CyberLaw Blog

Archive for June 12th, 2008

Verizon offers details of Usenet deletion: alt.* groups, others gone:

Verizon Communications confirmed on Thursday that it will stop offering its customers access to tens of thousands of Usenet discussion areas, including the alt.* groups that have been a free-flowing area for discussions for over two decades.

Eric Rabe, a Verizon spokesman, said only a subset of discussion groups, …

(Via The Iconoclast.)

ISPs: We’re limiting our own Usenet groups, not blocking others:

An announcement this week by New York State Attorney General Andrew Cuomo that three Internet service providers would ‘block’ sources of child porn has caused a surprising amount of confusion.

First, some news reports assumed that meant blocking, say, overseas Web sites that are deemed illegal. But Cuomo’s press …

(Via The Iconoclast.)

This is an article from: TorrentFreak

Canada Proposes Draconian Anti-Piracy Law:

The bill, dubbed the ‘Canadian DMCA’ has not been popular with many of those it will effect. Over 40,000 have joined a facebook group, run by Michael Geist opposing it. Geist, a law professor at University of Ottawa, has been fighting to oppose these laws for some time now. On the tabling of the bill, he writes ‘The government plans for second reading at the next sitting of the house, effectively removing the ability to send it to committee after first reading (and therefore be more open to change)’

The bill is controversial in many ways. Whilst supporters of the bill will point to the allowances for time shifting, format shifting, and the ability to ‘private copy’ (moving a song from CD to an mp3 player for instance). It will, however, prevent that activity, though criminalization, if there is any sort of technological restriction on it. Anti-copy flags on TV shows, DRM on music, or rootkits on CDs would mean that any attempt to make a fair use, would be subject to prosecution and heavy fines.

Perhaps even more important, uploaders, and to an extent, downloaders too (certainly those on torrents), will now be liable. While in the past, the RMCP has stated it won’t pursue uploaders, with new laws come changes in policy for those that enforce the laws. Bill C-61 contains a statutory damage amount of $500.

Limitation
(1.If a copyright owner has made an election under subsection (1), a defendant who is an individual is liable for statutory damages of $500 in respect of all the defendant’s infringements that were done for the defendant’s private purposes and that are involved in the proceedings.

This is a change from the previous wording, which gave the court latitude to drop that $500 to as low as $200.

Scene members, and torrent sites will also find themselves under increasing pressure. Despite claims that most torrent sites are not commercial, it’s not stopped industry associations from claiming they are, in order to get law enforcement action against them. From the act,

Circumvention of technological measure
(3.1) Every person, except a person who is acting on behalf of a library, archive or museum or an educational institution, is guilty of an offence who knowingly and for commercial purposes contravenes section 41.1 and is liable

(a) on conviction on indictment, to a fine not exceeding $1,000,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding five years or to both; or

(b) on summary conviction, to a fine not exceeding $25,000 or to imprisonment for a term not exceeding six months or to both.

Although DRM has seen a decline in recent times, laws like this can only give content distributors incentive to bring them back, at least in Canada.

OECD ministerial meeting in Seoul, South Korea
Council of Europe calls upon governments to sign up to its Cybercrime Convention

Strasbourg, 12.06.2008 - Europe’s primary human rights watchdog, the Council of Europe, will participate in the OECD ministerial meeting on the Future of the Internet Economy in Seoul, South Korea, from 17-18 June. At the meeting, Deputy Secretary General Maud de Boer-Buquicchio, will encourage governments to accede to the Council of Europe’s Convention on Cybercrime - the only internationally binding instrument against cybercrime.

“Any successful campaign against cybercrime will have to be as global as cybercrime itself. The Council of Europe Convention provides the platform for such global co-operation, and this is why other countries should join as soon as possible. From the outset, the Convention was conceived as a global instrument. It is not only a European treaty, it is a treaty drafted in Europe to serve the world,” said Mrs de Boer-Buquicchio, who will address the round table on “Building Confidence” on 18 June.

The Deputy Secretary General will also have bilateral meetings with the South Korean Vice-Minister of Justice, Sung-woo Moon, and the Deputy Secretary General of the OECD, Pier Carlo Padoan.

Notes
* The Convention on Cybercrime has been signed by a total of 44 countries and is a source of inspiration for many others looking to amend their legislation, such as Argentina, Brazil, Columbia, Costa Rica, the Dominican Republic, Egypt, India, Indonesia, Mexico, Nigeria and the Philippines.

