Telia have decided to appeal a judgement that they should hand over details of who is behind one of their IP addresses to film companies investigating a torrent search site..
'Protection of customer's integrity is important' they say. It's a pity UK ISPs are not as dedicated to their customers interests (as they hand over thousands of IP addressees details...).
Piratpartiet and The Pirate Party - Working for copyright reform.
Showing posts with label IPRED. Show all posts
Showing posts with label IPRED. Show all posts
Monday, 7 December 2009
Wednesday, 14 October 2009
Privacy & Justice on the front line
It's one thing to write laws... And quite another to see them tested through the courts...
The week's big news - which admittedly got a bit lost here in the Swedish blogoshere with FRA in the news- is that a court in Romania has ruled the Data Retention Directive to be a breach of individuals' right to secrecy of communications. Which is GREAT news. It's not immediately going to affect the legal position in other EU countries, but in the long term it's untenable that an EU country can conclude that EU law is in breach of our civil rights and that not propogate up to an EU wide judicial test. More on this at the Open Rights Group.
Meanwhile, closer to home, the Swedish appeal court has ruled against five publishers in the first case under Sweden's controversial IPRED legislation (Allowing media companies to demand details from ISPs on who uses which IP address). The court overturned the previous ruling concluding that the prosecution had failed to show that e-books on a password protected server were 'available to the public'. If nothing else this is going to drive up the standards of evidence required to show a copyright infringement has taken place - which is no bad thing. Congratulations to ephone that have stood up to protect their customer's privacy.
The third legal news this week is that the boys from the Pirate Bay are back in the news with allegations that evidence used in a trial in the Netherlands is fabricated. Peter Sunde has a long explanation on his blog on why a company credit search presented to tie them to ownership of the Pirate Bay is a fake - and an official complaint has now been lodged. Amongst other things the company that are supposed to have created the search record have no record of making the search... Is the media industry so desperate for convictions that they are fabricating evidence? It will be interesting to watch this one...
Piratpartiet & The Pirate Party - Putting Privacy first.
The week's big news - which admittedly got a bit lost here in the Swedish blogoshere with FRA in the news- is that a court in Romania has ruled the Data Retention Directive to be a breach of individuals' right to secrecy of communications. Which is GREAT news. It's not immediately going to affect the legal position in other EU countries, but in the long term it's untenable that an EU country can conclude that EU law is in breach of our civil rights and that not propogate up to an EU wide judicial test. More on this at the Open Rights Group.
Meanwhile, closer to home, the Swedish appeal court has ruled against five publishers in the first case under Sweden's controversial IPRED legislation (Allowing media companies to demand details from ISPs on who uses which IP address). The court overturned the previous ruling concluding that the prosecution had failed to show that e-books on a password protected server were 'available to the public'. If nothing else this is going to drive up the standards of evidence required to show a copyright infringement has taken place - which is no bad thing. Congratulations to ephone that have stood up to protect their customer's privacy.
The third legal news this week is that the boys from the Pirate Bay are back in the news with allegations that evidence used in a trial in the Netherlands is fabricated. Peter Sunde has a long explanation on his blog on why a company credit search presented to tie them to ownership of the Pirate Bay is a fake - and an official complaint has now been lodged. Amongst other things the company that are supposed to have created the search record have no record of making the search... Is the media industry so desperate for convictions that they are fabricating evidence? It will be interesting to watch this one...
Piratpartiet & The Pirate Party - Putting Privacy first.
Wednesday, 15 July 2009
Ephone & IPRED: the customer is always right
Swedish ISP Ephone has announced that it will appeal the decision that it must release IP address details for alleged illegal filesharing using their service. The case is the first introduced under controversial IPRED legislation allowing the industry access to information about filesharers.
Ephone have argued that the evidence presented is insufficient to say a crime has been committed. This case is doubly interesting as the alleged offence took place on a password protected server (i.e. a site with limited access) and it's not clear how the publishers have gained access to gain evidence - unauthorised access to the server as I understand it would in itself be an offence.
Before deciding to appeal Ephone set up a webpoll asking visitors to their website to vote on whether they should or sould not appeal the original verdict. 99% side "Yes".
The story continues.....
Ephone have argued that the evidence presented is insufficient to say a crime has been committed. This case is doubly interesting as the alleged offence took place on a password protected server (i.e. a site with limited access) and it's not clear how the publishers have gained access to gain evidence - unauthorised access to the server as I understand it would in itself be an offence.
Before deciding to appeal Ephone set up a webpoll asking visitors to their website to vote on whether they should or sould not appeal the original verdict. 99% side "Yes".
The story continues.....
Thursday, 25 June 2009
Book publishers go phishing
On the same day that the courts decided the ISP Ephone has to give out IP details to book publishers over filesharing on a private (password restricted) server -Swedens first ruling under the controversial IPRED legislation - the Författarförbund (Swedish authors association) is warning it's members against signing agreements with publishers over e-book rights.
Publishers have been mailing their authors en masse to get them to sign over e-book rights to works in perpetuity. E-books are expected to take off big time and publishers are looking to stake their claim in the gold rush.
"Authors that have been around a while understand at once that this contract is not OK... "
...but some of the less wary are signing on the dotted line.
It's nice to know that the media industry is looking after the best interests of our creative talent...
Get those authors a spam filter!
Footnote: Contracts have automatic renewals after seven years with a four month period for authors to annul the agreement.
