Public Copyright Debate. Sean Sherlock and others (including me!). Tuesday 3rd.

DeVore

Tuesday 3rd, 1-2pm in the Science Gallery (http://www.sciencegallery.com/)

Panel:
Sean Sherlock: Minister for Research & Innovation
Paul Durrant: GM, Internet Service Providers Association of Ireland.
Tom Murphy: Director & Founder, Boards.ie

Chair: John F Kennedy Editor, Silicon Republic

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So this is happening and I'm looking for crowd-sourced points to make (as well as inviting you all to attend obviously.... it will be a relatively open format I believe).

The topics are: copyright, statutory instrument 59/2012, ACTA

I'm particularly interested to hear the views of legal practitioners regarding Mr Sherlocks statements on twitter that we are not responsible for links (ala Megaupload anyone?)

This kicked off this tweet and response...
https://twitter.com/#!/seansherlocktd/status/180072276006408192


Lets not forget that ACTA is looming on the horizon so that can be covered too.

If you want any points put to him, please contribute below...

Tom.

MadsL

Good luck Tom!!

Gloomtastic!

No better man. Good luck to ya!

KyussBishop

I was researching this entire topic endlessly a month ago, and could have written on it a lot more succinctly then, but am catching up with work a lot right now.

Some points:

Eircom: (something I contacted Sean Sherlock about but got a limited reply)
Eircom currently block The Pirate Bay, and this was done before the recent Statutory Instrument was put in place; what is the legal basis of this block?

I don't think the SI can apply to Eircom retroactively (thus I don't think it is currently covered by SI), so does that mean the block is voluntary?

If the block is voluntary, does that not mean Eircom is able to block any website it wants on a voluntary basis?
Sherlock answered this in emails with (paraphrasing) "why would they do that?" and I answered "threat of going to court" basically; didn't get a full and proper discussion on it though, this needs enquiring.

The implications, if Eircoms website block is done on a voluntary basis, is that any ISP can block any website on a voluntary basis without consequence, which is a big censorship threat from people threatening ISP's court action, and ISP's wanting to avoid court.


Before putting questions to him on this, might be handy to get a lawyer to look through the Eircom vs EMI stuff in case I missed something obvious.

ACTA:
From what I gather in an email with the foreign ministers office, Ireland seems to support ACTA, and Sean Sherlock (or perhaps instead, others from his department) were involved in negotiating it.

I've detailed some of the major issues with ACTA in a thread I created the other day:
https://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056589616


I don't know enough about the rest of copyright law (and the issues with it all) to comment well on wider copyright issues.

matrim

A couple of questions from here :

Why is Minister Sherlock refusing to publish the advice he got from the Attorney General on SI 59/2012, despite it being Labour policy to publish such advice?

What does Sherlock think of the decision by Kader Arif the EU's Rapporteur for ACTA, resigning in protest of the signing of ACTA because of it's lack of transparency and secrecy of negotiations?

I might have some more later but that's all I have time to think about now.

I'm particularly interested to hear the views of legal practitioners regarding Mr Sherlocks statements on twitter that we are not responsible for links (ala Megaupload anyone?)

Well Megaupload is slightly different as they were providing links to files they hosted themselves. I think the technical detail that was used to take take them down was that while they deleted any links from a DCMA request, they still hosted the infringing file if there were any other links to it not in the request.

It would be more akin to asking is what the pirate bay do illegal as they just host a link to the copyright material rather than actually hosting it themselves. Especially as they are moving to magnet links and the DHT

DeVore

The link for free tickets is here:

http://t.co/vaY96mGb

Thanks for the feed-in so far, very useful. Keep it coming!

Sarky

I'd love to know what his reasons were for ignoring the alternative put forward by TJ McIntyre and co., which performed the function the SI was supposed to, but was far better-written and eliminated a lot of the vague hand-washing "let the judges figure it out" nature of his own version.

matrim

DeVore, I sent you a PM about the possibility of getting the SI submissions before this. Let me know what you think

Also about this debate. Can you try to have it recorded and put online for those of us who can't make it?

hardCopy

matrim wrote: »

Also about this debate. Can you try to have it recorded and put online for those of us who can't make it?

A live stream or a YouTube upload would be great, I'd love to see this but will be in work.

meglome

I'd like to know did he feel the articles in the press were actually reflective of the concerns people sent to him. The press coverage (at least initially) was very much that people were looking for a completely unregulated internet and one where you could download all you wanted for free. That was certainly not reflected in the threads on boards.ie. The suspicion obviously was that this was the governments own spin to the press.