* On 3 April, the Council of Europe adopted guidelines to help law enforcement bodies and Internet service providers improve cooperation on the investigation of cybercrime and fight web-based crimes such as child pornography, identity theft and other forms of fraud, as well as denial of service attacks (see www.coe.int/cybercrime).

* The recently-adopted Council of Europe Convention on the Protection of Children against Sexual Exploitation and Sexual Abuse also offers states a valuable new tool for preventing and combating every kind of violation of children’s fundamental rights, including grooming (the manipulation of children by adults online for sexual purposes).

* The Council of Europe will contribute to the next meeting of the United Nations Internet Governance Forum to be held in Hyderabad (India) in December 2008.

Further information on the Council of Europe’s activities is available at www.coe.int

For more information on the OECD meeting, visit www.oecd.org/FutureInternet or www.OECDMinisterialSeoul2008.org.

Intelligence documents left on a train: “

Laptop ban no barrier to government’s data giveaway

A senior civil servant has been suspended for leaving top secret intelligence documents on a Waterloo to Surrey train.…

“

(Via The Register - Public Sector.)

David Davis resigns from Commons: “Shadow home secretary David Davis is resigning as an MP to force a by-election which he will fight on the issue of the new 42-day terror detention limit.”

“In truth, 42 days is just one - perhaps the most salient example - of the insidious, surreptitious and relentless erosion of fundamental British freedoms.” Davis listed the growth of the “database state,” government “snooping” ID cards, the erosion of jury trials and other issues.

“This cannot go on. It must be stopped and for that reason today I feel it is incumbent on me to make a stand,” said Mr Davis.

“At least my electorate and the nation as a whole will have had the opportunity to debate and consider one of the most fundamental issues of our day - the ever intrusive power of the state into our lives, the loss of privacy, the loss of freedom and the steady attrition undermining the rule of law,” he said.

(Via BBC News.)

France gets closer to ‘three strikes’ downloader web ban:

International war on pirates part deux

The globalisation of internet law continues apace, as French legislators press ahead next week with the ‘loi Hadopi‘. The purpose of this proposed law is twofold: to clamp down on internet piracy, and to shift the responsibility for this clampdown firmly on to the shoulders of ISPs.…

(Via The Register - Comms.)

ATTORNEY GENERAL CUOMO ANNOUNCES UNPRECEDENTED DEAL WITH NATION’S LARGEST INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDERS TO BLOCK MAJOR SOURCES OF CHILD PORNOGRAPHY

For Immediate Release:
New York City Press Office / 212-416-8060
Albany Press Office / 518-473-5525
nyag.pressoffice@oag.state.ny.us

June 10, 2008

ATTORNEY GENERAL CUOMO ANNOUNCES UNPRECEDENTED DEAL WITH NATION’S LARGEST INTERNET SERVICE PROVIDERS TO BLOCK MAJOR SOURCES OF CHILD PORNOGRAPHY
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Attorney General’s Undercover Investigation Reveals Thousands of Images of Child Pornography
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Landmark Agreements with Verizon, Time Warner Cable, and Sprint Eliminate Child Porn Sources and Secure Over $1.1 Million to Combat the Spread of Child Porn

NEW YORK, NY (June 10, 2008) – Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo today announced landmark agreements with Verizon, Time Warner Cable, and Sprint to shut down major sources of online child pornography. For the first time, three of the world’s largest Internet Service Providers (‘ISPs’) have agreed to block access to child porn from two significant sources. The companies will eliminate access to child porn Newsgroups, a major supplier of these illegal images, and will also purge their servers of child porn websites.
(more…)

Washington Post coverage of the New York Initiative

New York Attorney General Andrew M. Cuomo, at the podium, is joined at the announcement by, from left, Matthew Sullivan of Sprint Nextel, Jeff Zimmerman of Time Warner Cable and Tom Daly of Verizon.

Internet Providers Agree To Block Child Pornography: Internet Providers Agree To Block Child Pornography - Deals Cast Telecom Firms as Censors

By Peter Whoriskey, Washington Post Staff Writer, Wednesday, June 11, 2008; A01

Three of the nation’s major Internet service providers have agreed to block customer access to newsgroups and Web sites that offer child pornography, according to an agreement announced yesterday by the New York attorney general’s office.

The agreements, which were hailed by child-welfare advocates as a significant step, push the service providers to take a more active role in monitoring what takes place over their lines.

But by forcing providers to act as censors, the agreements may also violate the First Amendment, free-speech advocates said.

Justice Department Trying to Revive COPA: “Government lawyers tried Tuesday to revive the Child Online Protection Act, a 1998 law designed to keep online pornography away from children.”

(Via XBIZ.com | News & Articles.)