SOPA in Ireland

bealtine

The government have decided to enact a SOPA type law in Ireland, by statutory instrument, letting the courts decide what is acceptable for Irish people to see or interact with. Do we really want judges deciding what is acceptable? This is the slippery slope to all encompassing censorship.
If you think that's far fetched then consider the laws enacted in other parts of the world like for instance Belarus where it is illegal to browse any "foreign" website including Google, Facebook or Youtube.

Anyway please read this : http://www.tjmcintyre.com/2012/01/legal-case-against-irish-sopa.html

Galen

Thanks bealtine, it's unfortunate to see but not at all surprising to see that Irish politicians are as stupid as the american lot.

bealtine

There's currently a facebook group:

https://www.facebook.com/StopSOPAIreland

bealtine

http://news.yahoo.com/eu-urges-balance-between-internet-freedom-copyright-152652360.html

Governments must strike a balance between policing the Internet to protect copyright and upholding freedom of expression, EU justice commissioner Viviane Reding said on Sunday.

Reding was reacting to a US crackdown on hundreds of websites accused of offering pirated music or movies or counterfeit goods, as well as calls for new legislation to guard intellectual property.

"The protection of creators must never be used as pretext to intervene in the freedom of the Internet," Reding told an international Internet conference in the southern German city of Munich, noting the "heated debate" surrounding the issue.

US authorities have seized more than 350 website domain names since launching an anti-online piracy campaign dubbed "Operation In Our Sites" more than 18 months ago, including a spectacular global swoop on file-sharing site Megaupload.com.

But US congressional leaders put strict anti-online piracy legislation on hold following a wave of protests led by Google and Wikipedia denouncing the bills as a threat to Internet freedom.

Reding warned against an overzealous approach that could have a chilling effect on the industry.

"You'll never have from Europe a blocking of the Internet -- that's not the European option," she said.

"Freedom of information and copyright must not be enemies, they are partners... European policy aims at equilibrating the respect of both rights."

She outlined proposals to protect the online data of European citizens to be presented in the coming days.

The current legal "patchwork will be replaced by one law which will apply to all member states, to all companies which are offering their goods and services to consumers, even if their servers are based outside the EU", she said.

The legislation would restrict Internet giants such as Facebook and Google from collecting the personal data of European web users and getting around European privacy laws by storing it abroad.

Reding said she aimed to have companies obtain the consent of consumers for the use of their data in "clear" terms, explain how it is stored and notify users if it is stolen or lost.

She said web users should also have the "right to be forgotten", or the right to withdraw their consent and have their data erased except in cases where there is a legitimate interest in maintaining information in a database.

bealtine

http://www.tjmcintyre.com/2012/01/legal-case-against-irish-sopa.html

bealtine

http://www.tjmcintyre.com/2012/01/adrian-weckler-confims-that-irelands.html

bealtine

A scary day when I find myself in agreement with the greens on just about anything:

http://www.greenparty.ie/news.html?n=23

Government needs to think again before enacting new regulations blocking access to certain websites.

The lack of any interest in the Internet in this Government is clear as it prepares to hand policy decisions over to the courts.

Minister Sean Sherlock is intent on introducing new regulations by the end of this month which will allow for rights holders to get a court order forcing Internet service providers to block access to sites that contain illegally downloadable material. The Minister is doing so in response to a Court judgement in 2010 where Judge Charlton said he wanted to introduce such a blocking order but the Government had failed to introduce the legal measures to allow him do so.

Green Party leader said today. "I am calling on the Government not to proceed with the introduction of new regulations which will allow for the blocking of certain websites in Ireland. The regulations he intends to introduce will not address the real problem of internet piracy but could do real damage to the growing information technology industry in Ireland."

"The original plan was to introduce a three strikes system to restrict internet access to individuals engaged in illegal downloading but a recent European Court of Justice decision has said that the monitoring needed to police such a decision, would be in breach of privacy rights. However, Minister Sherlock is insisting that he now proceed with regulations which would allow rights holders block access to websites which allow the sharing of material without copyright."

