EDRi-gram newsletter - Number 7.6, 25 March 2009

[EDRI-gram newsletter]

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           EDRi-gram

biweekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe

    Number 7.6, 25 March 2009


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Contents
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1. Telecom Package in second reading - dangerous amendments
2. Extension of copyright term postponed in the European Parliament
3. German Police searches the homes of the wikileaks.de domain owner
4. Data sharing legislation pulled by the UK government
5. France: Three strikes law debated by the General Assembly
6. European Parliament wants more transparency on ACTA
7. Germany: Data retention is disproportionate
8. Irish ISP Association rejects the copyright industry threats
9. Coalition of musicians against criminalizing downloaders
10. Recommended Reading
11. Recommended Action
12. Agenda
13. About

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1. Telecom Package in second reading - dangerous amendments
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Several alarming amendments to the Telecom Package second reading in the
European Parliament are to be voted on 31 March 2009 by ITRE/IMCO committee.
The amendments are meant to give additional control to the entertainment
industry, telecoms and IT security companies over the Internet.

An agreement on several delicate issues of the telecom package is sought in
a trialogue between the European Parliament, the European Council and
the European Commission to agree on a resolution regarding politically
sensitive and technically difficult aspects of the Telecoms Package.
Although the European Parliament is supposed to represent the interests and
rights of the users, it seems it is trying to make compromises in agreeing
upon the limitations of the users' rights pushed by the UK and France in the
Council.

One of the most controversial issues is that of the three-strikes strongly
and continuously pushed by France in the EU Council .
Although most of the dispositions introducing the graduate response system
were rejected in first reading of the Telecom Package, there are still some
alarming ones persisting. France is trying hard to get rid of Amendment 138
which seeks to protect users' rights against the three-strikes sanctions and
which, until now, has stopped the EU from applying the three-strikes policy.
Also, some new amendments reintroduce the notion of lawful content, which
will impose the obligation on ISPs to monitor content going through their
networks.

The UK government is pushing for the "wikipedia amendments" (so-called
because one of them has been created by cutting and pasting a text out of
the wikipedia) in order to allow ISPs to make limited content offers. The UK
amendments eliminate the text that gives users rights to access and
distribute content, services and applications, replacing it with a text that
says  "there should be transparency of conditions under which services are
provided, including information on the conditions to and/or use of
applications and services, and of any traffic management policies ."

"In a context where markets like mobile telecommunication or entertainment
industries, merging with
telecommunication operators, are controlled by oligopolies, relying on the
only information of the consumer leaves the consumer without any choice.
Competition law would be the only remedy, and they proved to be totally
inefficient against Microsoft or mobile operators cartels. Therefore, it is
essential to define a positive guarantee of access to services without
discrimination," stated Jirimie Zimmermann, co-founder of La Quadrature du
Net.

Also a very dangerous amendment to the ePrivacy directive is introduced
by the UK, allowing the telecommunications industry to collect a potentially
unlimited amount of users' sensitive and confidential communications data
including telephone and e-mail contacts, geographic position of mobile
phones and websites visited on the Internet.

As a result of the amendments pushed by the AT&T industry, network
discrimination practices could be included by the use of Traffic Management
Systems, leading to a discriminative way in which users can access content,
services and applications, therefore giving complete control of the network
to the operators who will be able to decide who and what can access. The
pretext for this movement is the necessity of preventing a collapse of the
network due to congestion and of a diversified range of offers by the
operators. "Such practices would discourage investment in network capacity
as well as competition and innovation, and could pose serious threats to
freedom of speech" states La Quadrature du Net which has published an
analysis of the tabled amendments and recommendations for the votes to be
taken by ITRE/IMCO committee.

La Quadrature du Net believes the time left before the vote in the ITRE/IMCO
committee must be used to urge MEPs from IMCO and ITRE to protect the
citizens' freedoms by voting against all amendments allowing net
discrimination, three strikes schemes and privacy breaches. "The second
reading on the Telecoms Package means a second round of intense lobbying,
where corporate interests try to go back on citizen's basic freedom in order
to gain more control over the network. However, the European Parliament has
a unique chance of showing citizens its commitment into protecting freedom
and equity, since it is only 3 months until the European elections, in June"
states the group.

