An open letter from Boards.ie to Minister Sean Sherlock

dahamsta

He is, but he /acts/ like FG. And FF. A smorgasbord of uselessness and corruption, if you will.

Course Pet Rabbit sounds like George Dubya these days, they're all at it.

expectationlost

DavidCollins wrote: »

For your interest, and exchange with Sean after it was signed. (I'm responding to something he said earlier.)

er did sean sherlock say one of those things?

Cherry_Cola

Pardon my ignorance but are there any means by which this thing can be over turned or reneged on, or is that essentially it?

Grudaire

Cherry_Cola wrote: »

Pardon my ignorance but are there any means by which this thing can be over turned or reneged on, or is that essentially it?

In fairness the Government can do whatever they want... The fact that they generally don't change their decisions means it's unlikely.


Any more protests planned for it?


It actually really bugs me that some civil disobedience is seen as 'wrong' - from the Occupy Movement to Anonymous - A real active attempt at engaging the legislation was made by thousands - all to be ignored. A disillusioned electorate is obviously going to happen when you treat their opinions like shi t.

PogMoThoin

Vent your frustration by getting #resignseansherlock trending on Twitter, Post your own message with the hashtag #resignseansherlock or retweet some of the others. The media watch Twitter, it will get our anger out there.
http://monitter.com/?%20#resignseansherlock

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Cherry_Cola wrote: »

Pardon my ignorance but are there any means by which this thing can be over turned or reneged on, or is that essentially it?

Yes but one or more of the following would need to be changed:

1) The WIPO Copyright Treaty (WIPO - the World Intellectual Property Organisation - is a UN body),
2) The EU Copyright Directive (implementing the WIPO Copyright Treaty),
3) The Irish Copyright Law (implementing the EU Copyright Directive).

The SI concerned is implementing part of the EU copyright directive that the courts here had ruled was not implemented properly by the Oireachtas.

It is possible but I'd say it is unlikely to be easy given that the European Council is planning to spend 80 Billion on Research & Innovation and IP is (pretty much) at the heart of this.

Hellrazer

Cliste wrote: »

In fairness the Government can do whatever they want... The fact that they generally don't change their decisions means it's unlikely.
Any more protests planned for it?

.

If half of those 80000 people blocked up Kildare street like the oldies did about the pensions it wouldnt be long being reversed.

The problem is us Irish cant protest like other nations.We need an organised protest with the best part of those 80,000 people to actually get off their arses and go and do something about it.
Politicians know that we dont really protest and can get away with **** like this.

FFS in any other country their would be uproar over even the 50,000 euros in ink cartridges,2% vat hike,loss of special needs teachers etc etc.

This shower are pulling the wool over peoples eyes under the guise of "austerity" measures....and this does my head in.

Havent seen much of them taking austerity measures--laundry allowances in the thousands each per year,50k on ink cartridges,ministerial mercs,the government jet and the list goes on.

We`re being taken for a ride because we just sit back and take it.

When your local politician knocks on your door in the next few weeks looking for a yes vote in this upcoming referendum do what Im going to do--Tell them if Mr Sherlocks SI is reversed you`ll vote yes but if it isnt then your voting no--That might just get them to listen.

Fook whether its good for the country or not--Use this upcoming referendum as a vote of protest against this government.

And Im saying that as a voter that voted for a Labour/FG government and have always voted FG/Labour since I could vote.I really thought that they would have been different....goes to show--The devil you know.......

Im telling you now--Never again will this shower get a vote from me--Independants all the way in future.

AntiRip

I'm surprised with the powerful hand the likes of Google and Facebook has in Ireland, they didn't exercise this. It would be some kick in the balls to the government if they announced they were looking into moving operations to the UK or somewhere else where innovation wasn't being damaged by CR law.

Hellrazer

AntiRip wrote: »

I'm surprised with the powerful hand the likes of Google and Facebook has in Ireland, they didn't exercise this. It would be some kick in the balls to the government if they announced they were looking into moving operations to the UK or somewhere else where innovation wasn't being damaged by CR law.

All I say is--Watch this space.

Im as surprised as you are with them keeping quiet and its still early days with this law but I still think that one or more of the big IT companies will pull out of Ireland directly because of this law and take thousands of jobs with them.

How could a company that hosts content like facebook/google stay here with this hanging over them.

Could they still be taken to court for copyright infringment if they were based in a different country or could they just ignore it if they werent based here???Does the law just cover companies/websites with their servers based in Ireland??

dahamsta

There's no doubt in my mind they were lobbying in the background. I am surprised by the silence from Google in particular though, they tend to be quite vocal about things like this. Perhaps the Irish management team subscribe to The Oirish Way of lobbying, backroom deals and brown envelopes.

gizmo555

RangeR wrote: »

Done.

I don't have a pot to piss in at the moment but will send the FOI request off on Tuesday / Wednesday, once payday rolls around.

It will be interesting to see when these submissions are released what, if anything, Google et al. had to say.

dahamsta

I'll happily contribute to an FOI fund for this.

DeVore

They did issue a statement saying that they supported the ISPAI who in turn opposed the law. Remember Google and FB also can't be seen to be throwing their weight around in a small country demanding that laws be made which suit them either... They face a backlash on that point too so they have to play the Gentle Giant in these things but I can tell you they we're involved alright...

oscarBravo

gizmo555 wrote: »

It will be interesting to see when these submissions are released what, if anything, Google et al. had to say.

The submissions are here. Google's is here. Well worth a read, and from my reading of it, they're every bit as pissed off as we are.

PogMoThoin

#resignseansherlock is trending now going by this site: http://trendsmap.com/local/ireland
.............but not on twitter site yet, moar tweets folks, c'mon.

matrim

oscarBravo wrote: »

The submissions are here. Google's is here. Well worth a read, and from my reading of it, they're every bit as pissed off as we are.