"People will still be able to get around the blocking systems and there is likely to be endless and expensive court hearings as judges work out the merits of cases involving thousands of different websites. The Minister is going to create a legal mess rather than solving the problem. He should instead be working with his international colleagues to reduce the income stream going to pirating activity via changes to the search, payment and advertising systems and by promoting new commercial models for the distribution of legal content."

"The Minister is washing his hands of any policy role and leaving it to the courts to decide how we manage the internet. He seems transfixed by Judge Charlton's statement that we are not fully in compliance with European Law. The reality is that there are no infringement proceedings from the Commission on the issue and other countries such as Denmark, Spain, Finland and the Netherlands has taken a similar legal approach to ourselves."

"The European Commission launched a new 'ecommerce' initiative on the 11th of January last (1) where it was recognised that 20% of new jobs could come from growth in this area if we get the policy right . As part of this initiative the Commission will this year publish an impact assessment on procedures for notifying and acting on illegal online content. The Government should engage in that process and examine the piracy issue within the context of wider copyright review that they commissioned last year, as the Green Party suggested in our submission to that review."

"It is not too late for the Minister to change tack and start taking the states role in the development and regulation of the internet seriously rather than handing that responsibility over to the courts."


1 http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/12/5&format=HTML&aged=0&language=EN&guiLanguage=en


2 http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/e-commerce/docs/communication2012/SEC2011_1641_en.pdf

bealtine

http://www.businesspost.ie/#!story/Home/News/Operators+reaffirm+objections+to+%27Irish+SOPA%27+law/19410615-5218-4f1d-6997-3184c7102979

A collection of Irish telecoms operators has reaffirmed its criticism of the government’s intention to introduce a new law that would grant injunctions to music and film companies against internet service providers.

The law - which is being compared to the cancelled Stop Online Piracy Act in the US - is due to be introduced by the end of this month.

But one group of operators - the Alternative Operators in the Communications Market (Alto) - has reaffirmed its stinging criticism of the proposed measure.

The organisation, which represents a handful of small and medium-sized Irish operators, has criticised the government for not considering more detailed primary legislation on the issue. It also accuses the government of leaving the issue to the hands of the courts, rather than deciding on a position itself.

Alto's criticism comes after five music labels have launched a fresh High Court case against the state for failing to take sufficient legislative action against illegal filesharing.

The following is Alto’s original criticism of the government’s plans, made last year and reaffirmed today.

“Alto believes that the State should not be implementing this legislation by way of secondary legislation at this time.

“It is often the case that the democratic process is seen to be short-circuited or manipulated when Ministerial Orders or Regulations are implemented by secondary legislation, thus generating a clear democratic deficit.

“Alto believes that the correct mechanism to meet the DJEI’s objectives is to bring any new measures through by primary legislation with all of the reviews, consultation and debate necessary to secure a properly constructed and robust solution within the Act or amended Act.

“Alto is of the view that if the current Statutory Instrument is signed into law, it will… result in further protracted litigation until the SI is tested. Alto believes that the SI will not survive rigorous legal challenge before the Courts.

“The vague wording of the injunctive measures under the statutory instrument effectively places the Irish courts in the position of the legislature, to make policy decisions concerning online copyright infringement, which are the subject of detailed and prescriptive provisions contained in primary legislation in other EU member states.

"If the instrument is meant to provide for some form of graduated response system or to be a negotiation lever on the part of rights holders then it will not be practical and will not withstand challenge.

“Alto further believes that the proposed wording of the draft text leaves little guidance to a Court in determining what Order might arise out of a successful injunction application.