BEUC, the European Consumers' Organisation, also issued a press release on
18 March appealing for the net neutrality of the Internet. "Over the coming
days, the European Parliament, Commission and the Council are holding
informal trialogue discussions on the third telecom package. We urge them to
keep the principle of "net neutrality" in the final text, ensuring that
consumers will still have access to an open Internet. Consumers should be
able to choose their own content, application and services online - this
right needs to be enforced by national telecom regulators".

The next key dates after the vote by ITRE/IMCO committee are 15 April 2009,
the deadline for plenary amendments, and 22
April 2009- the date estimated for the EP plenary vote.

Lion of France on the attack against Amendment 138 (22.03.2009)
http://www.iptegrity.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=284&Itemid=9

Telecoms Package 2nd Reading ITRE IMCO Amendments
http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/Telecoms_Package_2nd_Reading_ITRE_IMCO_Draft_Amendments#Amendment_85_--_2

UK government pushes for discriminated Internet (7.03.2009)
http://www.laquadrature.net/en/uk-government-pushes-for-discriminated-internet

EU citizens: Save Internet from being turned into a TV! (22.03.2009)
http://www.laquadrature.net/en/eu-citizens-save-internet-from-being-turned-into-a-tv

UK Proposed Amendments
http://www.laquadrature.net/files/UK_PROPOSED_AMENDMENTS_on_net_neutrality_DRAFT_20090223_print.pdf

How the EU is bargaining away the Internet (23.03.2009)
http://www.iptegrity.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&id=287&Itemid=9

Unblock the Internet for consumers: BEUC's fight for net neutrality
(18.03.2009)
http://docshare.beuc.org/docs/1/GOCCADAAPAOEOHHKPKMALAKIPDBG9DBYEG9DW3571KM/BEUC/docs/DLS/2009-00269-01-E.pdf

EDRI-gram: Open letter to the European Parliament - Telecom Package
(17.02.2009)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/campaigns/open-letter-telecom-package

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2. Extension of copyright term postponed in the European Parliament
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As a result of the very large controversy and lack of consensus among MEPs,
in a meeting of the presidents of the political groups in the European
Parliament on 17 March 2009, the vote on the extension of the copyright
term, which was due for 23 March 2009, was postponed for the end of April
2009.

The proposed directive, introduced by Commissioner McCreevy, was to extend
copyright from 50 to 90 years and was allegedly meant to support performers
during their old age. As the many opponents to the proposal have emphasized
and as several studies have shown, the extension would mostly benefit the
major multinational companies and would negatively affect the economy and
culture of Europe.

Professor Martin Kretschmer, Director of the Centre for Intellectual
Property Policy & Management Bournmemouth considered the measure would be
beneficial to the four multinational record companies Universal, Sony BMG,
Warner Music and EMI owning almost all the key records to be covered by the
extension, a few major artists and the collecting societies.

According to the calculation of the European Commission's own figures, most
of the performers would only receive about 52 euro/year while according to
the EDRi-member Open Rights Group's estimation, 80% of the performers would
receive only 0.5 to 27 euro/year. Even if we take into consideration the
Commission's figure, the amount is far from helping aging performers.

The Association for Fair Audiovisual Copyright in Europe ("A Face"), a group
including individuals and associations of the European audiovisual
community, has joined other voices against the directive and initiated a
petition against it. "We regard the proposed Directive, and any other one
based on similar principles and affecting the audiovisual world, as
detrimental to the development and dissemination of European culture and
economy, which are among the basic missions of the European Parliament. For
this reason, we intend to actively oppose their approval and call everybody
to support this cause" is the statement of the group. Face's goal is to make
sure copyright does not deviate from its initial purpose of "protecting the
interest of right holders only to the extent a general progress of culture
is assured."

At the end of March, a discussion between the European Commission, European
Council and the European Parliament will decide whether the directive will
be allowed to be furthers discussed in the European Parliament.

MEPs back off from copyright term extension vote! (19.03.2009)
http://www.openrightsgroup.org/2009/03/19/meps-back-off-from-copyright-term-extension-vote/

Copyright extension debate: We must not inhibit digital creators
(16.03.2009)
http://blogs.telegraph.co.uk/shane_richmond/blog/2009/03/16/copyright_extension_debate_we_must_not_inhibit_digital_creators_

Association for Fair Audiovisual Copyright in Europe Petition of the
european audiovisual community against the proposed directive for a
copyright term Extension for sound recordings
http://aface.eu/

EDRI- gram: Reject the Term Extension Directive (21.01.2009)
http://www.edri.org/reject-term-extention-directive

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3. German Police searches the homes of the wikileaks.de domain owner
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The German Police searched the homes of Theodor Reppe, the owner of the
domain name wikileaks.de, alleging he was under investigation for
"distribution of pornographic material" and "discovery of evidence"

The seven police officers in Dresden and four in Jena having performed the
searches in the evening of 24 March 2009 claimed the raid was initiated due
to Mr. Reppe's position as the Wikileaks.de domain owner.

