CyberLaw Blog

Archive for the ‘Notice and Takedown’ Category

Cyber-Rights.Org.TR: Blogspot Blocking Order has been revoked
14.03.2011 – Entry by Dr. Yaman Akdeniz

Today, the Diyarbakir Public Prosecutor’s Office revoked the blocking order issued by the Diyarbakir 5th Criminal Court of First Instance on 14 January 2011 with regards to the popular Blogspot platform used by millions of people around the world. The decision will now be communicated to the Turkish ISPs and access should be back to normal within the next few days.

Cyber-Rights.Org.TR orchestrated several appeals representing a Blogspot user based in Turkey and these appeals were lodged three days before Google managed to lodge an appeal with the Diyarbakir Public Prosecutor’s Office. As the allegedly infringing blogs (goltvnet.blogspot.com, sportrhd.blogspot.com, trgoals2.blogspot.com, freesoccertrhd.blogspot.com, and izleligtvblog.blogspot.com) were removed by Google there was no further need to block access to the Blogspot Platform. A Court dealing with the appeal requested an expert opinion with regards to the claim of removal of the above mentioned blogs and the expert report backed the claims made by our legal team representing İdil Elveriş, the owner of travelmind-idilka.blogspot.com.

Dr. Yaman Akdeniz issued the following statement: “Blogspot decision should not have been issued in the first place. We hope this will be the last time access to a web 2.0 based platform will be blocked from Turkey. However, it would be naive to believe that this will be the end of it. The future remains bleak in terms of Internet restrictions in Turkey.”

Is Europe’s shield for web hosts corroding away?: “OPINION: A gap is emerging between the way similar laws are being interpreted in the US and Europe that presents a threat to web hosts. In Europe they are at greater risk of being saddled with liability for users’ copyright transgressions than in the US.“

(Via OUT-LAW News.)

Spanish court clears YouTube of copyright liability for uploaded videos: “YouTube is not liable for copyright infringement because users have uploaded video material from Spanish television station Telecino, a Madrid court has ruled. YouTube is not obliged to monitor all content and weed out infringement, the court said.“

(Via OUT-LAW News.)

Spanish court throws out copyright infringement claims against youtube – The Inquirer: “Spanish court throws out copyright infringement claims against Youtube
Says content owners must do their homework
By Lawrence Latif
Thu Sep 23 2010, 17:41

VIDEO SHARING WEBSITE Youtube has had copyright infringement charges against it dropped by Spain’s federal court in Madrid.

The case was brought by Spanish broadcaster Telecinco, which claimed that Youtube was liable for user uploaded videos that contained copyrighted content. The owner of Youtube, and just about everything else on the web it seems, Google said the decision was a ‘clear victory for the Internet and the rules that govern it’.

Youtube already has procedures in place for copyright owners to identify and notify the website of any videos that allegedly breach copyrights. The Spanish federal court’s decision follows European Union law, which states that the onus of notification is on content owners not websites such as Youtube. Once notification has been made, it then becomes the responsibility of the website, in this case Youtube, to remove the allegedly infringing content.

If Youtube had to screen videos prior to making them available, it is likely that the viability of the entire operation would come into question. Google claims that 24 hours of video are uploaded to Youtube every minute and having to pre-screen all of these uploads would cause Youtube to ‘grind to a halt.’

Throughout its statement of victory, Google was careful to say that it respects copyright laws. It even talks about ContentID, a system that it claims ‘prevents copyright abuses and gives owners control over their content’. Apparently many broadcasters already use ContentID throughout Europe, allowing them to not lose out on potential revenue should their copyrighted videos be uploaded to Youtube.

It’s likely that as case law builds up in favour of Youtube, other broadcasters will realise that going to court against an equally well-funded outfit that is simply offering them a chance to make even more cash isn’t really such a good idea.

This latest European court victory for Youtube should help Google turn the web’s most popular video sharing website into a profitable venture. µ”

(Via .)

UK – Facebook takes down 30 prisoners' pages after victim taunts: (Guardian)
Thirty Facebook pages have been taken down because prisoners were using them to taunt their victims, Jack Straw, the justice secretary, has revealed. Straw was speaking after a meeting with victims’ campaigners to discuss prisoners using social networking sites to hound families. The minister said the 30 offending pages brought to the attention of Facebook had been removed within 48 hours. He said he was ‘what we have to do is set up a better system with Facebook. ‘So essentially if they get a notice from us that this site is improper then all they have to do is not make a judgment about it, but press the delete button.’

(Via QuickLinks Update.)

Worth reading this one….

