From: [log in to unmask] To: [log in to unmask] Sent: 16/06/2004 20:09 Subject: SP? EDRi-news Digest, Vol 15, Issue 2 Send EDRi-news mailing list submissions to [log in to unmask] To subscribe or unsubscribe via the World Wide Web, visit http://www.edri.org/cgi-bin/mailman/listinfo/edri-news or, via email, send a message with subject or body 'help' to [log in to unmask] You can reach the person managing the list at [log in to unmask] When replying, please edit your Subject line so it is more specific than "Re: Contents of EDRi-news digest..." Today's Topics: 1. EDRI-gram newsletter - Number 2.12, 16 June 2004 (EDRI-gram newsletter) ---------------------------------------------------------------------- Message: 1 Date: Wed, 16 Jun 2004 20:03:20 +0200 (CEST) From: "EDRI-gram newsletter" <[log in to unmask]> Subject: EDRI-gram newsletter - Number 2.12, 16 June 2004 To: [log in to unmask] Message-ID: <[log in to unmask]> Content-Type: text/plain;charset=iso-8859-1 ============================================================ EDRI-gram bi-weekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe Number 2.12, 16 June 2004 ============================================================ Contents ============================================================ - call for participation in EDRI and EDRI-gram - 1. New members join EDRI 2. Results European elections for digital rights 3. EU Parliament renews decision to take Commission to court 4. Berlin declaration on music flatrate 5. Notice and take down procedure validated in French law 6. Bulgarian complaint against Microsoft 7. Free Bitflows conference in Vienna 8. Deadline public comments on ICANN whois policy 9. Bulgarian government to use open source 10. Russian council rejects copyright extension 11. Agenda 12. About - new: Creative Commons License ============================================================ - Call for participation in EDRI and EDRI-gram - ============================================================ EDRI kindly invites readers from any region represented in the Council of Europe to get involved in EDRI, and suggest items for EDRI-gram. Please contact the editor or the board of EDRI if you're interested in participating and promote the up-keeping of digital civil rights in Europe. EDRI also welcomes applications for informal membership from people that are in the process of setting up a non-governmental organisation dedicated to digital rights. Editor: [log in to unmask] EDRI board: [log in to unmask] ============================================================ 1. New members join EDRI ============================================================ During the annual general assembly of EDRI-members on 12 June 2004 in Berlin, Germany, two new members were admitted, both from Germany. The Netzwerk Neue Medien (network new media) is a digital civil rights organisation that aims to strengthen and critically analyse the public debate about socio-political aspects of the new media. In February 2003 NNM transformed from an informal network to a formal association. The FIfF (Forum InformatikerInnen fuer Frieden und gesellschaftliche Verantwortung e.V., or Computer Professionals for Peace and Social Responsibility) was founded in 1984 and wants computer science to help shape a world that is worth living in. FIfF has about 800 individual and institutional members, organised in both thematic and regional groups. The forum publishes the critical computer quarterly 'FIFF-Kommunikation' (in German). EDRI also elected a new board of 5 people. The board members elected Ian Brown (FIPR - UK) as president, Rikke Frank Jorgensen (Digital Rights - Denmark) as vice-president and Andreas Krisch (VIBE!AT - Austria) as treasurer. Lena Nalbach (Quintessenz - Austria) and Sjoera Nas (Bits of Freedom - the Netherlands) were elected as general board members. FIfF website http://www.fiff.de/ NNM website http://www.nnm-ev.de/ ============================================================ 2. Results European elections for digital rights ============================================================ One of the results of the European elections is the loss of some excellent Members of Parliament. EDRI wishes to thank a number of MEPs that have struggled hard to defend privacy and digital civil rights, but have not been re-elected. As rapporteur of the Directive on privacy and electronic communications, the Italian MEP Marco Cappato worked very hard to insert important privacy-guarantees and fiercely opposed mandatory retention of telecommunications traffic data. Author of the report on the right to privacy and data protection (approved by Parliament on 9 March 2004 by 439 votes in favour, 39 against and 28 abstentions), organiser of an important civil society meeting in Parliament, staunch protester against the transfer of PNR-data to the US without strong privacy-protection, and tabler of many key amendments on the IPR Enforcement Directive at the first reading, Cappato deserves a lot of credit as a champion for digital rights. Mister Cappato's Lista Bonino lost almost three quarters of its voters, compared to the 1999 EU Parliament elections, and will send only two MEPs to Brussels. Mr. Cappato