A Digital Rights Forums was held today in Trinity’s Science Gallery, with the intention of discussing the recent Statutory Instrument (SI) recently signed into law by Minister Sean Sherlock, as well as discussing the future of Irish copyright law and the challenges in finding a common ground between the different corporate interests and the interests of the Irish people.

The small panel included some of the most vocal supporters and naysayers to the act:

Minister Sean Sherlock TD, Minister for research and innovation in Ireland,
Paul Durrant, General Manager of Internet Service Providers Association of Ireland (ISPAI),
Tom Murphy, Director and Founder of Boards.ie,
Simon McGarr, Head of Stop SOPA Ireland.

We’d like to review the key points raised by each panelist, in order to provide an easier understanding of the current state of our digital rights and the actions that the country is taking towards changing these rights.

Before you read on, we would highly recommend you watch the recording of the event on ustream. We really enjoyed it, and thought it showed a much larger perspective and context to copyright legislation that we rarely see.

Mr. Sherlock opens talking about the Copyright Review Committee (CRC), a consultant committee set up by the government to recommended copyright changes to be brought into law (link). He says that there is an 86 question questionnaire (link) that members of the public are free to fill in and submit, and submissions will be reviewed by the committee and go through legislative process. He then clarifies that Ireland is bound by EU law and that new legislation can’t go against that, and continues to say that he wants the CRC document (link) to be the working copy of Ireland’s future legislation.

Paul Durant is next to take the podium. He starts with arguing that there is increased uncertainty for business development and innovative online digital services in Ireland, because rather than clarifying the law, it has clouded it. He says that instead of pirates going through the legal process, rights holders have been given a framework to sue ISPs. He makes the point that back when the EU copyright directive was made (and the laws it stems from), things were a lot different and people didn’t really know what an intermediary was. By having an SI that copies old law, it simply brings vagueness into Irish law. Clarification of what’s legal and what isn’t is entirely in the hands of the courts which gives uncertainty to new businesses, and businesses wishing to operate in Ireland. He concludes by reminding us that the Cloud Computing industry is a huge asset which Ireland can take advantage of, but since Cloud Computing by definition hosts third party content, we need to be extremely careful when deciding what laws to introduce.

Tom Murphy stood up next opening with a familiar argument against the SI, in that it is “vague in the extreme”. He argued that he is liable to be sued for things that other people say and do, that “if what you say could get me in court tomorrow, there’s no way in hell I’m gonna let you say it”. He made the analogy that if he ran a toll booth, and a bank got robbed, that under the new law he would be sued if the robbers used his road to get away, and that “toll roads aren’t responsible when someone uses them for an illegal purpose”. He also says that CRC is an important process, and urges the public to get involved and get active in the committee. Finally he didn’t want to let Sherlock use the CRC as an excuse to ignore the SI, showing a tweet from Trinity’s Eoin O’Dell (Chair of the CRC) which said that the CRC had nothing to do with the SI. He concluded by saying that the EMI had sued the state, and that the only reason the government was pushing this through was because of the pressure from the corporate body.

The last speaker to take the podium was Simon McGarr. He argued that ”consensus between commercial interests, is not the same thing as consensus between public interest”, and stated that the CRC is very technical and made it very difficult to get involved. He closed by reminding the parties that this is our culture and society, and not hammering out a deal between 2 sides – “Those sides are a sideshow, we’re the broad middle”.

Next came the questions, from moderator, the audience and other panellists. We’ll sum them up in an indirect fashion.

