An open letter from Boards.ie to Minister Sean Sherlock

JJDoherty

rOBeRt frETt wrote: »

I do not support the bill, nor sopa and pipa but obviously something needs to be done.

Exactly right, the copyright laws do need to be re-visited and a just, fair and even-handed copyright law enacted that will not adversely affect those that operate within the law or with the intent to operate within the law. So surely any changed or revised copyright law must tread carefully to protect the majority of people and businesses.

expectationlost

did we get any details from people who talked to sherlock,private conversations allow him 2 play the victim,disassociate from what hes doing

Citizen_Kane

Irish Aris wrote: »

Hi everybody,
I started reading the whole thread, but by page 20 I was totally lost/confused and stopped.
Probably what I am about to ask is naive and/or already answered, but I would like to understand in plain English the limitations of the new legislation, so here it is:
-Famous pop artist is on tour promoting new album. Lots of people film videos during the concerts and upload them to youtube. I like one of the videos and post it to my facebook account. Am I in violation of the law? Or the person that originally uploaded the video on youtube? Or do youtube and facebook need to delete the posts and everything will be fine?
-Same pop concert. I am not one to film videos but I am taking pictures-mostly for private use, but every now and then I will share some of these pictures in my facebook account. Is that allowed under the new legislation?

Again, I understand it is possible that nothing substantial will change. But I don't think most people really understand the implications that the new law might have. I wouldn't like to be drawn to court, even if I eventually win the case, so I would like to play it safe.
Yes, to most of us the new law is vague (as it is often the case with new or amended laws)

Here goes the plain English of the implications as I understand it:

You tape the concert, which EMI for eg. own the rights of, on your phone. You post it to Youtube and 100 people re-post it on Facebook. EMI has the right, through the SI, to take Eircom, UPC, Meteor, Vodafone, etc to court on the basis that they have been facilitating access to content infringing on their rights. They could seek injunction from the court for these ISP's to block access to Youtube and Facebook.

The 99.999% probability is that the judge will rule that no real damage has occured and that the infringement is a harmless cultural phenomenon, as the SI requires the judge to consider.

The trouble is that the SI passes responsibility for law making regarding digital copyright enforcement to the Judiciary, not the democratic instrument which is the Legislative branch.

Furthermore, the wording is so open-ended that the responsibility put on a single judge could be abused. Consider this:

Microsoft has spurious copyright claims over lines of code in the Linux kernel. Now - as the dude was told - 'They draw a lot of water in this town'. The right judge on the right day could very conceivably instruct all the ISP's in Ireland to block access to IP addresses which provide download and updates to Free and Open Source software.

This would not only affect your and my civil liberties directly, but would put many smaller businesses such as Red Hat, Canonical and others out of business in Ireland.

rOBeRt frETt

3. The Act of 2000 is hereby amended by the insertion of the following subsection after subsection (5) of section 40:
(5A)(a) without prejudice to subsections (3) and (4), the owner of the copyright in the work concerned may apply to the High Court for an injunction against a person who provides facilities referred to in subsection (3) where those facilities are being used by one or more third parties to infringe the copyright in that work.
(b) In considering an application for an injunction under this subsection, the court shall have due regard to the rights of any third party likely to be affected and the court shall make such directions (including, where appropriate, a direction requiring a third party to be put on notice of the application) as the court may deem necessary or appropriate in all the circumstances.

-very little to no direction to the judicial services here, in any event an Irish injunction is for the large part totally irrelevant on the internet unless the facilitator resides here or website is hosted here.

secondly this will leave the bulk of enforcement in the hands of Irish ISP's and is totally unworkable from a technical perspective, the only justifiable way would be to block access via a firewall ad hoc (more equipment and staff costs = higher service costs) - almost in the same way as the BBC reserve their iPlayer to UK only ip addresses- this works for the most part but can be overcome very easily none the less.

it's window dressing not the patriot act!

Citizen_Kane

-very little to no direction to the judicial services here, in any event an Irish injunction is for the large part totally irrelevant on the internet unless the facilitator resides here or website is hosted here.