held place three on this list and may come back to Brussels as a substitute MEP if one of the two others should be replaced. MEP Johanna Boogerd-Quaak from the small Dutch democratic-liberal party unfortunately also lost her seat, making it impossible for her to see the end of the court-case she instigated against the European Commission about the PNR-transfer to the US. Boogerd-Quaak was vice-chairman of the parliamentary citizen's rights committee (LIBE) and initiated an important report on freedom of the media (adopted on 22 April 2004, by 237 votes in favour to 24 against, 14 abstentions and mass blocking of the vote by centre right MEPs). Furthermore, she strongly opposed the proposals from the Commission for unlimited software patents. The Liberal Group will also be missing her fellow Dutch MEP, Elly Plooij-Van Gorsel. She was one of the Parliament's most high-profile MEPs when it came to defending the internet as a place of free expression. She opposed the data retention provision in the privacy in telecommunication directive and joined EDRI in a press conference in May 2002 against the proposal. As vice-chairman of the EU parliament Echelon committee, Plooij has taken a pro-encryption stand. Plooij finally, was rapporteur on the EU software patents directive and proposed various amendments that softened the directive. Mrs. Plooij -van Gorsel did not run any more. The German MEP Ilka Schroeder, who separated from the Greens in 2001 to become an independent MEP, also participated actively in the parliamentary committees on Echelon and citizen's rights. Like the previously mentioned MEPs she opposed mandatory data retention (she was the rapporteur for the 2002 privacy directive in the Industry committee) and software patents, and warned against initiatives to turn Europe into a cyber-police state. EDRI also wishes to thank the French MEP Alima Boumedienne-Thiery from the French Greens, who has given the European Parliament a number of outstanding reports on human rights issues. Boumedienne-Thiery was the rapporteur of the 2003 annual report on fundamental rights in the EU, presented to the EP in Strasbourg on April 2004. The report was rejected by a very small majority: 184 vs. 177 MEPs that supported the report. Finally, Olga Zrihen, of the French-speaking Belgian Social Democrats will also have to clear her office in the European Parliament. Mrs. Zrihen, who has been a Member of the Parliament for only three years, was lately very engaged in the fight against software patents. Provisional results European elections http://www.elections2004.eu.int/ep-election/sites/en/results1306/graphic al.html (Thanks to Andreas Dietl, EDRI EU affairs director) ============================================================ 3. EU Parliament renews decision to take Commission to court ============================================================ The Legal Affairs Committee of the European Parliament (JURI) decided today to take the European Commission as well as the Council to court over the final agreement to transfer PNR data to the US without adequate guarantees for data protection. The committee, which met today (16 June 2004) for an extraordinary meeting during the Parliament's present recession, voted to call upon the Luxembourg Court to defer the Commission's so-called adequacy finding. This finding claims that the data will find the same level of protection in the U.S. as in the EU. The committee also voted to take the international agreement to court that was signed by the EU Council with the U.S. Department of Homeland Security on 28 May 2004 (see EDRi-gram 2.11). Today's vote was taken with a two-thirds majority concerning the adequacy finding and 19 to 14 votes concerning the international agreement. This is an even clearer majority than in former votes on the same issue. The JURI committee's decision must still be confirmed by the EU Parliament's Group leaders in a meeting this evening, but it is widely considered that this confirmation is only a formality after no less than six votes in the Parliament to stop the ongoing transfer. There are however also indications that the Parliament's outgoing President, Pat Cox, has been trying to turn over the wide consensus against the transfer within the EU Parliament. Before the vote in the Committee, a member of the Parliament's judicial service, which is attached to the President's office and obliged to be politically neutral, tried to convince MEPs in a 25-minute speech that there was no legal basis for taking the other two EU institutions to court. Mr. Cox is one of the possible candidates for the presidency of the EU Commission and could thus become subject to an EU Court of Justice case himself. Outgoing Italian Radical MEP Marco Cappato criticised the Judicial Services' intervention as based 'more on political than on legal grounds' and therefore 'an abuse'. EU-US air data row hots up (16.06.2004) http://www.eupolitix.com/EN/News/200406/8f1cbb0f-bc0c-4583-b514-4b029ed1 f942.htm PNR data deal signed by European Commission (02.06.2004) http://www.edri.org/cgi-bin/index?id=000100000151 (Contribution by Andreas Dietl, EDRI EU affairs