concerned may apply to the High Court for an injunction against a person who provides facilities referred to in subsection (3) where those facilities are being used by one or more third parties to infringe the copyright in that work" well that seems to me like my SOP above, it covers the specific but is far to broad to work.
Yes it can be challenged in the High Court but that costs everyone including all of us tax payers. Why not just consult and find something that will work and not lead to years of court cases?0 -
I know I'm not going to succeed in changing your mind but I'll try using an example from my work.
ICH Q7A states that "3.23 Smoking, eating, drinking, chewing and the storage of food should be restricted to certain designated areas separate from the manufacturing areas." that was brought into EU law and hence to Irish law by SI so we have to comply with that.
I'm a lazy Quality person so I introduce an SOP (local law in effect) that states "no Food, Drinks, Snacks or Cigarettes shall be brought on site, any employee found with such will be subject to immediate dismissal for Gross misconduct". My site has well established procedures for dealing with gross misconduct and everyone has agreed in their contract to obey SOPs and management sign off on my SOP. So we comply with the legislation but it is completely unworkable. People need to eat during work, they may have food or drink in their cars which are parked on site etc.
"(5A)(a) without prejudice to subsections (3) and (4), the owner of the copyright in the work concerned may apply to the High Court for an injunction against a person who provides facilities referred to in subsection (3) where those facilities are being used by one or more third parties to infringe the copyright in that work" well that seems to me like my SOP above, it covers the specific but is far to broad to work.
Yes it can be challenged in the High Court but that costs everyone including all of us tax payers. Why not just consult and find something that will work and not lead to years of court cases?
How is it to broad, it allows Copyright owners to seek an injunction against a service provider who is allowing his work to be stolen.
The Directive says "Member States shall ensure that rightholders are in a position to apply for an injunction against intermediaries whose services are used by a third party to infringe a copyright or related right."
It was thought in Ireland that copyright holders had this right, untill Charleton said nope, so all this SI needs to do is say that these people have a right that we all thought they had, and which they have in the rest of the EU.
Any injunction must comply with the current law on injunctions, if the SI had said what applied and did not then such injunctions would have had to operate within the four walls of the SI, as it is any injunction must satisfy the current law on injunctions.0 -
5. This wont even work. This will take the pirates 10 minutes to circumvent and I can demonstrate that easily if anyone wants to see.
Yes of course you are right, in the same way making murder or drug dealing illegal does not stop either.
Are you comparing pirates to murderers and drug dealers?0 -
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Hey guys, I found this user, I think he/she/they are new, but they are the first Irish Anonymous Twitter account that I've seen?
Anyway, I think it'd be a good idea to help 'em, let's follow their account, shall we?
Link here --> Removed
It's fairly easy to tell who made that account, Seamus. Keep the spam to twitter. Same goes for the infowars conspiracy theorist. I don't think anyone is here to read of new world orders or anonymous_ireland a.k.a craddy96 a.k.a Seamus the 16/17 year old internet "activist".
Good work to everyone else though. Have signed the petition and shared the links once again which has inspired others to do the same and also contact their TDs.
It's a shame the national media seemed to want to ignore this, but there you go I suppose. 50,000 people protesting at something isn't newsworthy in Ireland apparently.0 -
investment wrote: »where are anoymous when we need them??
Sean Sherlock is a little ****, who is trying to be the big man. he's only out of college since 2007 and passing landmark laws in 2012:rolleyes:
http://www.joe.ie/news-politics/current-affairs/hacktivists-from-anonymous-take-down-irish-government-websites-0019974-10 -
Citizen_Kane wrote: »I think that the focus of messages to them should stay on the theme of freedom and democracy. If enough people raise these points, these may rightfully become the fulcrum of debate.
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I'd suggest focusing on the money might also get their attention - how much the tech industry boosts our economy vs the entertainment industry0 -
Because as in my example people might have food etc. in their car that someone else left there and they are unaware of. Bob does not like Paul and happens to notice that Paul's kids left sweets in the boot of the car in a bag and reports Paul to the company. Bob is fired for gross misconduct, he's in clear breach of the policy. This is obviously contrary to all sorts of other laws so Bob goes to court.ResearchWill wrote: »How is it to broad, it allows Copyright owners to seek an injunction against a service provider who is allowing his work to be stolen.