RichieC

Best of Luck! I look forward to hearing it.

RichardAnd

Good luck to you sir. Make sure the venal excuse for a statesman gets a good grilling.

Orion

Will he turn up or will an urgent issue keep him away? He's going up against two very influential people in "Internet Ireland" who both know the subject matter very well. If he can answer all questions without bullsh1t I'll be impressed.

DeVore

Thank you for the compliment ... As for your prediction, I'd stay tuned on that, somewhere around Monday might bring a popcornesque news story.

Pride Fighter

Might go along to this. Should be a good event. Give em hell Dev

MadsL

+1 on the live stream - could anyone arrange for us concerned expats?!!

DeVore

Ladies and Gentlemen, we just lost cabin pressure.

http://www.broadsheet.ie/2012/04/02/the-lawyer-behind-the-stop-sopa-ireland-campaign-writes/

I'm staying out of this except to confirm that as Simon says, I would have stepped out of the way to allow him speak in my place if asked.

If you want to attend you need to book your ticket (FREE!). Bring popcorn, leave the rotten fruit behind.

I believe it will be videoed for upload and possibly streamed live. I'll keep ye posted.

Fussgangerzone

Activity in France demonstrates that a decrease in piracy does not result in an increase in sales:Piracy Rises in France Despite 3 Strikes Law

EMI's own website for Ireland is a joke http://emimusic.ie/

1. Loads of the links are broken, did no one even check them?
2. The deisgn is sub-standard, to say the least. It's not a contemporary site
3. Almost all the "Buy" links direct to itunes, yet they blame piracy for lost record sales
4. Copyright notice indicates that the template might not have been touched for two years

I believe the EMI site is a good example of major labels doing a terrible job of digital, and then blaming everyone else when consumer behaviour doesn't adapt to suit them. It is they who need to adapt to suit consumers habits, not the other way around, IMHO.

If you did bring it up, you could encourage people to visit the site on their phones while at the event, to see you're not making it up.

**Afterthought**

Markus Persson of minecraft is famously pragmatic about filesharing, he wrote a post about it back in 2010 here and mroe recently referred to piracy as an "excuse to ruin the internet".

On twitter, he advised a broke fan, when asked how he could get the game, "Just pirate it. If you still like it when you can afford it in the future, buy it then. Also don’t forget to feel bad. " URL="http://www.forbes.com/sites/davidthier/2012/01/12/minecraft-creator-notch-tells-players-to-pirate-his-game/"]article[/URL

Despite this attitude, Minecraft has sold over 5 million copies to date.

Sarky

DeVore wrote: »

Ladies and Gentlemen, we just lost cabin pressure.

http://www.broadsheet.ie/2012/04/02/the-lawyer-behind-the-stop-sopa-ireland-campaign-writes/

I... That's... How could he be so... I mean... What?

DeVore

It is really rather bizarre isnt it... I'm... I'm not exactly sure what to say about it except I trust Simon McGarr and would like to hear responses from the other parties. I guess the open questions from the floor part of the debate will be interesting!

Sudsy86

He puts it perfectly do, the publics oppinion in these maters is not a priority...

This is a person trying to fight a cause on the publics behalf and yet he is being dismissed at every turn...

This example should be used in the meeting against the minister...His party was elected by the ppl, for the ppl, yet the voice of the ppl has been dismissed...

Question 1 at the meeting should be "why minister has the public(the voice of the ppl) been dismissed in this case before the meeting has even begun?"

antoobrien

It'd probably be useful in getting an idea of what status boards et al have under the new law. Are they being treated as content publishers (which would open them to pricacy) or content enablers (which shouldn't).

I'm open to correction but I believe that there is no fair copy provision under Irish law, so ripping mp3s of CDs that you own is illegal (regardless of whether or not you distribute) as a breach of copyright. This is something that also needs to be addressed if we want the so called knowledge economy to succeed.

My view on this revision to copyright law is that it's the intellectual equivalent of allowing somebody to sue Smurfit Kappa for allowing something libelous to printed on their paper products, the outlets that distribute the copies of the libelous items etc rather than suing the person(s) who committed the libel to paper i.e. the author(s) & publishers.