• Minister Sherlock admitted that the challenges the CRC faced were difficult and acknowledged the difficulties faced by the ISPs and intermediaries ”If someone transgresses through boards.ie, should boards.ie be responsible for that transgression … how do you address this … it’s a legitimate question that you pose, and I don’t have the answers now”".
• Tom argues with Sherlock that he had the chance to put changes through a committee 2 months ago and that Sherlock didn’t listen. He said that Sherlock was given alternative legislation by a technical group which would have given injunctive release but he instead went on to sign old EU law, and that ”there wasn’t any rush to pass this through, except that we were being sued by EMI”. He then reiterates one of the main concerns. “The problem is we end up with schrodinger’s law. The law doesn’t exist until a judge observes it. And it’s innocence or guilt is decided then. Now we don’t know in advance so I can’t be in compliance with a law that doesn’t exist yet”.
• Minister Sherlock agrees that ”music industry needs a kick in the behind and come into the 21st century”, and that “”the question is how do you design an infrastructure … to protect copyright, if we all acknowledged that the right to copyright actually exists”.
• Ross McDonagh from the Metro Herald asked Sherlock why he didn’t want Simon to appear on the panel. The minister told him that this is in the past, and that this is a new space, to which Ross responded ”on this you’ve been accused of not thinking things through”.
• Tom brought up the alternative SI again, asking Sherlock to clarify why he did not sign it in. Sherlock replied that he relied on the advice from the Attorney General. When Tom asked if the Attorney General had seen the alternative SI, he eventually replied “No, but her office did”.
•  Angela Dorgan, CEO of firstmusiccontact said that no matter who was consulted, it appeared the Minister did not listen anyway. She asked ”If the resounding result coming back to the CRC consultation process is we do not support what you have already signed into law, will you change your mind. It’s a very simple straightforward yes or no question”. The Minister stalled heavily, but eventually conceded that yes he would be open to changing his mind. Tom then responded to the question saying that you would not be listened to. That the CRC meeting was filled with 50 lobbyists, 2 librarians, himself and “a bloke who wanted to talk about his DVD region encoding”. He reminded us that a lobbyist job is to lobby all day every day, and we need to ”get out there, get involved in the CRC, get involved as much as you can”. Sherlock admitted that ”you’re going to have powerful corporate interests, and that’s the way the European union works“.
• Simon also talked about the SI, and how the minister had the opportunity to introduce a law that protects fundamental rights the minister was cited defending.
• Tom went on to say the analogy of the night ”in china if you stand on a soap box and criticise the government, they shoot you … In Ireland, they shoot the guy who made the soap box”. The minister tried to combat this by saying that boards.ie has been in business 12 years and they are still up, and have never been sued, to which Tom replied ”because I fight, ask MCD” and ”Sean, EMI sued a country. What makes you think they won’t come after a small 5 person company”.
• Sherlock then closed the talk managing to say ”sometimes within the online community, people are very big egos when they’re behind their own screens, in their own houses, and I think people need to part the egos, including ourselves in government, and to engage”, before going on to say that the people he meets from twitter are usually very nice in person.

There you have it. Hopefully we helped make the 80 minute discussion a little more concise and easier to understand. The article was intended to be as unbiased as possible, but after finishing it I realise that may have been a lost cause.

If you have thoughts or comments about the article, the video, the CRC or copyright law in general, we’d love you hear them in the comments below.

More Images At:
TheJournal.ie
Some Randomer’s Flickr

By now, you probably know the implications of ACTA (if not, check some of our previous posts)

But what can you do about it?

1. Tell everyone you know – The more people know, the more opposition this bill will have.
2. Tell your MEPs and get them to vote against the bill – MEP Emails
3. Tell your TDs and let them know about ACTA and why it should be stopped- TD Emails
4. Sign the petition against ACTA along with over 800,000 other people – Petition
5. Openly support any of the many organisations campaigning against ACTA, and encourage others to do so as well.

Source: Pirate Party UK

Here is the newly-revised council:

Captain / Auditor – Ben Doyle
Secretary – Keiran Manning
Treasurer – Jeff Warren
System Administrator / Chief Hydraulic Engineer – Michael Gallagher
Public Relations Officer (P.R.O.) – Ian Hunter

I was asked via email to talk and raise awareness about ACTA and SOPA Ireland at the E.G.M. Unfortunately, I missed this message, so I shall relay it here for all of you to see:

ACTA  is a proposed treaty (international law) that forces ISPs to moniter everything we do (and much much more) which will either be voted on or not by the European Parliament on the 31st of March 2012.