Publishers have been mailing their authors en masse to get them to sign over e-book rights to works in perpetuity. E-books are expected to take off big time and publishers are looking to stake their claim in the gold rush.
"Authors that have been around a while understand at once that this contract is not OK... "
...but some of the less wary are signing on the dotted line.
It's nice to know that the media industry is looking after the best interests of our creative talent...
Get those authors a spam filter!
Footnote: Contracts have automatic renewals after seven years with a four month period for authors to annul the agreement.
Tuesday, 19 May 2009
Ducking the issue
Last night was the first candidates debate on SVT Agenda - a chance for the party leaders to trade blows on the issues in advance of the EU election. I didn't see it but by all accounts (and disregarding what was said) it was a strange affair.
Even before it went on air Piratpartiet were vocally decrying that they had no invite... This despite now being the third largest party - in terms of membership - and having had several poll results showing they have enough support to get a seat. Not only that but privacy, personal integrity and state intervention in the internet have been big news for the last year - and all have a European dimension.
It could be deliberate attempt to deny the Pirates a voice - but it smacks a little of stage management since the debate didn't in fact focus on EU issues at all ...something that ststsministern Fredrik Reinfeldt was none too pleaased of either.
The issues that the Pirate party campaign on - personal integrity, copyright and patent reform are important enough for the electorate to win them 5% of voter support on just that issue. Many other voters must think it important too but will choose to vote for a party that has a broader platform that they campaign on. A not insignificant slice of the electorate then...
Piratpartiet has the country's biggest youth party - bigger than any other two put together and draws disproportionate support among the young - which includes first time voters in this election - so excluding PP is in a sense alienating young voters at a time when people complain of voter apathy.
Political parties are a bit like banks... We pick one and stick with it.... so it is bad news for the established parties to duck the debate with Piratpartiet. ..and surprising for the programmers as well to miss the chance to have them there. Having PP on the show would sharpen the debate - and give parties a chance to show whether Piratpartiens abstinence on other issues was significant or not...
So, by my reckoning, the pirates missed out, the other parties missed out, and the voters missed out. So who was it for...??? And why run a debate on domestic politics when we are about to vote on representation in Europe?!?
Even before it went on air Piratpartiet were vocally decrying that they had no invite... This despite now being the third largest party - in terms of membership - and having had several poll results showing they have enough support to get a seat. Not only that but privacy, personal integrity and state intervention in the internet have been big news for the last year - and all have a European dimension.
It could be deliberate attempt to deny the Pirates a voice - but it smacks a little of stage management since the debate didn't in fact focus on EU issues at all ...something that ststsministern Fredrik Reinfeldt was none too pleaased of either.
The issues that the Pirate party campaign on - personal integrity, copyright and patent reform are important enough for the electorate to win them 5% of voter support on just that issue. Many other voters must think it important too but will choose to vote for a party that has a broader platform that they campaign on. A not insignificant slice of the electorate then...
Piratpartiet has the country's biggest youth party - bigger than any other two put together and draws disproportionate support among the young - which includes first time voters in this election - so excluding PP is in a sense alienating young voters at a time when people complain of voter apathy.
Political parties are a bit like banks... We pick one and stick with it.... so it is bad news for the established parties to duck the debate with Piratpartiet. ..and surprising for the programmers as well to miss the chance to have them there. Having PP on the show would sharpen the debate - and give parties a chance to show whether Piratpartiens abstinence on other issues was significant or not...
So, by my reckoning, the pirates missed out, the other parties missed out, and the voters missed out. So who was it for...??? And why run a debate on domestic politics when we are about to vote on representation in Europe?!?
Thursday, 16 April 2009
Privacy on the frontline
The verdict on The Pirate Bay trial is due tomorrow - and will surely get a lot of coverage in the press. But since the trial ended the legal landscape here has changed with the introduction of IPRED - legislation allowing copyright owners to gain access to the identities behind an IP address.
So before tomorows hype, how is it going with IPRED?
So far it seems three applications have been made to the courts, and all three raise issues of one sort or another.
The first related to someone allegedly making lots of Swedish literature freely available as e-books on the web. It sounded fairly clearcut until it came out that the site is not an open site but an FTP server with secure access - raising significant concerns about just how the Antipiratbyrån got access to the site without breaking legislation on data security.
The second case is interesting. A company is seeking information on an IP address that gained unauthorised access to their company systems (including copyrighted information). The evidence presented reportedly doesn't include evidence of any copied work so it's hard to see it getting approved - but it highlights how this legislation is open to scope-creep... Using other legislation would man a police investigation, and this way you can investigate yourself (with greater powers than the police).
The third case is a Pirate party member seeking information on who is downloading their songs. This is meant mostly to test the system - can anyone armed with a screen dump or two go to the courts - and do rights owners really have the same support under the new law that corporate media interests do? Interesting to watch that one...
More recently it's reported that Internet Service Provider Bahnhof (who offer 'integrity-marked' broadband) don't, and aren't going, to save records of who used which IP address when. They point to existing laws that require operators to anonymise traffic records 'when they are no longer needed'. A survey in Göteborgs-Posten shows despite this that all the broadband operators questioned do in fact keep copies of IP Address records.
Deleting IP details like this has been discussed in the press as a loophole - but it is a pre-existing legal requirement and ought to be an existing part of all operators processes. IPRED doesn't require operators to store information - only to give out the information they have when ordered by the court. "We don't have that information" ought then to be the most legitimate answer they can give...
..at least until they change the law.
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