However, it is not clear what exact documents were targeted, because the
German Police did not want to give any further information to Mr. Reppe and
no contact was made with Wikileaks before or after the search. But the
search is considered to be related with the publication of Wikileaks of the
censorship lists for Australia, Thailand, Denmark and other countries. The
lists include to sites alleged to contain pornography, including child
pornography. However, Wikileaks has not published any images from the sites.

Wikileaks also speculated on the search: "The raid appears to be related to
a recent German social hysteria around child pornography and the political
battle for a national censorship system under the German family Minister
Ursula von der Leyen. It comes just a few weeks after a member of
parliament, SPD Joerg Tauss had his office and private house searched by
police. German bloggers discussing the subject were similarly raided. "

According to information from Reppe, the Police asked for the passwords to
the wikileaks.de domain and asked. for the entire domain to be disabled. But
Wikileaks.de and other Wikileaks domains were unaffected by the raid.

Reppe is just a volunteer who sponsors the domain for Wikileaks, but is not
involved in the day-to-day-operation of wikileaks and just mirrors a
collection of Wikileaks US Congressional Research Service reports.He also
maintains one of the most popular Tor servers in Germany.

Police raid home of Wikileaks.de domain owner over censorship lists
(24.03.2009)
http://wikileaks.org/wiki/Police_raid_home_of_Wikileaks.de_domain_owner_over_censorship_lists

Police raid Wikileaks.de domain owner Theodor Reppe's home over 'censorship
lists' (25.03.2009)
http://www.news.com.au/technology/story/0,28348,25240192-5014239,00.html

House searches for owners of the domain wikileaks.de (only in German
25.03.2009)
http://www.heise.de/newsticker/Hausdurchsuchung-bei-Inhaber-der-Domain-wikileaks-de-Update--/meldung/135147

Danish police mobilized Blocked list (only in German, 2.03.2009)
http://www.lawblog.de/index.php/archives/2009/03/02/danische-sperrliste-mobilisiert-polizei/

Australia secretly censors Wikileaks press release and Danish Internet
censorship list (16.03.2009)
http://wikileaks.de/wiki/Australia_secretly_censors_Wikileaks_press_release_and_Danish_Internet_censorship_list%2C_16_Mar_2009

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4. Data sharing legislation pulled by the UK government
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The campaign of Privacy International and of other civil liberties groups
against data sharing legislation in UK resulted in the UK Government
decision to abandon Clause 152 of the Coroners and Justice Bill.

The respective clause was giving a "designated authority" the power to sign
an order allowing the sharing of information between any two agencies in the
public and private sector.

The proposed legislation raised concerns related to the possible misuse of
personal data and created a large opposition movement. In a campaign led by
Privacy International and other NGOs, an open letter addressed to Justice
Secretary Jack Straw, signed by thirty organisations on 28 February 2009
condemned the proposal as a dangerous threat to privacy, and called for the
withdrawal of clause 152 from the Coroners & Justice Bill. "In view of the
extraordinary powers conferred by clause 152, the information sharing
provisions in the Bill may constitute the gravest threat to data protection
in the history of the Data Protection Act, and are among the most
wide-ranging and potentially intrusive proposals ever laid before
Parliament," stated the letter.

On 9 March 2009, a spokesman for Straw announced the "rethinking" of the
legislative initiative as a result of the "strength of feeling" against it.
The spokesmen stated Justice Secretary recognized that the clause had been
drafted in too wide a manner and the reason for the "rethink and a
re-consultation" was to "try to strike a balance between the positive
elements of data-sharing and ensuring that sensitive data is protected".

Although the proposal was entirely stricken out from the Coroners and
Justice Bill, a new attempt will be made to introducing an adjusted version
in an undetermined future.

"This is an extraordinary U-turn but we cannot be led into a false sense of
security. We congratulate the Government on its decision, but it was
inevitable given how badly the clause have been drafted and how morally
corrupt its outcome would have been. Nobody should be under the illusion
that the Government has changed its colours with regard to its zeal for
surveillance. This could be merely a blip, so we all have to remain vigilant
for the next assault of privacy" said Simon Davies, director of Privacy
International.