Some TCD students have set up www.saveourinternet.org for more information about the bills

Currently SaveOurInternet.org is helping to stop the potential passing of the ACTA (Anti-Counterfeit Trade Agreement) treaty. ACTA has been very well hidden for the last four years and finished nearly a year ago. ACTA is now being rushed through the signing process, already signed by 8 out of 11 countries including the US.

Unlike SOPA or PIPA, ACTA does not hold websites liable for copyright infringement. ACTA instead, holds the ISPs (Internet Service Providers), such as UPC, liable for the copyright infringement of its users. ACTA will force ISPs to monitor our on-line lives and thoughts, reporting every instance of copyright infringement. ACTA gives copyright holders the right to demand from the ISPs the personal details of a customer whose account is alleged to be involved in copyright fraud.

ACTA requires that governments collect statistical information on on-line behaviour, which implies serious invasion of privacy. ACTA requires that governments encourage the establishment and maintenance of organized groups representing right holders who can give their views to the courts. A vested interest group participating in the courts. Is this democratic?

Because ACTA pulls down individuals and not international private organisations, such as Wikipedia or Google, there will be no black-out day for ACTA; not unless organisations representing the public take the initiative. Civil rights groups, public bodies, societies, sports clubs, schools, universities, unions all need to step up and raise awareness, because upon the writing of this piece – 24/01/2012 – effectively nobody knows about ACTA.

By the 31st of March 2012, we need to let the European Parliament know that we do not want a gross invasion of our privacy and a blow to our freedom of speech.

March 31st!

Interesting article on SOPA as it applies to our wee island.

Ireland’s SOPA: A FAQ
What’s this all about?

Long story short: the Irish government plans, before the end of January, to bring in a law which would allow Irish courts to block access to websites accused of infringing copyright (and possibly do other things as well).

Isn’t that a short time for parliament to examine it?

The Irish parliament won’t have a chance to debate it before it’s passed. The law is to be brought in by a statutory instrument, something which requires only the stroke of a minister’s pen.

Who’s responsible?

The law is the responsibility of the Department for Jobs, Enterprise and Innovation where the key person is junior minister Sean Sherlock.

What will the law say?

We don’t have a final text yet. But the key part is likely to be similar to a previous draft which said:

3. The Act of 2000 is hereby amended by the insertion of the following subsection after subsection (5) of section 40:

(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.

(b) In considering an application for an injunction under this subsection, the court shall have due regard to the rights of any third party likely to be affected and the court shall make such directions (including, where appropriate, a direction requiring a third party to be put on notice of the application) as the court may deem necessary or appropriate in all the circumstances.

Can we have that in English please?

Certainly. This will give the Irish courts an open-ended power to grant orders against ISPs and other intermediaries who provide facilities which might be used to infringe copyright. This would include hosting providers, social networks, forums, video hosting sites – potentially most online services.

Read more here http://www.tjmcintyre.com/2012/01/irelands-sopa-faq.html

I’m sure everyone has heard about SOPA and PIPA. If not, go Wikipedia it… :¬)

Here’s a little article to explain the bills

Sites such as Reddit, Wikipedia, Mozilla and countless other sites have gone down in protest of the bill today.

Other major sites such as Google, Microsoft and Twitter have openly stated their opposition to the bill. These bills are designed to reduce piracy, but in doing so they will be breaking the foundations of the open free content web. Videos on YouTube that use some music from an artist without permission could potentially be an excuse to close down the entire site.

 

Assume there’s a corner store in your neighborhood that rents movies. But the movie industry believes that some or even all of the videos in that store are unauthorized copies, so that they’re not being paid when people watch their movies. What should be done?