This SI is in direct response to pending litigation against the state by EMI. It is predicated by 'EMI vs UPC' where the facilitator is an Irish ISP (UPC). The 'facilitator' is thus always resident in Ireland.

They are seeking a direct way to block internet access through the ISP's, unlike SOPA which sought to do it through DNS.

Fingleberries

To date, I have just received two replies from Ministers I have contacted.

From Richard Bruton's office, which they titled "Legitimate Copyright Protection in Ireland":

Dear xxxxxx,

The background to this debate is that the State has been found wanting in failing to transpose the right under EU directives for a copyright holder to seek an injunction from the Courts to protect his or her rights.

Any change that will be made will not go beyond granting the rights that are available in any other EU state. Any case taken to the court seeking an injunction will be judged against the need to respect the rights of others and the requirement of proportionality.

Kind regards,

RICHARD BRUTON TD
Minister for Jobs, Enterprise & Innovation

From James Reilly's office

I acknowledge receipt of your email. Your correspondence will be brought to the attention of Dr James Reilly T.D., Minister for Health and to the relevant officials in the Department of Health. If the content of your correspondence relates to the functions of another Minister's department, it will be brought to their attention for direct reply.
Yours sincerely,
Constituency Office of Dr James Reilly T.D., Minister for Health

Citizen_Kane

Fingleberries - You could write back to Richard Bruton inquiring whether the EU or any other body other than EMI has requested or instructed that this SI be passed at this time.

Also, ask him why this is to be passed by SI when clearly the implications are of great concern to so may constituents. There is no obligation from anywhere to use a SI - this is completely at the discretion of the Irish State.

skelliser

i am reliably informed that this will be discussed at parlaimentary and cabinet level on wednesday.

Occono

Citizen_Kane wrote: »

How do you propose that artists make a living?
By using the free distribution which is the internet to promote and publish their work. There is oppertunity for more artists to make a fairer living when all our popular culture does not have to be channeled through a corporate middle-man. Commercial airtime can also provide direct income to artists instead of percentages of commissions. Fans will still go to concerts, buy merchandise and even donate to production. Hell- independent film may even go mainstream and be shown in well located independent movie houses instead of suburban tici tac boxes where you can't even go for a pint after.

Not everything is merchandisable. I've heard this argument before and it's terrible.

rOBeRt frETt

Citizen_Kane wrote: »

This SI is in direct response to pending litigation against the state by EMI. It is predicated by 'EMI vs UPC' where the facilitator is an Irish ISP (UPC). The 'facilitator' is thus always resident in Ireland.

They are seeking a direct way to block internet access through the ISP's, unlike SOPA which sought to do it through DNS.

...I don't believe that is winnable for EMI, and the 'MERE CONDUIT' defence should hold up. also anyone can easily access the piratebay with eircom as their ISP

DavidCollins

After listening to the above interview, I discovered that while Sean Sherlock developed the Statutory instrument, it was Richard Bruton who would sign it. I sent Richard Bruton an email asking for transparency (I don't have the original since I sent it through his website form) and I got this in reply:

On Mon, Jan 30, 2012 at 2:54 PM, <richard.bruton@djei.ie> wrote:

Legitimate Copyright Protection in Ireland


Dear David,

The background to this debate is that the State has been found wanting in failing to transpose the right under EU directives for a copyright holder to seek an injunction from the Courts to protect his or her rights.

Any change that will be made will not go beyond granting the rights that are available in any other EU state. Any case taken to the court seeking an injunction will be judged against the need to respect the rights of others and the requirement of proportionality.

Kind regards,

RICHARD BRUTON TD
Minister for Jobs, Enterprise & Innovation

---

Email Disclaimer:
http://www.deti.ie/corporate/it/e-mail_disclaimer_text.htm?

---

This is my response:

To Richard Bruton,

How can you claim that this is transposing EU directives? The EU directive clearly states: "The conditions and modalities relating to such injunctions should be left to the national law of the Member States."

