CyberLaw Blog

Archive for November 3rd, 2008

John Ozimek: A victory for the terrorists | Comment is free | guardian.co.uk

Website censorship erodes the very freedoms that the home secretary purports to defend.

John Ozimek, guardian.co.uk, Sunday November 02 2008 20.00 GMT

The UK has a very real problem with websites that incite terrorism, and if we are not careful the government’s preferred cure could be as bad as the disease itself. Faced with the impossibility of policing material that originates from abroad, the home secretary is now planning to appoint herself the UK’s first official censor.

In 2006, the government passed a law banning the display of material that “directly or indirectly” encouraged terrorism.

(Via Techdirt.)

UK Lawyers Video Game Piracy Shakedown Catching Plenty Of Innocent Bystanders: “Last time we checked in with UK law firm Davenport Lyons, they were trying to set up a shakedown process where they threatened to sue as many people as possible for allegedly sharing a video game. Despite some lofty talk by Davenport Lyons, it was quite clear from the beginning that this never had anything to do with copyright. It was just a straight up shakedown. The firm would send threatening letters claiming that it had evidence (even if it did not) and then demand a settlement fee be paid to avoid an actual lawsuit. It’s difficult to see how or why that should be legal.

The firm was aided in its quest by drastically exaggerating a legal ‘win’ in one of these cases. The win was because it was a default judgment. The woman that was accused of file sharing did not show up in court, and the court had no choice but to rule against her. Yet, to hear Davenport Lyons tell it, you might be lead to believe that a full blown court case occurred, with a full defense of the actions, and the woman lost.

A lawyer in the UK who was disgusted by this practice, Michael Coyle, has offered to defend as many innocent recipients of the shakedown letter as possible, and now the press is reporting he’s already pursuing seventy cases of innocent people being falsely accused (and has heard from hundreds more). The article profiles one such case, where a couple (aged 54 and 66) were accused of sharing a car racing game. The only problem? They have no video games on their computer, nor any file sharing software (and they didn’t even know what it was until they got the threatening letter).

Even more ridiculous? They wrote to Davenport Lyons three times without any response. It was only once a magazine picked up their story that Davenport Lyons and Atari dropped the threat. It’s about time that the press shines a light on these practices, which clearly have little to do with protecting the rights of copyright holders, and plenty to do with a new, highly questionable, revenue stream that some might call ‘extortion.

(Via Techdirt.)

French Senate Approves 3 Strikes Law: “Despite the fact that the EU Parliament rejected the concept of a ‘three strikes’ law for kicking people off the internet, and warned member countries that such laws interfered with civil rights and privacy rights of individuals, France is moving forward with such a law. The EU Parliament specifically had called on France to reconsider such a law, but the French Senate has approved the law by an overwhelming majority, 297 to 15. The law still needs approval from the lower house of Parliament as well, but it’s disappointing that any government body would approve such a law after it’s been shown to be both unnecessary and destructive.

BBC News: Cybercrime wave sweeping Britain

Cybercrime in the UK rose by more than 9% in 2007, according to a new report.

Online identity firm Garlik’s cybercrime report claims that more than 3.5 million online crimes were committed in the UK last year. The majority of crimes related to fraud and abusive or threatening e-mails. There was an 8% drop in online identity theft and sexual offences fell 2%.

The Garlik UK Cybercrime Report is available through here.

New Statesman – Criminalising extreme porn

Katy Taylor, Published 28 October 2008

Feminists are split over government plans to ban so-called extreme porn with some groups arguing censorship is not a real solution to the wider social problem of violence against women.

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