DeVore

Fair Use and Fair Dealing are headings in the CRC submission document. Unfortunately the CRC is also extremely clear that the SI is outside their remit.

joolsveer

From http://www.broadsheet.ie/2012/04/02/the-lawyer-behind-the-stop-sopa-ireland-campaign-writes/


Last week I was invited to attend a panel discussion on the new SOPAIreland Copyright Law on tomorrow in the Science Gallery [Dublin]. It was a small panel – Minister Sean Sherlock (above), Paul Durrant representing Ireland’s ISPs, Tom Murphy from Boards.ie representing intermediaries and me.
Last Thursday I got a lunchtime phone call from the event organiser. He told me he’d just got off the phone from speaking to the Minister’s office. The Minister had wanted him to know that unless I was uninvited, he would cancel. A diary clash would arise, was how it was put, I was told.
I agreed to be uninvited.
I have nothing but sympathy for the organiser, who is trying to do something valuable for his developer community. He had first said that the Minister was concerned the panel was too large and should be reduced by one. I said that I knew Tom Murphy wouldn’t mind stepping down. That was when he had to to explain that it had been made clear to him that I was the one who had to be trimmed.
The event is on tomorrow at lunch time (Free tickets too) but in my eyes it will represent an opportunity lost. That’s because the Minister has only agreed to attend if everyone on the panel represents a commercial interest. That’s what the Department of Enterprise has long been comfortable with, and that is what the Minister has clearly decided he is comfortable with.
Both Minister Sherlock and his FF predecessors like to talk about copyright being a balancing act between “two sides”. They define those sides as two competing commercial interests- ISPs on the one hand and copyright controllers like EMI et al on the other. In this view, laws should be made to reflect deals done between those two interests.
There is no room for the public interest in that vision. For better or worse, I was on the panel representing the tens of thousands of Irish people who had lobbied the government over the SI as part of the StopSOPAIreland.com campaign. And the Minister didn’t want even one voice from that group to be heard.
There is currently a consultation on the overhaul of copyright law in Ireland running, chaired by TCD law academic Dr. Eoin O’Dell. It held a public meeting last Saturday. Dozens of paid lobbyists turned up on behalf of the National Newspapers of Ireland, the music labels and other rights holders.
When the time came for someone to speak up on behalf of copyright users, ie, everyone else in the country, there was silence.
Money talks, everyone knows that. It can even pay for people to talk for it. But copyright, at its heart, is a question that is more important than money. It effects our culture, our galleries and museums, our ability to discuss current issues and works of art and even how we express ourselves in creating new art. It is the law that says how our society is going to regulate and reward creativity of all sorts.
But how can we have a proper discussion when our Government Ministers decide in advance who they do and don’t want to hear from? And in what sense are they our Government when the people they don’t want to hear from are us?
Simon McGarr, April 2, 2012.

From this it seems that the minister is not prepared to have an opposing view heard.

oscarBravo

Sarky wrote: »

I... That's... How could he be so... I mean... What?

That's pretty much verbatim my response when I read it.

Words fail me.

DeVore

joolsveer wrote: »

From this it seems that the minister is not prepared to have an opposing view heard.

I'll respectfully beg to differ

KyussBishop

His whole argument (now and from the beginning), concentrating on the 'SOPA' label, is a disingenuous way of dismissing the publics concerns, and is pretty shameful.

That should probably be a question brought up to him in the panel, why does his response to the issues focus on the "Irish SOPA" label, even when it is obvious that label is only riding on the awareness campaign over SOPA (for the sake of public understanding/awareness, not spin), and not actually equating this law to SOPA, other than that it is an "Internet-threatening copyright law".

It's a complete red-herring, and he uses it to avoid arguments against the SI, by effectively saying "people are only angry because they think this is like SOPA".


Since he has such a 'principled' concern about being on a panel with a person who has used the SOPA label, perhaps he could provide a public list of all the lobby groups he meets on a regular basis?
I suppose all of them have a 100% clean ethical record, the music industry isn't at all well known for misleading the public, lobbying for damaging copyright laws, and treating their artists and customers like crap.

Seriously though, I would bet money that he meets a few "ethically challenged" lobby groups on a regular basis, so the hypocrisy here is quite something.
Put this as a public question, ask him to provide a public list of all his meetings (there is no good reason for him not to, it is in the public interest for sure); I have over email.

Overheal

nevermind all the drama: will there be audio for those of us which can't attend?

DeVore

I believe a cam will be live streamed, if not then it will certainly be video recorded.