That's actually a separate submission for another copyright review. It was released on the same date as the SI was signed, and it was carried out around the same time which creates ambiguity around what is the correct submission.

If you read the results of that copyright review it states that the SI is completely separate and it refuses to comment on it.

I have made an FOI request to try and get the submissions directly related to the SI but am still waiting for a response. Hopefully I'll hear something next week.

expectationlost

someone might start a new thread somewhere for the copyright review, not that the way this SI issue was handle can be forgotten or be be forgetten as it hangs over the copyright review

sherlock screwed the iia by announcing something they were going to do before they did, really undermined them, that's what you get when you have private talks with politician, sherlock was very close to abusing the boards.ie name using it too much in the dail.

again private meetings (and/or off the record meetings) are _not_ a good thing, the minister is bound to screw you.

_AVALANCHE_

Does Boards no longer recieve take down requests (Is it straight to court now if copyright material is found?) or why are we no longer able to talk about certain things?

Fart

Since there is a new law introduced. Why is it so vague, why hasn't every Irish citizen recieved information regarding what is wrong and what is right on the Internet?

Are we supposed to look for it on our own? What about people who's "Internet Literacy" isn't up to scratch and can't find it?

Some sort of printed handout to all the homes would suffice. This hasn't been thought out at all.

DeVore

_AVALANCHE_ wrote: »

Does Boards no longer recieve take down requests (Is it straight to court now if copyright material is found?) or why are we no longer able to talk about certain things?

What things specifically are you asking about?

Breachs of copyright don't seem to require a takedown notice before an injunction can be applied for but who the hell knows...

timesnap

DeVore wrote: »

can be applied for but who the hell knows...

It seems Mr Sherlock knows,why else would he have with the swoop of a pen try to ruin websites that people worked hard creating and developing when he was in nappies?
please tell me he knew the implications of what he was signing........... somebody.......... Eamonn Gilmore,Enda.?

no answer from that wise TD sherlock since i emailed him as soon as the email address was posted on boards,just as nesf pointed out *optics* began,his dismissive attitude in the sindo article towards those who opposed it reminds me of Frada's location.
i wonder will he be able to figure that out?
i doubt it,Frada calls himself a *smug bastard*.

ah but all so called socialists who get elected in ireland soon forget how to sing *the red flag* and replace it with *the working class can kiss my ass*.

minister sherlock you really should have chosen only to try to censor TWIT(excuse my caps locked) er.
i think it would be right up your street.

_AVALANCHE_

DeVore wrote: »

What things specifically are you asking about?

Breachs of copyright don't seem to require a takedown notice before an injunction can be applied for but who the hell knows...

I came across Davs post since

Changes to Policy regarding Copyrighted Material on Boards.ie
Despite our best efforts, Minister Seán Sherlock still signed his fundamentally flawed SI on Copyright into law this week and the knock on effect is that we will be reviewing and probably implementing changes to how we have to deal with issues around the use of copyrighted material on the site. We don't have the details finalsed yet, I'm reviewing with legal experts and various others on how we carry on with the normal day-to-day business of the site without making too much of an impact, but we are making some immediate changes that we feel are definitely required:

1) we will no longer be allowing links to streams of copyrighted or licenced content such as sports events. Youtube videos are not affected as YouTube has revenue sharing arrangements in place with copyright holders and they monitor these things themselves.

2) copy and pasting a full piece of an article from a newspaper or blog etc will not be allowed. You may copy a paragraph of the piece and must provide a link to the source under what we hope will be seen as a common sense and fair use approach.

I really don't have any more solid guidance on this yet, so please bear with us over the course of the next week or so whilst we try and get the legal advice we need. I wish I had more solid information than this folks, I really do.

I just wanted to post this here and I'm closing it because it's Friday evening, I'm going to be gone for the weekend and I simply don't have any more information just yet.

Thanks very much.
__________________
Dav
Boards.ie Community Manager

things are very much up in the air.

With the SI being so vague how can you even get sound legal advice?

DeVore

_AVALANCHE_ wrote: »

I came across Davs post since
things are very much up in the air.

With the SI being so vague how can you even get sound legal advice?

You cant. What you get is the guesses of people who have spent a long time in the legal game.

They tell you what they guess the judges will say from their experience of the judges. But not once has a single lawyer said to me "Tom, this is where you stand in regard to that issue"... on any issue. They always tell us that think which is all they can do and they have to caveat it with "things could turn out very different in court depending on th e Judge".


I mean, since each judge will undoubtedly see things differently, it really is pot luck on which one we get.

Its madness.

BettyM

Do you think this is just another bad law drafted so that m'learned friends can argue the case for days in the various courts funded by clients such as boards.ie?

PogMoThoin

#resignseansherlock

6 Hours to go. Tweet using this hashtag at 6pm today and let's get some justice! Share this everywhere on Facebook & Twitter...Your Internet needs you!

6pm GMT March 04th 2012. #resignseansherlock

FreudianSlippers

BettyM wrote: »

Do you think this is just another bad law drafted so that m'learned friends can argue the case for days in the various courts funded by clients such as boards.ie?

Nope.

expectationlost

i thought all the things dav mentioned were already in place.

BettyM

FreudianSlippers wrote: »

Nope.

Beautifully argued.

FreudianSlippers

BettyM wrote: »

FreudianSlippers wrote: »

Nope.

Beautifully argued.

I like to keep it succinct. The OP is hardly worthy of raising some serious issues. It is also essentially a thinly veiled accusation that somehow lawyers have convinced the minister to act in an improper manner to somehow create more work for solicitors and/or barristers.

No real causal link explained or thought out.

DeVore

Something is making him act in a seemingly irrational manner but it's not the lawyers IMHO.