Privacy campaigner Phil Booth, director of No2ID was also pleased by the
decision. "People realized that their information could be taken and used
and abused for other purposes" he said, adding: "The public backlash against
Clause 152 has been phenomenal. NO2ID has been working closely with Privacy
International and others to focus grassroots and organisational opposition,
but the reality is that people just won't put up with the hypocrisy of
politicians who want to keep their own details secret, or who support
shadowy police databases on protestors, yet who clearly still think that the
state can do just as it wants with our personal information. It can't - the
people have spoken. Let's hope the scrapping of Clause 152 is the first nail
in the coffin of the database state."

However, just as Davies, he expressed some reservations, thinking the
government might disregard Straw's position.

Straw will launch a public consultation in view of implementing more limited
proposals to allow government bodies to share information in cases when
there is clear benefit.

"We will talk to interested groups to get the balance right so that we have
the right policy issues reflected in any future legislation and at the same
time avoid worrying people unnecessarily that their data is being abused"
stated Straw's spokesmen.

UK Government backs down on data sharing legislation after PI campaign
(8.03.2009)
http://www.privacyinternational.org/article.shtml?cmd[347]=x-347-563879

Government abandons data-sharing scheme (7.03.2009)
http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/politics/lawandorder/4954058/Government-abandons-data-sharing-scheme.html

Straw bows to pressure over data sharing (8.03.2009)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/mar/08/data-sharing-civil-liberties

UK govt to rethink data-sharing plans (10.03.2009)
http://www.zdnetasia.com/news/security/0,39044215,62052042,00.htm?scid=rss_z_nw

Civil society joins key professional bodies to demand removal of data
sharing powers (28.02.2009)
http://www.privacyinternational.org/article.shtml?cmd[347]=x-347-563710

EDRIgram:UK Government proposes increased data sharing (11.02.2009)
http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.3/uk-govt-more-sharing-data

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5. France: Three strikes law debated by the General Assembly
============================================================

The debates on the French three strikes law (so called Hadopi law) started
on 11 March 2009 in the General Assembly only to be suspended at the end of
the second day, to be continued on 31 March.

While the law was adopted by the Senate in less than a day, it appears the
deputies will need a much longer time for the debates. Several deputies have
shown their opposition to the project considering it as a mechanism to
suppress rights and liberties, a "legal monster" as deputy Patrick Bloche
expressed himself.

However, several amendments to the law were rejected during these two days.
Besides the debates related to the financial costs incurred by the creation
of Hadopi authority, many discussions referred to the respect of the right
to defence raised by the graduated response. At the request of
the Minister of Culture and some rapporteurs, the deputies rejected the
amendment stipulating that "the right to an equitable procedure must be
observed in all cases by the High Authority" and that "attached to this
fundamental principles are the audi alteram partem right, the right of
defence, the presumption of innocence and imputability rights".

The deputies also rejected the modified version of the global licence
despite the arguments brought by the opponents of the graduate response.
Didier Mathus brought the argument of the revenue showing that with a 2
euro/month contribution from the Internet users, 400 millions euro would go
to the music industry while the three strikes system would bring nothing.
Jean Dionis du Sijour's proposal of an extended collective licence
for the commercial platforms wishing to have access to the catalogues of the
record companies was also rejected as well as the amendment introduced by
the majority deputy Suguenot that referred to a tax on all advertising
revenue from the web, in favour of performers.

Another rejected amendment requested a report to be submitted to the
Parliament before 31 October 2009 for the implementation of a fund for music
creation. The financing of the fund should be included as a part of the tax
payed by operators of electronic communications.

So, basically, Christine Albanel succeeded in influencing the votes of the
deputies in many of the issues under the debate. She also reaffirmed her
intention to continue to defend the draft law.

However, there is still some time before the debates are resumed which could
be used to try and influence the final result.

La Quadrature du Net has launched an initiative in this sense meant to make
all deputies aware of the consequences of their position regarding the
Hadopi law. The "Memoire Politique" (Political Memory) is a wiki including
all texts and comments of the deputies that will allow the citizens to
verify the position of each deputy in various national and european legal
debates.

La Quadrature du Net team, has decided to thus improve the democratic
information and to "concretely apply the fundamental principle of the
representative democracy" by the Memoire Politique".