Terrorism Act 2006 section 3 Internet Censorship powers have *never* been invoked: “

Back in October 2005 this Spy Blog article Terrorism Bill 2005 – part 2 of our comments asked:

Why is there any need for regulation in this area at all ? The existing Acceptable Use Policies of all UK website operators, for example, already means that there are no public ‘terrorist websites’ operating from servers within the United Kingdom.

If the intention is to somehow stop impressionable people from falling into the clutches of terrorist recruiters, then this is already as effective as it will ever be.

If people are already moving within extremist circles, then private websites, especially those hosted abroad, are beyond the competence and legal jurisdiction of the Home Office or the UK Police.

Any attempts to ‘disrupt’ these systems, such as those hosted in, say China, could easily be interpreted as ‘cyber war’, which would damage the UK economy far more than the slight, temporary effect that ‘disruption’ of such sites would have on the terrorists. It would also remove the opportunity for covert surveillance of such ‘honeypots’ for intelligence gathering purposes.

It now turns out that this inept Labour Government’s scaremongering and controversial Terrorism Act 2006 section 3 Application of ss. 1 and 2 to internet activity etc.. which relates to section 1 ‘Encouragement of terrorism’ and / or section 2. ‘Dissemination of terrorist publications’, have never actually been invoked.

HL Deb, 10 February 2010, c168W

Terrorism: Internet
House of Lords
Written answers and statements, 10 February 2010

Baroness Warsi (Shadow Minister (Community Cohesion and Social Action), Communities and Local Government; Conservative)

To ask Her Majesty’s Government how many times the police have used powers under section 3 of the Terrorism Act 2006 to seek the removal or modification of unlawful terrorist-related material from the internet in each of the last six months.

Lord West of Spithead (Parliamentary Under-Secretary (Security and Counter-terrorism), Home Office; Labour)

The Home Office and ACPO (TAM) have set up a new unit, the Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit (CTIRU), which was launched in a pilot capacity on 1 February 2010. The CTIRU is responsible for the co-ordination and execution of voluntary and Section 3 take-down notices. Further details on the CTIRU, including statistics regarding take-downs, will be available in due course.

To date, the preferred route for removing potentially unlawful terrorist content is through informal contact between the police and the internet service provider. This approach has proved effective. As a result, it has not been necessary to use the formal powers given under the Terrorism Act 2006 to seek the removal or modification of unlawful terrorist-related material from the internet.

Note the creation of Yet Another Unaccountable Bureaucratic Quango, the Counter Terrorism Internet Referral Unit (CTIRU)

The legal powers under the Terrorism Act 2006, were, typically, and totally unnecessarily, made available to any Police Constable, no matter how ill trained, or ignorant of the internet or of free speech or religious freedom issues.

Why did the original legislation not restrict these legal power only to members of a properly trained unit, dedicated full time to the task, as, hopefully the CTIRU now is ?

Before the Terrorism Act 2006, UK based internet and telecommunications companies always cooperated voluntarily with the Police, and they appear to have done so since.

Before the Terrorism Act 2006, foreign based internet companies had no obligation to cooperate and neither do they now.

What was the point of it all ?

Why not simply repeal this Act, with no loss in effectiveness whatsoever against real terrorists, and thereby nullifying somewhat, the propaganda victory which these repressive powers handed to the terrorists ?

“

(Via Spy Blog – SpyBlog.org.uk.)

E-commerce law update includes ISP hate speech exemption: “

Dispensation granted for ‘mere conduits’

The Government has published Regulations that will absolve internet service providers (ISPs) and other digital service providers of responsibility for religion or sexuality-related hate speech transmitted over their networks.…

“

(Via The Register – Public Sector.)

Directgov battles terrorism with report-a-website page: “

Watch out YouTube

The Home Office has launched a page for people to report online extremism and terror-related content.…

“

(Via The Register – Public Sector.)

Police unit formed to take down websites suspected of breaking terror laws: “A police unit has been created to force the take-down of web pages which break the UK’s terrorism laws. The Government has set up a web page through which the public can tell the police about pages that they think are illegal.”

Note the Report terrorist, violent extremist and hate material online pages run by the Home Office. Note further the related Home Office pages: Reporting hate, extremism and terrorism online

The Association of Chief Police Officers (ACPO) said that it had created a new unit to act on reports from the public and to look for material that might break the Terrorism Act. The team is part of its Prevent Delivery Unit which deals with counter-terrorism.

(Via OUT-LAW News.)

Newspaper thwarts libel claim with E-Commerce Regulations defence: “A newspaper publisher was not liable for user comments posted after an online article and will not have to pay out libel damages, the High Court has ruled.”

(Via OUT-LAW News.)