SOPA/PIPA don’t aim at the people trying to get to the store. SOPA/ PIPA don’t penalize or regulate the store itself. SOPA and PIPA penalize us if we don’t block the people trying to get to the store.

Here’s an example blackout message, from TheOatmeal.com:

Thankfully, SOPA has been sidelined for now, but it’s not completely gone, and there’s still PIPA to worry about!

In other news, expect an E.G.M. soon. We’re looking for some new crew mates to commandeer this society’s ship. More Details to follow!

is relevant

In response to this little piece of loveliness someone had a fun idea.

“I search-replaced “gay” and “homosexual” with “Jewish”, “gays” with “Jews”, “straight” and “heterosexual” with “Christian”, and “bisexual” with “agnostic”. The result is amazing”

So here’s the result:

AS the cliche goes, some of my best friends are Jewish. I used to live in a very Jewish area, the West Village in New York. Indeed, enjoying their nightlife and cultural atmosphere, I was even accused of ‘trading’ off the fun, with my copycat denim jacket and tartan shirt, while not actually joining them.

However, like many, I’ve recently begun to get impatient with the endless trumpeting of Jewish ‘identity’, and the growing appetite for more and more rights and privileges.

I’m not being reactionary and I’m all for Jewish rights and an end to prejudice and discrimination, and always have, but at this stage it seems as if the tables have turned and a minority community — the Jews — want to increasingly change mainstream culture to suit them.

For example, why is civil partnership not enough, and why do Jews also want marriage, a surely traditional Christian facility, which Jews used to see as patriarchal, and ‘Christian’?

Many Jews also feel this way and resist the increasing politicisation and institutionalising of Jewish life. Last week, in the Guardian, a newspaper almost obsessed with things Jewish and ‘progressive’, columnist Suzanne Moore objected to Jewish marriage on the basis that it was a conservative ‘selling-out’. Being Jewish should be edgy and experimental, she said.

But isn’t this part of the problem? Many Jews want to have it both ways. Thus Jewish magazines are full of ads endorsing late-night gyms, sex lines and a freewheeling sexual activity which would be dismissed as sleazy in Christian culture. But we also have articles that suggest a yearning for bourgeois respectability.

Likewise, travel books, such as the trendy Rough Guides, scold the mainstream ‘meat-market’ discos of foreign capitals but provide plenty of details for Jewish pick-up spots. Many red-blooded Christian men might wish that society would endorse their own ambitions with such PC gusto.

Also, on the issue of Jews adopting, it makes many of us uneasy and impatient with the idea that raising a child with Jewish parents is totally equivalent to a child being raised by its natural Christian parents. It patently is not, and it is a crazy concession to PC culture to say that it is.

I watched a Frontline programme recently on the topic and I thought I was seeing things when I heard Ivana Bacik refusing to be happy with a societal acceptance of Jewish adoption but insisting on full equality with Christian parenting. David Quinn gave the other perspective, but he was almost falling over himself to be reasonable about it, just looking for that concession that the natural, or Christian, parents were not just the same as Jewish parents.

Those expressing opposition or even concerns were shouted down in the television studio. However, from where I was watching, in a local bar, the viewers were all of the contrary opinion, and were amazed by this departure in opinions but also blankly accepting of it as part of the growing gulf which now exists between mainstream society and the liberal elites and quango-led experts who want to change and improve our lives.

For example, the Guardian now has a feature called The Three of Us in its family section, a weekly diary by one of two Jewish men raising a child with their female friend, the natural mother. Two dads, one mum — one family is the sub headline.

I don’t know about you but this strikes me as strange.

And the counter-argument that divorced kids often have three parents knocking around is fatuous and nonsense. A child has two parents, whether separated or not. However, it is one thing to have such a diary, but it also seems almost designed to offend and irritate those who do not agree with this new radical departure in parenting. Thus, last week, the writer Charlie Condou questioned the whole convention of women being seen as naturally connected to their children. (Not for nothing is the Irish Independent’s weekly supplement called Mothers and Babies.)