The Memoire Politique will collect the declarations and positions of the
deputies during the sessions on Hadopi law, also providing their assessment.
This will give the citizens the possibility to verify whether the deputies
they elected really represent their interests. This will also help in
providing the citizens with the counter-arguments that they may present to
their deputies in requiring the refusal of amendments that may affect their
rights.

Internet and Creation Law (day 2): suspended until 31 March... minimum (only
in French, 13.03.2009)
http://www.numerama.com/magazine/12301-Loi-Creation-et-Internet-jour-2-suspendue-jusqu-au-31-mars-minimum.html

Hadopi (day 2) : the deputies rejected the global licence - version 2009
(only in French, 12.03.2009)
http://www.numerama.com/magazine/12299-Hadopi-jour-2-les-deputes-rejettent-la-licence-globale-version-2009.html

Hadopi (day 1): The right wing divided by the suspension of the access to
Internet (only in French, 12.03.2009)
http://www.numerama.com/magazine/12285-Hadopi-jour-1-la-droite-divisee-sur-la-suspension-de-l-acces-a-Internet.html

Hadopi : National Assembly massively rejects the exception of
non-admisability (only in French, 11.03.2009)
http://www.numerama.com/magazine/12281-Hadopi-l-Assemblee-Nationale-rejette-massivement-l-exception-d-irrecevabilite.html

La Quadrature du Net sets up the Mimoire Politique (only in French,
23.03.2009)
http://www.numerama.com/magazine/12387-La-Quadrature-du-Net-met-en-place-une-Memoire-Politique.html

Mimoire Politique
http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/Political_Memory

Hadopi amendements - National Assembly
http://www.laquadrature.net/wiki/Hadopi_amendements_assemblee_nationale

EDRI-gram: HADOPI law close of creating a dangerous precedent (25.02.2009)
http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.4/hadopi-law-france

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6. European Parliament wants more transparency on ACTA
============================================================

The European Parliament has included in the Draft Regulation regarding
public access to the European Parliament, Council and Commission documents a
reference asking for more transparency in the current negotiations on the
Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA)

A recital in the text adopted by the European Parliament says:
"In accordance with Article 255(1) of the EC Treaty, the Commission should
immediately make all documents related to the ongoing international
negotiations on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) publicly
available."

The new regulation considers that the basic principle of the new policy on
access to documents should be: "No legislative documents should be kept
secret." MEPs adopted amendments to the draft proposal but postponed the
vote on the legislative resolution, leaving the door open for further
negotiations and a first-reading agreement.

The regulation foresees also the disclosure of the documents originating
from a Member State and received by the EU institutions, after the
consultation of the Member state, but without giving it a right of veto.
Also Member States shall seek to ensure that an equivalent level of
transparency is granted in relation to national measures implementing
normative acts of the EU.

The MEPs concluded that transparency should be extended also to the
international agreements where EU is participating. Special reference was
made to the agreement with the USA on the PNR that "must not give a non-EU
country or an international organisation the right to prevent the European
Parliament from accessing confidential information."

Also, MEPs asked the Commission to make available all the documents related
to ACTA that might create a new international benchmark on intellectual
property right enforcement.

This decision came as a breath of fresh air for all international civil
rights activists that have asked several times for the publication of the
documents related to this international treaty. Especially after in US a
Freedom of Information Act request by Jamie Love, director of the non-profit
group Knowledge Ecology International, was denied by the chief FOIA officer
in the White House's Office of the U.S. Trade Representative. The subject of
the request were 7 specific documents, referenced by their exact title and
date. These documents are the proposals for ACTA text. The requested
documents "are being widely circulated to corporate lobbyists in Europe,
Japan, and the U.S. There is no reason for them to be secret from the
American public."

However, the answer of the Obama administration was that the discussion
draft of the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement and related materials are
"classified in the interest of national security pursuant to Executive Order
12958."