“Recent litigation and a movement to secure lost revenues on the part of certain groups of rights holders has resulted in huge media, political and international news coverage as well as lobbying efforts. None of that media coverage has been particularly useful or productive in the context of attracting investment and encouraging or fostering the information society in Ireland. Similarly while ferocious lobbying has obviously been undertaken by certain stakeholders, those stakeholders seem to have failed to take into account the stark reality that while they are entitled to protection and security, they have failed to recognise the changing business environments. Users are entitled to similar protection and security and a balance of the competing interests must be found in some sort of logical manner.”

bealtine

A petition against an Irish SOPA, please sign.

http://stopsopaireland.com/

warlikedave

Looks like Ill be blacking out my site so - any plans for irish sites to go dark over this or is this just in its infancy?

watty

More attention would be paid to a paper petition.

bealtine

http://www.irishtimes.com/newspaper/breaking/2012/0124/breaking32.html#.Tx6xycn3H7A.twitter

Over 7,000 sign 'piracy law' petition

ELAINE EDWARDS

An online petition against the Government’s plan to allow music publishers and other parties take internet service providers to court in a bid to prevent their customers accessing ‘pirate’ material has received over 7,800 signatures in less than a day.

The stopsopaireland.com site had attracted over 6,700 signatures by this morning, having gone live at about 9.30pm last night. A thousand signatures were added in a 50-minute period, according to the site's administrators.

Minister of State for Enterprise Seán Sherlock intends to publish an order this month which will effectively amend the State’s copyright legislation.

He argues that a High Court ruling in 2010 means the Government must take such a step in order to close a loophole in the law.

In that case, music publisher EMI sought an injunction against internet provider UPC, ordering it to block access to websites that allowed illegal downloading.

While the court found that EMI’s rights were breached, Mr Justice Peter Charleton pointed out that he could not grant the injunction as the Copyright Act did not provide for this remedy.

The judge said such a provision was needed to bring the Republic’s legislation into line with EU law.

TJ McIntyre, a UCD law lecturer, solicitor and chairman of Digital Rights Ireland, along with solicitor Simon McGarr, and Michele Neylon, managing director of internet hosting firm Blacknight, launched the petition yesterday to oppose the Minister’s plan.

Mr McIntyre has argued the Minister’s order will give the Irish courts an “open-ended” power to grant orders against ISPs and, potentially, other facilities such as hosting providers, social networks and video-hosting websites.

He has also noted the measure will be achieved by ministerial order and without any scrutiny by, or debate in, the Oireachtas.

On whether the High Court ruling in the EMI case obliged the Government to bring in the blocking legislation, Mr McIntyre noted the European Court of Justice has since given an important decision restricting the use of such blocking.

“That decision found that filtering would be impermissible if it undermined freedom of expression and blocked lawful communications - something that is inevitable if this proposal is adopted,” Mr McIntyre argued in a blog post.

He noted the European Commission had not taken any action against Ireland for failure to introduce blocking.

Mr Sherlock said last night there was “no intention by the government to introduce legislation to block access to the Internet or sites. I have state that unambiguously.”

Engaging on Twitter, the Minister said “no sane person” would seek to censor the internet and that his proposal had been “confused” with the US anti-piracy legislation.

He insisted there had been a High Court judgment on the matter and that the Government “must reflect the words of that judgement so as to remove doubt”.

Mr Sherlock said he would “tweet complete clarification shortly”.

The Stop Online Piracy Act (Sopa) in the US was postponed indefinitely last weekend following a storm of protest online, with sites such as Wikipedia going ‘dark’ to mark their opposition to it.

Music industry bodies such as EMI argue their profits and sales are being eroded by piracy and illegal downloading.

In his ruling in the case against UPC in October 2010, Mr Justice Peter Charleton said internet piracy was “devastating” the recording companies’ business in Ireland.