In this instance, no conditions or modalities have been specified by Irish "national law" or otherwise. The Statutory Instrument you are intent on signing simply states that copyright holders can launch injunctions against "intermediaries". There are no restrictions, qualifiactions, details or limits placed in this incredibly far reaching instrument you are intent on signing. It could, for instance, lead to the first ever case of a Irish ISP censoring a website, which would have huge free speech consequence. It could instill a climate of fear where, for instance, and Irish social media site would suddenly face an injunction if one of the users of the site put up copyrighted content. Boards.ie, which has already taken up the issue, currently employes two full time people to deal with copyrighted content and with your instrument they could still suddenly have the additional legal cost of fighting an injunction. The term "intermediary" is not defined anywhere, either in the instrument, the original Act or the EU Directive. I find it appauling that you would enact an instrument that would allow legal action to be taken, yet not clearly define who the action can be taken against. It could involve everything from an in internet provider, website, or even someone a company that deals directly with how the internet is routed through our country. It could involve young Irish startup companies along with multinationals who have set up on Irish shores and empoly many of our people.

Along with the vagueness and threats to our job creating industries, the instrument also allows the complex and intricate issue of copyright law, legal enforcement and remedies to be delegated to the courts system. Sean Sherlock has said this is because he wants things to "move quickly", but you yourself should know that delegating such power violates Article 15.2 of our Constitution by giving the judiciary system power to legislate. Since McDaid v Sheehy it has been shown that legislation cannot be a vehicle for others to create their own legislation, let alone allowing a Statutory Instrument to be such a vehicle.

I understand that the Irish Government is under pressure to change Copyright Law in this Country, such as being sued by the Music Industry, but this manipulative use of a Statutory Instrument is not the way to do it. Copyright law debate is only likely to increase as we move further into this decade, and any such development and implementation of Irish Copyright Law should be done out in the open with public debates and experts on both sides. Otherwise, a raft of unintended consequences could seriously reduce Irish free speech, limit technological inovation, and throw countless technology companies (unpon which our economy relies) into legal uncertainty.

I thank you for your time and listening to my opinions.

Kind Regards,
David Collins

MOH

meglome wrote: »

No idea how they reached this figure but I can look at my own downloading. Over 90% of it is either... TV shows which are being shown in a particular 'region' which isn't mine, which I now don't have to wait for on local TV. Old copies of TV shows which I would never purchase or movies I would never pay for.

How about TV shows or movies that you've recorded on the RTE you have to pay €160 a year for, but have missed the start or end of since RTE are incapable of sticking to their schedule? /offtopic

Bizarre bit in this article about a rap song from an unsigned band which was sampled by another artist signed to Universal - who then got the original removed from Youtube for copyright violation. We're in Douglas Adams territory there:

The simplistic style is partly explained by the fact that its editors, having to meet a publishing deadline, copied the information off the back of a packet of breakfast cereal, hastily embroidering it with a few foot notes in order to avoid prosecution under the incomprehensibly torturous Galactic Copyright Laws. It’s interesting to note that a later and wilier editor sent the book backwards in time, through a temporal warp, and then successfully sued the breakfast cereal company for infringement of the same laws.

rOBeRt frETt

wrote:

This would not only affect your and my civil liberties directly, but would put many smaller businesses such as Red Hat, Canonical and others out of business in Ireland.

Red Hat is already copyrighted and closed source, the fedora project however is their GNU release. - just nit pickin'

Citizen_Kane

rOBeRt frETt wrote: »

Red Hat is already copyrighted and closed source, the fedora project however is their GNU release. - just nit pickin'

Red Hat is a Linux distro which uses 100% Free and Open Source for the kernel as well as the entire GNU FOSS stack over it. A VERY small portion of it is proprietary. Fedora is 100% FOSS and is used as the community edition, development platform for Red Hat enterprise.

Citizen_Kane

rOBeRt frETt wrote: »

...I don't believe that is winnable for EMI, and the 'MERE CONDUIT' defence should hold up. also anyone can easily access the piratebay with eircom as their ISP

If the SI passes, EMI has pretty much won. The judge in the case ruled that EMI, under very strong terms, was the injured party but that he had no legal framework under which to address their grievances. This is why EMI is suing the Irish state and why they are trying to implement the SI to be in 'harmony' with EU legislature.