A document published by Michael Geist in Canada reveals that also the
Canadian Government might be favourable to an early release of draft ACTA
".. the Canadian delegation plans to argue for a transparent approach. . .
This approach would result in an earlier release of the text, which would
serve to alleviate domestic concerns about the scope of the agreement and
the perceived secrecy surrounding the process. The draft text could then
serve as the basis for broad-based public consultations. "

Proposal for a regulation of the European Parliament and of the Council
regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission
documents (11.03.2009)
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+TA+P6-TA-2009-0114+0+DOC+XML+V0//EN&language=EN

Access to documents: The European Parliament demands more transparency
(11.03.2009)
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/expert/infopress_page/019-51409-068-03-11-902-20090310IPR51408-09-03-2009-2009-false/default_es.htm

Copyright treaty is classified for 'national security' (12.03.2009)
http://news.cnet.com/8301-13578_3-10195547-38.html

Obama Administration Rules Texts of New IPR Agreement are State Secrets
(12.03.2009)
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/james-love/obama-administration-rule_b_174450.html

Canada Favours Early Release of ACTA Text (14.03.2009)
http://www.michaelgeist.ca/content/view/3751/125/

EDRi-gram: EU pushes for an international Anti-Counterfeiting Trade
Agreement (7.11.2007)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number5.21/acta-eu

EDRi-gram: BitTorrent tracker sites threatened by draft ACTA agreement
(4.06.2008)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number6.11/bittorent-acta-agreement

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7. Germany: Data retention is disproportionate
============================================================

The German Working Group on Data Retention (AK Vorrat) announced that the
Administrative Court of Wiesbaden found the blanket recording of the entire
population's traffic data on telephone, mobile phone, e-mail and Internet
usage is disproportionate.

The decision of the court is "that data retention violates the fundamental
right to privacy. It is not necessary in a democratic society. The
individual does not provoke the interference but can be intimidated by the
risks of abuse and the feeling of being under surveillance (...) The
directive (on data retention) does not respect the
principle of proportionality guaranteed in Article 8 ECHR, which is why it
is invalid."

AK Vorrat, that has also initiated the Constitutional complaint against the
German Data retention law, used this opportunity to address another digital
civil rights fear: a government project to allow Internet service providers
to record everybody's Internet surfing habits. The project was debated
on 19 March by the German Bundestag in the first reading.

Started as a project to better protect the computer networks against any
cyber-attacks, the new draft has been criticized by the Privacy
Commissioner of the Federal Government, Peter Schaar, who considered that
the draft needed to be revised and several law provisions needed to be
clarified.

The draft also contains an amendment to the Telemedia Act, which allows
service providers, using data they are allowed to store and process for
legal purposes, to use the information for identifying surfing habits. The
amendemnt is justified by the necessity of the protection against malicious
software and other similar threats.

"We call on all citizens to contact their MPs now in order to protest
against the proposed retention of web surfing habits," says Werner H|lsmann,
member of the board of the forum of computer scientists for peace and social
responsibility, actively working in the Working Group on Data Retention.

"The recent criticism by Federal Minister of the Interior Wolfgang Schduble
(CDU) of the Constitutional Court's preliminary decision on data retention
proves that his surveillance mania is limitless", criticizes Patrick Breyer
of the Working Group on Data Retention. "It is not 'a matter for the
legislature' to keep eroding our constitutional guarantees protecting us
from errors and abuses by the authorities. We urgently need to establish a
Fundamental Rights Agency to have all existing powers and programs of the
security authorities systematically and scientifically reviewed as to their
effectiveness, cost, adverse effects, alternatives and compatibility with
our fundamental rights."

Despite all the different European attempts to stop data retention, the day
of 15 March 2009, imposed by the EU data retention directive, marks the
starting point for ISPs to collect and store traffic data in several
European countries.

Administrative Court: Data retention is "invalid" (16.03.2009)
http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/content/view/301/1/lang,en/

Video: Bundestag debates draft law (only in German, 25.03.2009)
http://www.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/content/view/302/1/lang,de/

Protection against hackers, surveillance fears (only in German, 19.03.2009)
http://www.tagesschau.de/inland/ueberwachung/bsigesetz100.html

============================================================
8. Irish ISP Association rejects the copyright industry threats
============================================================

After several weeks of silence in the the Eircom deal with IRMA (Irish
Recorded Music Association), the Irish ISP Association (ISPAI) has reacted
considering the legal threats as spurious and that there is no evidence of
wrong-doing by Internet Service Providers.

The Irish ISP scandal has started with the major Irish ISP Eircom agreement
to a "three strikes" approach, following the settlement of the court case
with IRMA. In terms of this agreement, the evidence of illegal downloads
will be provided by IRMA and Eircom will take action without a court
hearing. The agreement also means that Eircom is not to oppose any
application blocking file-sharing websites from their network.

IRMA tried to extend the agreement to other ISPs by sending them letters
threatening legal action from solicitors representing four major music
recording companies.