The Directive says "Member States shall ensure that rightholders are in a position to apply for an injunction against intermediaries whose services are used by a third party to infringe a copyright or related right."
It was thought in Ireland that copyright holders had this right, untill Charleton said nope, so all this SI needs to do is say that these people have a right that we all thought they had, and which they have in the rest of the EU.
Any injunction must comply with the current law on injunctions, if the SI had said what applied and did not then such injunctions would have had to operate within the four walls of the SI, as it is any injunction must satisfy the current law on injunctions.
Paul eventually wins the case but he's out of work all that time and no one wants to hire him while he is in legal action against another company, in future when applying for jobs he ha to explain what happened and other companies decide to avoid the hassle of a litigious employee, they don't give that as a reason but it's there, they find other reasons. He gets compensation but in the meantime the company with the unenforceable rule gets shut down with everyone including Bob losing their jobs because corporate decides it's too much trouble to do business with a company that enforces rules like that. Everyone loses except the lawyers. All because I want to comply with the legislation and don't think about the consequences of what I have written.
In real life what happens is someone points out to me that what I have written is a bad idea because sometimes people do not actually have control over what other people do and so I amend the SOP to something that works. That is happening now and the government is just ignoring it0 -
Signed the petition too and highlighted the plight on my Facebook page but I hope I don't go to the big house and end up sharing a cell with Big Bubba for copying and pasting.0
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Are you comparing pirates to murderers and drug dealers?
No, what I was saying is that just because a law will not work is no reason to bring in a law. The other poster said the law will not work, and that was a good reason not to implement the law.
I currently have no view on this issue, I have put out the argument for the SI, and requested anyone to post the arguments against the SI. I have posted all the relevant legislation, and just asked that before people charge against something at least have a good argument against it. Not just bland statements but well thought out argument.
If a person does not agree with copyright holders being allowed to protect their property, I can understand that, I can agree with many of the founders of the computer world, e-mail, the world wide web, unix to name a few, who gave their inventions free of charge to the world.
But if you agree with the right of copyright holders to protect their property, then why should they not have the right to seek injunctions to so protect that property.0 -
Because as in my example people might have food etc. in their car that someone else left there and they are unaware of. Bob does not like Paul and happens to notice that Paul's kids left sweets in the boot of the car in a bag and reports Paul to the company. Bob is fired for gross misconduct, he's in clear breach of the policy. This is obviously contrary to all sorts of other laws so Bob goes to court.
Paul eventually wins the case but he's out of work all that time and no one wants to hire him while he is in legal action against another company, in future when applying for jobs he ha to explain what happened and other companies decide to avoid the hassle of a litigious employee, they don't give that as a reason but it's there, they find other reasons. He gets compensation but in the meantime the company with the unenforceable rule gets shut down with everyone including Bob losing their jobs because corporate decides it's too much trouble to do business with a company that enforces rules like that. Everyone loses except the lawyers. All because I want to comply with the legislation and don't think about the consequences of what I have written.
In real life what happens is someone points out to me that what I have written is a bad idea because sometimes people do not actually have control over what other people do and so I amend the SOP to something that works. That is happening now and the government is just ignoring it
In your example the employee can get a injunction to stop his company firing him, see an injunction.
This SI does not allow the high court to shut any company down, it allows an injunction to be granted, which can be challanged by the person the injunction is against.
Last weekend we all saw the risk anyone takes if they seek injunctions where it would be unfair to grant one.0 -
@ResearchWill
Why would any small company/entrepreneur risk starting a new site/service on the internet here in Ireland (for example something like Youtube), if there's a good chance his service will be stopped/blocked if there's a single complaint from media companies with deep pockets.
And how the hell will this person or small company afford to even challenge in High court and pay solicitors (we have the most expensive solicitors in world) while their site is shut down and no revenue is coming in.
Remember innocent until proven guilty, not the other way around.
Oh and read the Judges statement as the result of EMI vs UPC > http://www.bailii.org/ie/cases/IEHC/2010/H377.html
The judge is recommending 3 strikes, deep packet filtering of all traffic and outsourcing monitoring of internet to 3rd parties, all of that is very Orwellian, 3 strikes was also mentioned by Sherlock yesterday as possible solution.
he goes on to say that pirates dont deserve privacy but in order to determine if someone is a pirate the judge recommends that EVERYBODYS internet connection have to be monitored using invasive technologies that are used in authoritarian regimes such as China0 -
This post has been deleted.0
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Join Date:Posts: 29920
Ok. You're on.ResearchWill wrote: »BTW if I am wrong and boards.ie ever unfairly have an injunction granted against it, I will free of charge arrange for a solicitor, myself as barrister and one of the SC in constitutional law to represent you.