Not only did it “undermine their business” but it was also “ruining the ability of creative people in Ireland to earn a living”. The retail sector was also affected by this “wholesale theft”. Solutions are available to the deal with the problem of internet piracy but the 2000 Copyright and Related Rights Act lacked the proper provision for blocking, diverting and interrupting of illegal downloads from the internet, he found.

bealtine

http://irelandoffline.org/2012/01/the-privatization-of-censorship-an-irish-sopa/

Ireland has in its past, had a time of censorship which was rightfully overturned by right thinking politicians. In those more enlightened times certain politicians eventually saw the ultimate futility of censoring James Joyce and hacking feature films to death..
Eamonn Wallace, Chairman of IrelandOffline said : “under the bullying of the Content Oligopoly we propose to hand over censorship and public policy to private companies. The probable outcome to this is that the likes of IRMA will now be given control over the websites that Irish people can visit and view.”

Wallace continued : “Those videos of your two year old singing “Happy Birthday” will now be targeted as copyright infringement because Happy Birthday is still in copyright and ditty sung by a 2 year old can grossly infringe that copyright in the eyes of a Content Oligopolist.”

Wallace added “All of this is to be sneaked through, without debate, by Ministerial Order to appease the content companies and their supposed fight against piracy. No discussion in the Dail, no interaction with consumer groups, nothing; just a stroke of a Ministerial pen. This is the low level that our democracy has sunk to. This is redolent of dictatorships of the past.
The exact wording of the legislation hasn’t been shared with us and is being produced in secret, and with the probable helpful assistance of the Content Oligopoly, in the hope that the Irish people will neither understand nor care until it is too late. Even then all considerations of Public Policy making will be kicked to touch, into the courts where instead judges will decide on Public Policy. We could then compare ourselves to the extreme situation that pertains in Belarus where browsing all foreign websites is illegal. This is the slippery slope to corporate censorship. There are no rights of appeal conferred on websites that are to be blocked expect an extremely expensive visit to the High Court with all its attendant exorbitant costs. Innovation on the Internet must be allowed to flourish without hindrance, for the good of the country”

Wallace went on to say “Irish politicians seem to misunderstand the basic concepts of the Internet. The Minister responsible for this can of technical worms is Sean Sherlock TD Minister of State in the Department Of Enterprise, Jobs & Innovation. Blocking sites on the Internet is hardly an innovative step.
Politicians just hear “our business is suffering” from entertainment industry lobbyists so “something has to be done” no matter what the damage to the sensitive digital economy is. It’s the law of unintended consequences at work. We risk destroying our freedoms and our healthy digital environment, possibly jeopardising the investment from companies like Google, Facebook Amazon, Ebay, Paypal and Twitter, just to keep some dying business that is trying to lash out at what it perceives as doing damage to it’s interests. These Internet companies will be expected to police postings on their websites in case of some alleged “copyright” infringement otherwise they may find their websites blocked by Irish courts and Irish consumers locked out of the Digital world. Risking inward investment should be a red-line issue just like our corporation tax.

Copyright industries are demanding, through the courts, compensation and a bailout from the government and the citizens of Ireland for the failure of their historical monopoly.This is a bizarre situation“

This regressive legislation will damage current efforts to implement a secure Domain Name Service and damage confidence in the security of the Internet leading to damage to consumers computers due to malware and viruses.
As a measure, it is flawed, as any non technical people do not understand the complexity of the Internet and how any possible enacted measures can be trivially evaded.

This, in all likelihood, is illegal and beyond the Minister’s powers, as it doesn’t seem to take into account the Sabam v. Scarlet jugement which clearly states:
“[filtering] could potentially undermine freedom of information since that system might not distinguish adequately between unlawful content and lawful content, with the result that its introduction could lead to the blocking of lawful communications. Indeed, it is not contested that the reply to the question whether a transmission is lawful also depends on the application of statutory exceptions to copyright which vary from one Member State to another. Moreover, in some Member States certain works fall within the public domain or can be posted online free of charge by the authors concerned. “

Wallace went on to say “The Internet is our digital highway and represents the single most important economic, social, and cultural communications tool available to us, we don’t put blocks on the roads to different cities because crime might happen there, indeed not we address the real issue that of crime itself. We accept that artists need to be compensated for their works but the Internet is not the plaything of the Content Oligarchy.
This is a most undemocratic and regressive step, endangering Ireland’s healthy digital economy, jeopardizing inward investment all to prop up a dying business model. It has nothing to do with what consumers want and everything to do with protecting a business based on album sales, vinyl and CDs. Welcome to the 21st century.”

cormac.c

My head hurts from thinking about how stupid this is. How long would Google and Facebook stay in Ireland if this were to go through? Ridiculous.

deckybarr

Please everybody sign the petition and contact your TD's. Get the message out to as many people as you possibly can.