ISPAI, where Eircom is also a member, published a statement approved by "a
majority" of its members that claims that two years ago they initiated
meetings with the music representatives to explore these aspects, but the
matter was not followed up by the industry.

"The ISPAI and its members have never condoned the use of its members'
services for theft of copyrighted works of any kind, and continue to operate
within the existing legal framework which has provisions for taking action
where appropriate," says the statement explaining that the present Irish
copyright law provides remedies and means of action for breaching copyright
through the courts and that "ISPAI members will continue to co-operate fully
within these existing legal parameters."

ISPAI also supports the privacy of its users' communications and underlines
its importance through this statement:
"Privacy of user communications is protected in European and Irish
legislation. ISPs can not be expected to ignore these merely because it does
not suit another private party. To do so would breach the privacy of our
users as well as having serious implications for the continued location of
international e-business in this country and the jobs these generate. "

ISPAI - Position statement (13.03.2009)
http://www.ispai.ie/docs/20090313copyright.pdf

Irish ISPs rally against record label anti-piracy threat (17.03.2009)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/03/17/irish_isps_rally_against_irma_threats/

Irish ISPs reject music industry's file-sharer demands (18.03.2009)
http://www.out-law.com//default.aspx?page=9887

EDRi-gram: Irish ISP settled to introduce 3 strikes (11.02.2009)
http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.3/3-strikes-ireland

EDRi-gram: IRMA tries to block websites (11.03.2009)
http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.5/irma-blocks-websites

============================================================
9. Coalition of musicians against criminalizing downloaders
============================================================

On 11 March 2009, during its inaugural meeting, the Featured Artists
Coalition (FAC) including 140 of UK biggest rock and pop stars, expressed
concern about actions taken against fans involved in file-sharing.

FAC expressed the intention to fight for a fairer deal for musicians "at a
time when they can use the internet to forge direct links with their fans."
The members of the coalition want to campaign for effective laws and
regulations and for transparent and equitable business practices. They
believe that companies such as MySpace and YouTube should be required to
remunerate the artists when using their music for advertising. At the same
time, they want to dissociate themselves from the industry in its move to
criminalize individuals for illegally downloaded music.

The artists discussed on a response to the interim version of the Digital
Britain report which proposes a Rights Agency to enforce anti-piracy
measures. Although the interim report does not propose a three-strikes
system like in France, it proposes measures requiring ISPs to give up
information about customers sharing music on P2P networks to rights-holders.
This would make it easier to take actions against the most significant
infringers.

"What I said at the meeting was that the record industry in Britain is still
going down the road of criminalising our audience for downloading illegal
MP3s," said musician Billy Bragg who added that "Artists should own their
own rights and they should decide when their music should be used for free,
or when they should have payment."

Ed O'Brien, member of Radiohand band, considered that during a "defining
time for the industry (...) a lot of the rights and revenue streams are
being carved up, and we need a voice... I think all the major players want
to hear what we have to say."

It's not a crime to download, say musicians (12.03.2009)
http://www.independent.co.uk/arts-entertainment/music/news/its-not-a-crime-to-download-say-musicians-1643217.html

Featured Artists Opposed To Cutting Off File-Sharers (12.03.2009)
http://www.billboard.biz/bbbiz/content_display/industry/e3iffcfe0c0b0255a5af3401db90f5dd412

============================================================
10. Recommended Action
============================================================

Document Freedom Day - 25.03.2009
For the second time, in 2009, the Document Freedom Day is orgganized as a
global day for Document Liberation with the participation of
roughly 250 active teams worldwide. It is a day of grassroots effort around
the world to promote and build awareness for the relevance of Free Document
Formats in particular and Open Standards in general.
http://www.documentfreedom.org/

============================================================
11. Recommended Reading
============================================================

Database State - a comprehensive map of UK government databases
By Ross Anderson, Ian Brown, Terri Dowty, Philip Inglesant, William Heath,
Angela Sasse, Foundation for Information Policy Research (March 2009)

Database State - full report
http://www.jrrt.org.uk/uploads/Database%20State.pdf

Database State - Executive Summary
http://www.jrrt.org.uk/uploads/Database%20State%20-%20Executive%20Summary.pdf

============================================================
12. Agenda
============================================================

26-27 March 2009, London, UK
5th Communia Workshop: Accessing, Using, Reusing Public Sector Content and
Data
http://www.communia-project.eu/ws05