director) ============================================================ 4. Berlin declaration on music flatrate ============================================================ During the Wizards of OS conference in Berlin, from 10 to 12 June 2004, legal scientists and civil rights defenders jointly launched a declaration on collectively managed online rights. The declaration is a response to the call for comments on the Communication from the European Commission on the management of copyright and related rights in the internal market - COM(2004) 261. See also EDRI-gram 2.8, 21 April 2004. The declaration states that DRM and mass-prosecution of file-sharers are not acceptable to an open and equitable society and calls on the Commission to consider a music flatrate to ensure compensation without control. "File-sharing teaches us a lesson that markets and lawmakers should listen to. It says that shipping bits from A to B has become such a low value service that Internet users effortlessly can provide it themselves. This is a result of the communications revolution that the EU has been supporting actively for the last decade. These developments could be good news to the content industries, but not if they are continue to base their business models on a proposition of exclusive service provisions that they no longer hold." In stead the Berlin declaration recommends the development of an alternative compensation system (ACS), or, as it has also been called in application to the music market, a music flatrate. "Rather than relying on 'pay-per-use' fees collected directly by commercial producers from end users based on pervasive use of DRM technologies, we recommend extending to the Internet the practice of indirect compensation through collecting societies." Berlin Declaration on Collectively Managed Online Rights: Compensation without Control (12.06.2004) http://wizards-of-os.org/index.php?id=1431 European Commission: more rules for collecting societies (21.04.2004) http://www.edri.org/cgi-bin/index?id=000100000148 ============================================================ 5. Notice and take down procedure validated in French law ============================================================ On 13 June 2004 the French Constitutional Council published a decision on the Digital economy law (Loi pour la confiance dans l'economie numerique or LEN). Among the 3 provisions challenged by the parliamentary opposition, only one has been found unconstitutional and one was slightly modified. None of the 7 further provisions challenged by EDRI-member IRIS and the French Human Rights League (LDH), has even been examined, while some of them are indeed limiting the constitutional freedom of communication, to the benefit of private interests (see EDRI-gram Number 2.11, 2 June 2004). The provision found unconstitutional, which has thus been suppressed from the text of the law, is the one introducing different time bars for online and off-line content when exercising the right of reply or filing judicial complaints against offences identified in the press law (see EDRI-gram Number 2.9, 5 May 2004). After the Council decision, the time bar is now the same in both cases. The Council also objected against the interpretation of a provision dealing with the liability of hosting providers. The Council has restricted the interpretation of this provision to cases where the content is manifestly illegal. Under French jurisprudence, 'manifestly illegal' only applies to content of the type pedophile imagery and holocaust and war crimes denial. While this restriction is welcome, the Council decision has however validated the introduction of a notice and take down procedure in the French legislation, legitimising thus a system of 'privatised justice' which has constantly been denounced by IRIS and LDH, as well as many other French groups, since the beginning of the law discussion process. In a common press release published on 15 June 2004, IRIS and LDH denounce the support from the Constitutional council to the current French right-wing government, by legitimising once more another serious step back in the rule of law, after, inter alia, the Internal Safety Law and the 'Perben II Law'. Both organisations also take due note of the fact that the day before the decision became public, the French ISP association signed a voluntary code of conduct, under the aegis of French government. The providers agree to open a point of contact where users can report racist and child-pornographic content. When notified of illegal information, the providers will "act expeditiously to remove or to disable access to this information, according to legislation in force." It remains unclear how and by whom it will be decided if reported content is illegal. IRIS and LDH call all human rights and civil liberties organisations to exercise their role of watchdog, while at the same time maintaining pressure on the current opposition to have the LEN re-examined as soon as political changeover occurs in France. French Constitutional council dossier on the LEN http://www.conseil-constitutionnel.fr/decision/2004/2004496/index.htm IRIS and LDH joint press release (15.06.2004) http://www.iris.sgdg.org/info-debat/comm-decisionCC0604.html