Drop me a mail with your personal details and I'll treat them as highly confidential of course. I'm tom @ boards.ie
I think you might want to look at this though... these people use the courts as *punishment* ... they dont care if they win or lose.
http://chillingeffects.org/twitter0 -
While this is a rather emotive topic, posters need to remember which forum they are posting in here.
I suggest any new posters to the forum have read of the forum charter before posting. We expect a certain standard here tbh. Several posts so far are not within the spirit of said charter. There aren't going to be any more warnings.
Cheers
DrG0 -
But it all takes time, in the meantime it creates an unfavourable atmosphere to encourage companies to set up jobs here, means that the company in question has to spend resources that could be used to increase business or new jobs on the legal expenses, may make businesses now based here think about setting up in another location where the law is more established and cannot be challenged and eventually move all jobs to the new location.ResearchWill wrote: »In your example the employee can get a injunction to stop his company firing him, see an injunction.
This SI does not allow the high court to shut any company down, it allows an injunction to be granted, which can be challanged by the person the injunction is against.
Last weekend we all saw the risk anyone takes if they seek injunctions where it would be unfair to grant one.
Given those possibilities why not just write good law rather than bad, cross our fingers and hope for the best?0 -
As previously said - it is being discussed on PrimeTime tonight.0
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@ResearchWill
Why would any small company/entrepreneur risk starting a new site/service on the internet here in Ireland (for example something like Youtube), if there's a good chance his service will be stopped/blocked if there's a single complaint from media companies with deep pockets.
Surely that would be infringing against the rights of the company.
Could the company not just remove the content? Like Youtube does.
I'm not convinced by this at all.Remember innocent until proven guilty, not the other way around.
Why did you post that?
I see nothing anywhere to suggest that that kind of comment is warrented.0 -
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justice.ie is down now0
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Martin Heydon(Kildare south)(Fine Gael) clinic times.
ATHY AREA
Constituency Sub Office, Duke St.,Athy
(Above Hair Affaire)
Every Monday 4.00pm to 7.00pm
1st Monday of each month
Castledermot: Doyle’s Main St., - 7.30pm – 8.00pm
Timolin: Paddy O’Brien’s, - 8.15pm – 8.45pm
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2nd Monday of each month
Kildangan: Cross Keys Pub, - 7.30pm – 8.00pm
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3rd Monday of each month
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Kilcullen: Bardon’s, Main St., - 9.00pm – 9.30pm
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Every Friday 10.00am to 1.00pm
1st Thursday of each month
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2nd Thursday of each month
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3rd Thursday of each month
Kildare: The Silken Thomas, - 7.30pm – 8.00pm
Monasterevin: Mooney’s, - 8.15pm – 8.45pm
Jack Wall TD (Kildare south)(Labour)- Clinics
Location:
Castledermot Community Centre Athy Road Castledermot
Days & Times :
First Thursday of each month at 8pm
Location:
Constituency Office at 15 Leinster Street Athy
Days & Times :
Mondays, Fridays and Saturday mornings
Further Details :
If you need to see Jack, please ring his office at 059 86 32874 and <br />he will arrange to call to see you0 -
@ResearchWill
Why would any small company/entrepreneur risk starting a new site/service on the internet here in Ireland (for example something like Youtube), if there's a good chance his service will be stopped/blocked if there's a single complaint from media companies with deep pockets.
And how the hell will this person or small company afford to even challenge in High court and pay solicitors (we have the most expensive solicitors in world) while their site is shut down and no revenue is coming in.
Remember innocent until proven guilty, not the other way around.
Oh and read the Judges statement as the result of EMI vs UPC > http://www.bailii.org/ie/cases/IEHC/2010/H377.html
The judge is recommending 3 strikes, deep packet filtering of all traffic and outsourcing monitoring of internet to 3rd parties, all of that is very Orwellian, 3 strikes was also mentioned by Sherlock yesterday as possible solution.
he goes on to say that pirates dont deserve privacy but in order to determine if someone is a pirate the judge recommends that EVERYBODYS internet connection have to be monitored using invasive technologies that are used in authoritarian regimes such as China
Again I say, I have heard nothing from google, which is operating in Ireland. This law already exists in the rest of the EU, can you point to any country that is saying it wrecked its economy.