I'll post the link here if it is streamed.

meglome

DeVore wrote: »

Ladies and Gentlemen, we just lost cabin pressure.

http://www.broadsheet.ie/2012/04/02/the-lawyer-behind-the-stop-sopa-ireland-campaign-writes/

I'm staying out of this except to confirm that as Simon says, I would have stepped out of the way to allow him speak in my place if asked.

If you want to attend you need to book your ticket (FREE!). Bring popcorn, leave the rotten fruit behind.

I believe it will be videoed for upload and possibly streamed live. I'll keep ye posted.

Jesus holy ****ing christ. I had my tickets booked but there was a fire in our apartment block so I can't go (no injuries).

I'll be having a wee word with my local TD's about this, ****ing disgraceful.

Parawind

One of the biggest issues that i'm sure has already been raised is, if a new Irish web startup attempts to launch a new service and these copyright holders think it could potential impact there sales in the future (even if it doesn't violate any copyright laws). They could just hit them with one of these injunctions and take them to court, knowing that even if the service would be perfectly legal there is no way that a small startup could afford the court costs. Essentially killing innovation before it gets going!

DeVore

And I intend to make that very point tomorrow.

aidan_walsh

http://twitter.com/seansherlocktd/status/186903911804837888

@seansherlocktd: Change of heart. Happy to have simon mcgarr on panel amarach. If he'll accept. Time to make amends. @Tupp_Ed @sean_nicholls @naoisen

DeVore

Bah. Scooped. Damn you new media!!! *shakes fist*



Gosh, politics is FUN, its all cutty and thrusty and daggery. With added cloak.

Lemming

aidan_walsh wrote: »

http://twitter.com/seansherlocktd/status/186903911804837888

How can one politician so successfully and repeatedly continue to put his own foot in his mouth? Is the man a master of Bikram or something?

Words fail me on the brazen arrogance, sheer incompetence & absolute lack of political acumen on display. A welcome roll-back on the demand from his office most certainly, but all the same ... what appalling carry-on from someone who should frankly know a hell of a lot better.

Parawind

DeVore wrote: »

Bah. Scooped. Damn you new media!!! *shakes fist*

If only there was some sort of instrument to prevent this sort of thing, wouldn't the world be a much better place! :rolleyes:

SolarNexus

Parawind wrote: »

If only there was some sort of instrument to prevent this sort of thing, wouldn't the world be a much better place! :rolleyes:

hey, before you start something like that, I think we need to debate it.

(since nobody will get this joke, hi, I'm the *other* Sean. the one organising the DRF)

allanb49

Live Stream for today

http://www.sciencegallery.com/livestream

bedrock#1

Might be of interest to people around these parts

Interview with maverick GNU creator Richard Stallman - "Steve Jobs was an evil genius"

http://www.jupiterbroadcasting.com/17822/richard-stallman-gnulas-s20e10/

Roar

allanb49 wrote: »

Live Stream for today

http://www.sciencegallery.com/livestream

not working for me. Did Sherlock have it sopa'd? :pac:

ondafly

link here on this page

http://www.thejournal.ie/live-sean-sherlock-participates-in-debate-on-digital-rights-405553-Apr2012/

video is breaking up though

direct link
http://www.ustream.tv/channel/2168027

Dirk Gently

Roar wrote: »

not working for me. Did Sherlock have it sopa'd? :pac:

Just about to say the same. Probably a "condition" on the minister taking part.

allanb49

any live tweets going of this?

allanb49

video isn't working for me either

Roar

"waffle waffle waffle"

I think that's the jist of what he's saying anyway.

wyrn

For those who can't see the Science Gallery link, you can see it here

My name is URL

I was late tuning in. Will this be put up on YouTube later on?

Roar

I had to take a call at the end of that so wasn't giving it my full attention, was Sherlock babbling on about everyone being a keyboard warrior at the end?

TouchingVirus

My name is URL wrote: »

I was late tuning in. Will this be put up on YouTube later on?

Dav was recording as much of it as he could. Also said it might be recorded by the Science Gallery too. I guess it'll go online if it was.

Roar wrote: »

I had to take a call at the end of that so wasn't giving it my full attention, was Sherlock babbling on about everyone being a keyboard warrior at the end?

My stream lagged but something like having to endure big egos behind computer screens who were nice in real life etc. Basically called us all trolls

From what I saw, Tom played a blinder there. So many quoteables and plenty of passion to boot, fair play!

Roar

"EMI SUED A COUNTRY!"

Hero

Dustaz

Devore was utterly outstanding in that. We need to make a highlights reel of what he said and get it on broadsheet