French E-commerce law tested in constitutional court (02.06.2004) http://www.edri.org/?id=000100000151 Final French vote about digital economy law (05.05.2004) http://www.edri.org/?id=000100000149 Code of conduct French ISP association (14.06.2004) http://www.afa-france.com/actions/charte_internet.htm (Contribution by Meryem Marzouki, IRIS) ============================================================ 6. Bulgarian complaint against Microsoft ============================================================ Bulgarian members of Parliament and Internet Society Bulgaria have filed a case with the Bulgarian Competition Protection Commission against both Microsoft Bulgaria and Microsoft USA. The members of the Bulgarian Parliament Ivan Ivanov and Stoicho Katsarov and the Internet Society Bulgaria signed a letter to the Competition Protection Commission with four points questioning Microsoft practices and business behaviour. The complaint concerns the development of the Bulgarian government e-gateway, which requires the users to have Windows and Internet Explorer if they want to use the electronic services, provided by the government. This is against rulings of art. 34 (2) of the Bulgarian law for protection of competition. Other articles concerned are art. 2 (1), points 2 and 3, and art. 18, point 2. The complaint also points out that vulnerabilities in the Microsoft Windows OS are not known to the users, but only to the producers of the closed code software, which is against the provisions in art. 32 (1) of the law. The Competition Protection Commission is asked to review the bundling of Internet Explorer and Windows Mediaplayer with Windows. This is in violation of art. 34 (5) of the Bulgarian law. The two members of the Bulgarian Parliament from Democrats for Strong Bulgaria (DSB) are also co-authors of the draft law for using free and open source software in the administration, which is to be reviewed by the Parliamentary committee on Transport and Telecommunications on 17 June 2004. ISOC Bulgaria http://www.isoc.bg/ Bulgarian e-government gateway http://egateway.government.bg/ (Thanks to Veni Markovski, ISOC Bulgaria) ============================================================ 7. Free Bitflows conference Vienna ============================================================ One of the highlights of the Free Bitflows conference in Vienna, Austria on 3 and 4 June 2004 was a lecture by Brewster Kahle about the Internet Archive. This digital archive aims at no less than offering universal access to all human knowledge, by collecting digital copies of all old and new public domain books, music, films, software and web-sites. A copy is in San Francisco (US) and a partial copy is in Alexandria (Egypt). Around 300 BC the classic library of Alexandria contained about 75 percent of all documents that were ever made. Today, the internet archive wishes to secure and disclose a similar percentage of all creative works ever made, but with improved protection against destruction. The final goal of the archive is to have a full copy in 5 or 6 countries and jurisdictions, to be able to survive any war or censorship. Kahle gave a light-hearted overview of the incredible numbers and amounts that are involved with the plan. Based on the collection of 26 million volumes in the US Library of Congress, he estimated the total amount of books ever made to be around 100 million. To digitise all these volumes, he started the '1 million books project', shipping books to India and China for scanning. The first 100.000 books are currently being digitised for aprox. 10 US dollars per book. Each book is about 1 megabyte when presented in for example MS Word, so the entire collection of the Library of Congress could be stored on 26 Terabytes. Kahle has developed a very smart and extremely low cost storing system, that can store this amount of data for only 60.000 US dollars. Kahle participated in an interesting panel discussion with Paula le Dieu from the BBC and Istvan Rev from the Open Society Institute in Budapest. Le Dieu explained why the BBC was convinced to open up parts of their archive under creative commons license. In September 2004, the BBC will start to offer natural history items on their website. The license allows people in the UK to use the material for non-commercial use, if they share the same public license. In a brave step, the BCC decided not to use DRM-tactics (technological measures to prevent for example copying), but rely on the license that only allows UK citizens to use the materials. Istvan Rev talked about the early Budapest open access initiative launched in September 2001, that stored propaganda materials broadcasted from the West to Eastern Europe. Currently the Open Society Archives have developed into a valuable human rights archive, that store for example all fingerprints derived from mass grave exhumations in Bosnia. Internet archive http://www.archive.org/ Open Society Archives Hungary http://www.osa.ceu.hu/ Free Bitflows conference (03-04.06.2004) http://freebitflows.t0.or.at/f/conference ============================================================ 8. Deadline public comments on ICANN whois policy ============================================================ Under rules established by ICANN, any entity that registers a domain name has to provide contact information that can be queried through the WHOIS service - by any data user and for any legitimate purpose. Data users remain anonymous, and there is no enforcement of the few limitations imposed on using the data. This policy is currently up for review. Three separate task forces are dealing with access modes to WHOIS data, with a review of data elements, and with data accuracy enforcement. Preliminary reports from these Task Forces are open for public comment, until 5 July 2004. On access and data elements, representatives from ICANN's Non-Commercial Users Constituency (NCUC, representing non-commercial domain name holders) and At-Large Advisory Committee (ALAC, advocating the interests of individual Internet users) have worked to replace unaccountable and anonymous access to sensitive data by a model that is designed to balance data users' and data subjects' interests. Core design goals here are to enable accountability of data users, and to make sure that WHOIS does not become a tool exclusively available to intellectual property-holders and other corporate interests. Under the proposed model, a limited set of technically relevant, non-sensitive data would continue to be available to anonymous data users for any purpose. Access to sensitive data (such as individual registrants' home addresses and phone numbers) would only be granted to known users - identified, for example, by a public key certificate -, for known purposes. Identities and purposes of data users would be made available to registrants. Each time a data user accesses a domain name holder's sensitive data, the domain name holder would receive a note about that. The notification component of this model, in particular, is meeting opposition from those groups that represent WHOIS data users' interests within ICANN. On accuracy, data user representatives have produced a draft set of 'best practices'. Domain name retailers (registrars), NCUC, and ALAC have rejected this preliminary report, on the basis that many of the recommendations contained there are either unclear, or would be harmful to domain name registrants. Under the proposed practices, extended vacations or slow postal service could be enough to lose a domain name registrations. Registrars have submitted an alternative proposal which would, in the view of ALAC and NCUC, provide a much better basis for a constructive way forward. Public Voice special file 'commenting made easy' http://www.thepublicvoice.org/take_action/default.html ICANN whois issues page: http://gnso.icann.org/issues/whois-privacy/index.shtml Non-Commercial Users' Constituency http://www.ncdnhc.org/ At-Large Advisory Committee http://alac.icann.org/ (Contribution by Thomas Roessler, FITUG, Germany) ============================================================ 9. Russian council rejects copyright-extension to 70 years ============================================================ According to a short notice on the website of Radio Free Europe/Radio Liberty the Russian Federation Council rejected a proposal to extend the copyright term on 26 May 2004. The bill, which passed the Duma on 18 May, would extend the period that authors have the rights to their works to 70 years after their death. Currently the term is life plus 50 years. The Chairman of the Science and Culture Committee, Viktor Shudegov (from the Unified Russia party) said that increasing the norm would lead to numerous legal battles to restore the rights of authors whose rights expired before the law came into effect. In addition, the bill contradicts certain provisions of the Code on Administrative Offences. The refusal is remarkable, since Russia is working hard to become member of the World Trade Organisation before the end of 2004. During the recent G-8 meeting of industrialised countries, the US once more said it supported the entry of Russia, if it were willing to sign more agreements on the protection of intellectual property rights. Upper chamber withholds rubber stamp (27.05.2004) http://www.rferl.org/newsline/2004/05/270504.asp Russia comes to G8 summit with WTO membership in mind (09.06.2004) http://www.eubusiness.com/afp/040607013458.xqclhz5f ============================================================ 10. Open source software for e-government in Bulgaria ============================================================ The United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the Internet Society of Bulgaria (ISOC-Bulgaria) have launched a project to stimulate the use of free/open source software for e-government projects. The project aims to help municipal governments in South-eastern Europe to use free/open source software applications to enhance government transparency and people's access to municipal services. Initially launched in Bulgaria, the project will soon expand to include Bosnia and Herzegovina, Croatia, Macedonia, Romania, Serbia and Montenegro. Under this project, which will last 18 months in its first phase, several Balkan cities will benefit from the creation of e-municipalities. The