They WILL come down like a sledgehammer on a pin-nail.

Citizen_Kane

Occono wrote: »

Not everything is merchandisable. I've heard this argument before and it's terrible.

Tell Radiohead and Nine Inch Nails that their logic is terrible while they roll in all the extra cash they made by going 'free'.

Please consult the terrible people at Creative Commons regarding their clever proposals to give an equitable legal framework to provide implement-able rights to all artists.

Please ask the people at AfterTheSmoke why their stuff is free and why Universal Music Group stole their rights.

Please add to the discussion before you snipe.

CramCycle

ryker1 wrote: »

I repeat. This text is mine. I created it. Anybody who copies it will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Change a s1ngle letter and you'll be contacted and removed from the internet.

I've also created this word ldidssidgh. This is also mine do not reproduce it in any manner whatsoever

Challenge accepted :pac: ldidssidgh

DeVore

bastados wrote: »

Yeah but what is the likelyhood that this rubbish will actually be brought into law in one shape or form?

Almost 100% certain. The question now is "how"?

Ireland is being sued by EMI for not protecting its copyright and so this is being rushed through as defence against that court date (early feb).

This will get signed but perhaps it can be altered on the way or such a stink created that for once our representatives will join us in Phylum Vertbrata.

FreudianSlippers

ryker1 wrote: »

Copyright holders only have to claim ownership.
They don't have to prove anything until it comes to court. They get a lifetime +70 years of protection. So this is mine cos I say it's mine.

Only where Berne Convention standards apply; furthermore, if you fail to register or register after infringement you may only be able to receive actual damages.

I repeat. This text is mine. I created it. Anybody who copies it will be prosecuted to the full extent of the law. Change a single letter and you'll be contacted and removed from the internet.

This text wouldn't be sufficiently original for copyright protection.

I've also created this word ldidssidgh. This is also mine do not reproduce it in any manner whatsoever

A single word is de minimis for copyright protection.

kupus

DavidCollins wrote: »

After listening to the above interview, I discovered that while Sean Sherlock developed the Statutory instrument, it was Richard Bruton who would sign it. I sent Richard Bruton an email asking for transparency (I don't have the original since I sent it through his website form) and I got this in reply:
This is my response:

I hope you dont mind but I copied this and sent it off as my reply also to Richard Bruton

KyussBishop

Crosspost:
Brilliant article, which highlights the bigger picture dangers of these copyright laws/treaties; particularly ACTA:
http://www.nakedcapitalism.com/2012/01/guest-post-acta-%E2%80%9Cwould-usurp-congressional-authority%E2%80%9D-%E2%80%9Cthreatens-numerous-public-interests%E2%80%9D-a-%E2%80%9Cbackroom-special-interest-deal%E2%80%9D-a-%E2%80%9Cmasquera.html

It focuses on the US, but what happens in the US is the same as what eventually happens in Europe and the rest of the world as well; that is a must-read, as it portrays the broader issues behind these laws/treaties very well (in fact, it's one of the first articles I've read which do so in such a thorough way).

OldeCinemaSoz

All I can say is "God, help us!"

It seems 2 steps forward and 10 steps backwards
in this Banana Republic.

:rolleyes:

It won't be long before we'll be getting
http://www.tcd.ie/irishfilm/censor/contents.php
all over again...

Maybe the orphanages and workhouses will reopen?!?! THE VERMIN
will be QUEUING UP at the local SACRESTIES once again!!!

Citizen_Kane

OldeCinemaSoz wrote: »

All I can say is "God, help us!"

It seems 2 steps forward and 10 steps backwards
in this Banana Republic.

:rolleyes:

It won't be long before we'll be getting
http://www.tcd.ie/irishfilm/censor/contents.php
all over again...

Maybe the orphanages and workhouses will reopen?!?! THE VERMIN
will be QUEUING UP at the local SACRESTIES once again!!!