27-29 March 2009, Manchester, UK
Oekonux Conference: Free Software and Beyond The World of Peer Production
http://www.oekonux-conference.org/

28 March 2009, London, UK
Open Knowledge Conference (OKCon) 2009
http://www.okfn.org/okcon/

29-31 March 2009, Edinburgh, UK
Governance Of New Technologies: The Transformation Of Medicine, Information
Technology And Intellectual Property - An International Interdisciplinary
Conference
http://www.law.ed.ac.uk/ahrc/conference09/

1-3 April 2009, Berlin, Germany
re:publica 2009 "Shift happens"
http://www.re-publica.de/09/
Subconference: 2nd European Privacy Open Space
http://www.privacyos.eu/

4 April 2009, Paris, France
French 2009 Big Brother Awards
http://bigbrotherawards.eu.org/

21-23 April 2009, Winchester, UK
BILETA 2009 Annual Conference
http://www.winchester.ac.uk/?page=9871

23-24 April 2009, Brussels, Belgium
The future of intellectual property - Creativity and innovation in the
digital era
http://www.intellectualproperty-conference.eu

23-24 April 2009, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Second European Licensing and Legal Workshop organized by Free Software
Foundation Europe
http://www.fsfeurope.org/news/2009/news-20090323-01.en.html

11 May 2009, Brussels, Belgium
GigaNet is organizing the 2nd international academic workshop on Global
Internet Governance: An Interdisciplinary Research Field in Construction.
Deadline for abstracts submissions is 20 March 2009.
http://giganet.igloogroups.org/publiclibr/giganetcos/2009brusse

13-14 May 2009 Uppsala, Sweden
Mashing-up Culture: The Rise of User-generated Content
http://www.counter2010.org/workshop_call

19-20 May 2009, Brussels, Belgium
European Commission organizes a personal data protection conference to look
at new challenges for privacy
http://ec.europa.eu/justice_home/fsj/privacy/news/docs/pr_03_03_09_en.pdf

24-28 May 2009, Venice, Italy
ICIMP 2009, The Fourth International Conference on Internet Monitoring
and Protection
http://www.iaria.org/conferences2009/ICIMP09.html

1-4 June 2009, Washington, DC, USA
Computers Freedom and Privacy 2009
http://www.cfp2009.org/

5 June 2009, London, UK
The Second Multidisciplinary Workshop on Identity in the Information
Society (IDIS 09): "Identity and the Impact of Technology"
http://is2.lse.ac.uk/idis/2009/

28-30 June 2009, Torino, Italy
COMMUNIA Conference 2009: Global Science & Economics of Knowledge-Sharing
Institutions
http://www.communia-project.eu/conf2009

2-3 July 2009, Padova, Italy
3rd FLOSS International Workshop on Free/Libre Open Source Software
Paper submission by 31 March 2009
http://www.decon.unipd.it/personale/curri/manenti/floss/floss09.html

13-16 August 2009, Vierhouten, The Netherlands
Hacking at Random
http://www.har2009.org/

23-27 August 2009, Milan, Italy
World Library and Information Congress: 75th IFLA General Conference and
Council: "Libraries create futures: Building on cultural heritage"
http://www.ifla.org/IV/ifla75/index.htm

10-12 September 2009, Potsdam, Germany
5th ECPR General Conference, Potsdam
Section: Protest Politics
Panel: The Contentious Politics of Intellectual Property
http://www.ecpr.org.uk/potsdam/default.asp

16-18 September 2009, Crete, Greece
World Summit on the Knowledge Society WSKS 2009
http://www.open-knowledge-society.org/

October 2009,  Istanbul, Turkey
eChallenges 2009
http://www.echallenges.org/e2009/default.asp

16 October 2009, Bielefeld, Germany
10th German Big Brother Awards
Deadline for nominations: 15 July 2009
http://www.bigbrotherawards.de/

15-18 November 2009, Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt
UN Internet Governance Forum
http://www.intgovforum.org/

============================================================
13. About
============================================================

EDRI-gram is a biweekly newsletter about digital civil rights in Europe.
Currently EDRI has 29 members based or with offices in 18 different
countries in Europe. European Digital Rights 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, corrections or agenda-tips are
most welcome. Errors are corrected as soon as possible and visibly on the
EDRI website.

Except where otherwise noted, this newsletter is licensed under the
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Newsletter editor: Bogdan Manolea <edrigram at edri.org>

Information about EDRI and its members:
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