As I have already said the laws on injunctions is clear, unless an emergency injunction is required, any person seeking one must warn the other person otherwise they risk not getting any costs in their application. The SI also says that the Judge if he believes it is in the interest of justice must notify the other person.
Unlike everyone else here I have sought injunctions in the high court, injunctions to stop deportations, injunctions to stop criminal cases, injunctions to stop people taking another's property. The High Court don't easily give them, it often gives a interm injunction and requires the other party to be notified and allowed to be represented. Also any person seeking a injunction ex parts must give an undertaking as to damages.
I know of a lot of lawyers including myself, who would happily act for any company or person who is being unfairly treated by this law, and do do free of charge. I for one believe strongly in the idea of pro bono, other than medicine I don't know of many other business people who will happily give their services for free, for a good cause.0 -
investment wrote: »justice.ie is down now
No its not did you try www.justice.ie ... they haven't got the wildcard set up on their DNS, just shows how much the government actually know about technology0 -
It's down for me.
Prime Time will shortly be showing a piece on the law btw.0 -
But it all takes time, in the meantime it creates an unfavourable atmosphere to encourage companies to set up jobs here, means that the company in question has to spend resources that could be used to increase business or new jobs on the legal expenses, may make businesses now based here think about setting up in another location where the law is more established and cannot be challenged and eventually move all jobs to the new location.
Given those possibilities why not just write good law rather than bad, cross our fingers and hope for the best?
Exactly
what if I startup a company to sell encrypted VPN/Proxy services to customers in Middle East, China etc who need these tools to get around censorship etc.
What if boardsies start buying my service (encrypted pipes) in some of the start using it for downloading pirated content, remember the pipes are encrypted so neither me nor my employees would know what they are being used for.
What happens when EMI sues our new little startup, claiming that its aiding copyright infringement and the service is frozen while we have to find money somewhere to defend ourselves, what happens to all those customers that have legally used the service and are now cut off? what if no copyright infringement occurred and our little startup now has to close after being bankrupted by money grabbing solicitors and the name/brand destroyed?0 -
But it all takes time, in the meantime it creates an unfavourable atmosphere to encourage companies to set up jobs here, means that the company in question has to spend resources that could be used to increase business or new jobs on the legal expenses, may make businesses now based here think about setting up in another location where the law is more established and cannot be challenged and eventually move all jobs to the new location.
Given those possibilities why not just write good law rather than bad, cross our fingers and hope for the best?
But you forget it is a law that is in the rest of the EU for years, again I ask can anyone point at one company has refused to set up in the EU or left the EU because of this law.0 -
ResearchWill wrote: »Again I say, I have heard nothing from google, which is operating in Ireland.
Never mind Google, read the OP Boards Ltd is protesting, my own small company is protesting how many thousands of small companies (who might just be surviving by thread) are out there in IT area? the so called "smart economy"
companies that will not be able to afford to bring case to high court or pay our expensive solicitors and barristers
I understand why you support this now, it will make you and your kind more money0 -
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ResearchWill wrote: »But if you agree with the right of copyright holders to protect their property, then why should they not have the right to seek injunctions to so protect that property.
Would you care to tell us what exactly this will entail? I'll use Dropbox as an example, since though it's a legit service, it's obviously at risk of being used for not-so-legit purposes. EMI or whoever discovers that some Dropbox users are using it to share copyrighted MP3s.
Now, I would have thought that what should happen in this case is that EMI could take an injunction out against Dropbox and have them remove the infringing material. Instead, it seems they're being given the right to seek an injunction against the ISP. If this is already covered under existing Irish law, then what exactly can the court order the ISP to do? Block Dropbox?
If Dropbox sounds a bit too Napster-ish for your tastes, then replace with Google or any other above-board business that enables copyright infringement.
This is a genuine question, by the way. I'll admit, I'm not especially competent when it comes to reading and interpreting legalese, but I think you're the first person I've seen argue that the scope of this legislation is satisfactorily spelled out. And since Sherlock himself hasn't seen fit to give any clarification on the matter, it would be nice if someone could.0
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