city of Kurdjali, which serves as a pilot, requested the support of UNDP and ISOC-Bulgaria to help enhance citizens' access to services and information resources and reduce the cost of the access tools that are required to be part of the global networked economy. Until now, the Bulgarian government has used free/open source software for servers - for large mail and database programs - but not for desktop applications. The project will now change this. Using openly published source codes, the project will bring new opportunities to complement the use of commercial desktop applications. Since open source solutions are available for free or at little cost, local governments will be able to minimise the cost of buying and maintaining software. Open Source Software project in Bulgaria (07.06.2004) http://www.undp.bg/en/documents/press_releases/2004/june_7_2004.pdf (Thanks to Veni Markovski, ISOC Bulgaria) ============================================================ 11. Agenda ============================================================ 30 June-2 July 2004, Paris, France 'An information society or a controlled society?' http://www.creis.sgdg.org/manifs/IS04programme.htm 28 July 2004, London, UK 7th annual Big Brother Awards ceremony organised by Privacy International http://www.bigbrotherawards.org/ 10-11 September 2004, Amsterdam, the Netherlands 'Guaranteeing Media Freedom on the Internet' Two day conference organised by the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media in the Amsterdam city hall. http://www.osce.org/events/ 14-16 September 2004, Wroclaw, Poland The 26th International Conference on privacy and personal data protection: 'the Right to Privacy - the Right to Dignity'. This annual gathering of the world's data protection commissioners will be preceded on 13 June by a publicly accessible conference organised by EPIC, Privacy International and EDRI. http://www.giodo.gov.pl/168/id_art/175/j/en/ 15-17 September 2004, Strasbourg, France The Council of Europe is planning a major international conference on "The Challenge of Cybercrime", which will bring together senior politicians, computer industry leaders and experts from around the world. No online information yet. 30 September-3 October 2004, Berlin, Germany New EDRI-member FIfF is organising its 20th annual meeting on critical computer science in the Humboldt university. http://www.fiff.de/aktuelles/ ============================================================ 12. About ============================================================ EDRI-gram is a bi-weekly newsletter about digital rights in Europe. Currently EDRI has 16 members from 11 European countries. EDRI takes an active interest in developments in the EU accession countries and wants to share knowledge and awareness through the EDRI-grams. All contributions, suggestions for content or agenda-tips are most welcome. Except where otherwise noted, this newsletter is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 License. See the full text at http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0/ Newsletter editor: Sjoera Nas <[log in to unmask]> Information about EDRI and its members: http://www.edri.org/ - EDRI-gram subscription information subscribe by e-mail To: [log in to unmask] Subject: subscribe You will receive an automated e-mail asking to confirm your request. unsubscribe by e-mail To: [log in to unmask] Subject: unsubscribe - EDRI-gram in Russian, Ukrainian and Italian EDRI-gram is also available in Russian, Ukrainian and Italian, a few days after the English edition. The contents are the same. Translations are provided by Sergei Smirnov, Human Rights Network, Russia; Privacy Ukraine and autistici.org, Italy The EDRI-gram in Russian can be read on-line via http://www.hro.org/editions/edri/ The EDRI-gram in Ukrainian can be read on-line via http://www.internetrights.org.ua/index.php?page=edri-gram The EDRI-gram in Italian can be read on-line via http://www.autistici.org/edrigram/ - Newsletter archive Back issues are available at: http://www.edri.org/cgi-bin/index?funktion=edrigram - Help Please ask <[log in to unmask]> if you have any problems with subscribing or unsubscribing. ============================================================ Publication of this newsletter is made possible by a grant from the Open Society Institute (OSI). ============================================================ End of EDRi-news Digest, Vol 15, Issue 2 **************************************** -- This message has been scanned for viruses and dangerous content by the NorMAN MailScanner Service and is believed to be clean. The NorMAN MailScanner Service is operated by Information, Systems and Services, University of Newcastle upon Tyne. ************************************************************************************ Distributed through Cyber-Society-Live [CSL]: CSL is a moderated discussion list made up of people who are interested in the interdisciplinary academic study of Cyber Society in all its manifestations.To join the list please visit: http://www.jiscmail.ac.uk/lists/cyber-society-live.html *************************************************************************************