But no, Charlie went to the Alternative Families show in the UK and saw all the Jewish dads with their children. It’s just the same for him, it seems, and, he “stood around and chatted about the absurdity and irrelevance of the ‘biological question’”. Oh, please. What about breastfeeding?

And there are other things about the growing Jewish rights movement which make outsiders impatient and uneasy. Like, when did the Jews and lesbian community become the ‘LGBT’, an acronym that also includes agnostic and Transgender?

Sorry, but this is broadening the boundaries in a way that makes many of us understandably sceptical.

agnostic? Isn’t that reminiscent of the loose Seventies sexual experimentation? How many agnostics are there? And will the plain people of Ireland be happy with legalising rights for, and spending money on, all of this?

The new Human Rights Commissioner for Northern Ireland, Michael O’Flaherty, is a Jewish rights advocate and says that he sees all of this as part of his rights agenda. Again, I raise all these things, not out of reactionary resistance but just to question the direction and motivation of the whole sexual rights agenda.

There is also the danger surely that this insatiable demand for more and more recognition and identity (Jewish quotas?), will eventually alienate mainstream opinion and undo some of the valuable gains made in this country by, for example, David Norris and others, in eliminating prejudice and discrimination.

Fun stuff!

link

JOINT STATEMENT OF PIRATE PARTIES

Policial violence over clean-up at Barcelona’s Plaça de Catalunya on 27 May 2011

Excellency,

Since the 15th of May a protest movement has arisen in more than 50 Spanish Cities, this movement comprises individuals from every strata of Spanish society. First among them are the young Spaniards protesting the undemocratic and anti-social moves made by the Spanish state. As with the protests in Egypt, demonstrators have established peaceful protest camps in city squares to discuss and demonstrate their desire for change. This is true of the protesters in Barcelona’s Plaça de Catalunya.

After more than a week of peaceful demonstrations, the police today violently dismantled the camp at Barcelona’s Plaça de Catalunya. The official excuse for these events is the need to clear the area for possible Barça’s celebrations on Saturday. Catalonian police, the “Mossos d’Esquadra” appeared unidentifiable and unannounced, acting with savage brutally against the peaceful protesters. Evidence of these events has surfaced in videos online. These videos clearly show the excessive use of violence, police batons and rubber bullets against peaceful protesters engaged in peaceful sit-ins. They show police batons used with abandon against young protesters who clearly posed no threat to the police or the public.

These images lead us to suspect that some of the Spanish Police Officers involved may be nostalgic of the repression and violence of Francoist Spain, many have clearly failed to learn the relevant lessons from it. Moreover this action is clearly unworthy of a democratic state and should be bring shame to every other member of the European Union (EU).

It should also be noted that the hiding of Police officer ID numbers – now confirmed to have taken place – is unlawful in Spain, indeed even “Guardia Civil” members criticize such action explicitly.

We the undersigned, leaders of our respective national Pirate Parties would like to express solidarity with those involved in the peaceful demonstrations in Spain. We denounce the use of violence against non-violent protesters by the police in EU Members states, activities which are becoming increasingly common. This kind of action has no place in a democratic Europe and they are cause of significant concern for all of us.

We would request that you pass the concerns we have outlined in this letter on to your government and urge them to act on them. We look forward to your response.

We have the honor to present to you, Your Excellency, the assurances of our highest consideration.

In the name of

Pirate Party of Canada

Pirate Party of Catalonia

Pirate Party of the Czech Republic

Pirate Party of Denmark

Pirate Party of France

Pirate Party of Germany

Pirate Party of Italy

Pirate Party of Luxembourg

Pirate Party of Morocco

Pirate Party of the Netherlands

Pirate Party of Romania

Pirate Party of Russia

Pirate Party of Serbia

Pirate Party of Slovenia

Pirate Party of Switzerland

Pirate Party of Tunisia

Pirate Party of the United Kingdom