[sarcastic humour]
Free love, Free condoms, Free civil union and now free access to uncensored information. OMG, Mr Sherlock please come to our rescue. What has happened to our state??? [Father Jack voice]Please, please Mr EMI, keep on giving us the stuff we want to see and hear - we like it so much, it makes us feel so good.[/Father Jack voice]
[/sarcastic humour]

1865

This is very FG, Rush in a half-baked idea and feck the consequences.

meglome

1865 wrote: »

This is very FG, Rush in a half-baked idea and feck the consequences.

Really they do this a lot do they?

skelliser

when/if eircom/irma lose their upcoming appeal against the Data Commissoners decision in december that the 3 strikes was illegal this legislation will be pointless.

Couple this with the scarlet judgement the judge will have no way to apply the injunction because filtering is not aloud and neither will the 3 strikes.

I dont think this will be signed.

I think they will hold of until after the eircom/irma appeal or the report "Consultation on the Review of the Copyright and Related Rights Act 2000”

The worry i would have which at the moment is perfectly legal is the spread of private agreements such as that between eircom and irma.
If that was to become wide scale you would start to see tiered networks.

msouden

Great discussion. As an American living here for an extended time, I love that this is so participatory. That there's one bulletin board here where such a conversation takes place with Reps actually involved in the conversation and whatnot. In the US there's so much scope and noise and disinformation and ignorance that the signal-to-noise makes it much more difficult to get and give voice to good information.

At the risk of being redundant - because I've not read the entire thread - has anyone considered bringing the blackouts here too? If BlackKnight Solutions, boards.ie, and/or any other concerned parties went dark on Wednesday would it help, or would it be too little too late?

Citizen_Kane

1865 wrote: »

This is very FG, Rush in a half-baked idea and feck the consequences.

I don't think this has anything to do with party politics, besides, Sean Sherlock is Labour.

This is just pure bad, lazy governance.

I would even buy it and lay down the war-drums if they were just honest. imagine this statement:

"Listen lads - whichever way we look at it we are fecked. After our mad spending spree we are now so sold out to corporate interests that we have no room to manoeuvre.

We would love to sit and discuss issues of civil liberty, progressive ways to protect artist's rights and how we can fulfil EU obligations without screwing the pooch. Truth be told - the pooch is well and truly screwed already.

Thing is that these big corporations that pay our monthly wages and subsidise our tax takes really are not concerned about civil liberties. They want control over the worlds information infrastructure, and they have decided that Ireland is a good place to start their European tour.

Sorry lads, not our fault - nothing we can do. May as well pucker up and kiss your freedom goodbye."

But no - what annoys me is that they have to still wrap their BS in a blanket of self righteous hypocrisy. My God - beat me with sticks, rob me, even feckin tell me intelligent lies, but stop FG GD MFG insulting me.

Citizen_Kane

skelliser wrote: »

when/if eircom/irma lose their upcoming appeal against the Data Commissoners decision in december that the 3 strikes was illegal this legislation will be pointless.

Couple this with the scarlet judgement the judge will have no way to apply the injunction because filtering is not aloud and neither will the 3 strikes.

I dont think this will be signed.

I think they will hold of until after the eircom/irma appeal or the report "Consultation on the Review of the Copyright and Related Rights Act 2000”

The worry i would have which at the moment is perfectly legal is the spread of private agreements such as that between eircom and irma.
If that was to become wide scale you would start to see tiered networks.

Last week Monday this was going to be signed. A done deal. Set in stone.

It was only because of the likes of this excellent forum and the StopSopaIreland campaign that it has been stalled by huge public outcry.

3 strikes is a different, related animal which obligates an ISP to cut of your private internet access. This SI will obligate an ISP to cut off access to a whole website for the whole of Ireland.

DavidCollins

kupus wrote: »

I hope you dont mind but I copied this and sent it off as my reply also to Richard Bruton

This might be the most ironic response ever but I kinda do mind. I don't want Richard Bruton thinking we're sending in a bunch of form letters and while I don't mind people taking inspiration or points or theme or style from my mail (kinda why I posted it), but verbatim copying seems to push it (once again, the irony). It's not like one of those things where someone provides something for everyone to take a copy and send off to their own respective representative.

Having said that, it's not a big issue so don't worry about it.