Earthday

someone should ring on Joe Duffy radio.

warlikedave

Earthday wrote: »

someone should ring on Joe Duffy radio.

I am no spokesman :P

clohamon

Earthday wrote: »

someone should ring on Joe Duffy radio.

I think RTE corporate would see themselves as 'creators of content'. i.e. in the music industry camp.

So any conversation on any subject with Joe Duffy's Liveline, whether broadcast, podcast or streamed, is itself subject to RTE copyright.

http://www.rte.ie/laweb/about/about_copyright.html

UnknownSpecies

Just a video I found on another blog and uploaded It's very good way of showing those who don't understand just how serious this could be, even for the casual internet user. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eq1MB9CGdHs

warlikedave

clohamon wrote: »

I think RTE corporate would see themselves as 'creators of content'. i.e. in the music industry camp.

So any conversation on any subject with Joe Duffy's Liveline, whether broadcast, podcast or streamed, is itself subject to RTE copyright.

http://www.rte.ie/laweb/about/about_copyright.html

Still rte are tasked with broadcasting all sides of the argument whether they copyright the show or not. If i was to express an opinion there that conversation may be recorded as copyright but the express opinion i could claim as intellectual copyright

either way rte are tasked as public neutral broadcaster for the republic so even if they weigh in on the side of the legislation as a corporate entity which they can do so as a business - they still have to follow the directive given to them when when they were originally set up to report a broad a picture as possible

As long as corporate rte doesnt interfere with the public duty it has then its all good :P

warlikedave

dorgasm wrote: »

Just a video I found on another blog and uploaded It's very good way of showing those who don't understand just how serious this could be, even for the casual internet user. http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Eq1MB9CGdHs

Is that video produced by Anonymous? I see their logo at the start of it? EDIT - it is my apologies - just read the credits Its pretty decent actually and not really all that biased to their cause

I do alot of third party article references on my site (with proper citations) so that is another end that this law could be used for so much for sharing of info

infowars.com

welcome to 1984 more like just goes to show that govs are now run by not only the banks but big corps ill be heading down to the td here and given her what for on monday and i think every one should be doing the same, i meen lets face it we got nothing else to do, with half the country on the dole,

infowars.com

great video dorgasm

warlikedave

Aye annoying the TD is the first step - I see boards has a very nice thing in regards to a prompt with all the information. It shall be interesting to see what other irish sites do dont forget to annoy Minister Sherlocks Office as well :P

deckybarr

http://falkvinge.net/2011/09/05/cable-reveals-extent-of-lapdoggery-from-swedish-govt-on-copyright-monopoly/

Maybe they are doing the same to Ireland?

infowars.com

dec this is world wide m8,they are trying to shut down the internet beacuse they know people are wakeing up to their ponzi scams. i,e they dont want people to be informed

warlikedave

The SI has been signed into law:

http://www.irishupandcomingmusicscene.tk/wordpressopen/?p=75

Second last comment

Eugers

I really hope this doesn't have the huge negative effect that ppl are saying it will have, but i've a strong feeling that this will be very bad. The most annoying thing is that while so many ppl having been protesting against it, the vast majority of ppl are refusing to even acknowledge its importance. This is all over facebook/twitter and most ppl i know are doing nothing at all or even commenting about it. It'll almost be funny to see in a few weeks when ppl start complaining about their websites being blocked for watching movies or downloading songs.

bealtine

Chinese spammer...