An open letter from Boards.ie to Minister Sean Sherlock

expectationlost

let TDs never complain about form letters again. particularily FG TDs https://docs.google.com/spreadsheet/ccc?key=0AqAEiinGYynOdEJtbk55a0pOd2VUWUd0NzRnQU9oQ1E#gid=0

Knit wit

Dear ********

Thank you very much for your email dated Feb 22 in relation to the proposed new copyright law. I have contacted Minister Sherlock directly seeking clarification. Minister Sherlock  has emphasised that he has not put forward any proposals to enact a Stop Online Piracy Type Law.


The need to legislate arises from a finding of the High Court in October 2010 that Ireland was not in compliance with its EU obligations under Copyright Directive 2001/29/EC as the High Court found itself unable, under existing primary legislation, to grant an injunction against an intermediary in relation to transient communications.  

Minister Sherlock has assured me that no policy change is proposed in the Statutory Instrument.  It had been the intention of the Copyright and Related Rights Act, 2000 to provide civil remedies such as injunctions and it was assumed that the Act did, in fact, provide for such remedies until the High Court found otherwise in the case of EMI Ireland & others v. UPC in October 2010.  Accordingly, the wording of the proposed Statutory Instrument has been framed in a manner which merely gives effect to the wording of the EU Copyright Directive (i.e. Article 8(3) of 2001/29/EC) rather than extending its scope beyond that of intermediaries.

The intended purpose of the proposed Statutory Instrument is not to enact new EU legislation but, rather, it seeks merely to restate the position that was though to exist in the Copyright legislation prior to Mr. Justice Charleton’s judgement in the case of EMI Ireland & others v. UPC in October 2010.

Last July Minister Sherlock held a public consultation in relation to the wording of a proposed Statutory Instrument amending Section 40 of the Copyright and Related Rights Act, 2000.  More than 50 submissions were received from interested parties, providing an excellent overview of all the issues and concerned involved.  Minister Sherlock has engaged extensively with interested parties in respect of their views and concerns.  The legislative measure is expected to be introduced shortly.

*******, this is the information I have received from the Minister's office and I hope the information is helpful in answering your query. However, if you would like me pursue this with the Minister I would be more than happy to do so. .

smash

These standard issue, ill-informed replies are making me furious :mad:

DeVore

Do please use any and all of my response to theirs if that eases your anger

http://www.boards.ie/vbulletin/showthread.php?t=2056555587

Tom.

DavidCollins

I've concluded that emails are only good for a first encounter and that after that you should meet with your TDs personally.

I've talked with Olivia Mitchells representative on the phone, I've met Shane Ross personally with another boards.ie member (which I was very encouraged by) , and right now I'm arranging something with Peter Mathews while Alex White says he's in Brussles now and has to Chair the Finance Committee's scrutiny of this year's Finance Bill, but will try to arrange something for next week.

So send out emails to your TDs directly asking to meet with them, you may finally get them to listen to your point of view.

DoesNotCompute

DavidCollins wrote: »

I've concluded that emails are only good for a first encounter and that after that you should meet with your TDs personally.

I've talked with Olivia Mitchells representative on the phone, I've met Shane Ross personally with another boards.ie member (which I was very encouraged by) , and right now I'm arranging something with Peter Mathews while Alex White says he's in Brussles now and has to Chair the Finance Committee's scrutiny of this year's Finance Bill, but will try to arrange something for next week.

So send out emails to your TDs directly asking to meet with them, you may finally get them to listen to your point of view.

Probably because the emails are being answered by the Ministers' staff, who are cluelessly just copying and pasting or paraphrasing an agreed upon standard "party line" reply.

Meeting with or speaking to the Minister themselves will get you somewhere though.

DeVore

A single meeting is worth 100 mails.

That_Guy

Few on Twitter have said that SOPA has been passed.

EDIT: Confirmed

http://www.thejournal.ie/sherlock-signs-irish-sopa-into-law-369634-Feb2012/?utm_source=shortlink

RangeR

That_Guy wrote: »

Few on Twitter have said that SOPA has been passed.

EDIT: Confirmed

http://www.thejournal.ie/sherlock-signs-irish-sopa-into-law-369634-Feb2012/?utm_source=shortlink

That was always going to happen.

I assume Sherlock didn't listen to anyone and didn't want to.
I assume that he thinks he knows what's right.
I assume that he thinks that anyone opposing the SI just wanted copyright stuff for free.

smash

What a disgrace! :mad:

"The controversial ‘Irish SOPA’ legislation was the subject of much debate last month amid concerns it would limit internet freedom."

I don't recall much of a debate.

MungBean

Whats the next course of action or are we buggered ?

Thor

Funny enough, this won't stop illegal downloading in the least.

Also, so what if it did, Ireland has a population of 4 million. As if that counts for a fraction of the downloading that goes on in the world. Trying to stop one country from downloading illegal is useless and considering this won't stop illegal downloading, this law is completely pointless.

The worst part is that someone has the power to create a new law as they see fit and completely ignore the voice of the people. That is more scary if you ask me.

matrim

Also launched today is the separate copyright consultation paper that had submissions last year.

Overview
PDF

Thor

matrim wrote: »

Also launched today is the separate copyright consultation paper that had submissions last year.

http://www.djei.ie/science/ipr/crc_consultation_paper.pdf

Fixed your link

dmw07

Sad day for freedom again. In 30 years or so i think i will look back on this day as one of the most important decisions by a governmental minister.

The day is the Irish government started to police the internet, with american music & film corporations. Yippee.

Ritchi

"In my day we use to be able to search the internet for information"

"Daddy, what's the internet?"

I look forward to the likes of Facebook and Google being brought to court, and then threatening to leave Ireland. I'm sure Minister Sherlock with be very popular then... :rolleyes:

Might be time to get a good VPN...

expectationlost

DeVore wrote: »

A single meeting is worth 100 mails.

something in writing is worth a 1 meeting

Dr Galen

Despite the idiocy of Junior Minister Sherlock and his SI, could I remind people that in this forum we expect civility and a bit of decorum at all times.

Cheers

DrG

horgan_p

I won't call him names , I won't insult him.

But I am in his constituency and I do have a vote.
And I'm within my rights to seek a meeting with him at his clinic.
It'll be a short meeting.
I'll be explaining why he and his party won't be getting a preference from me in future.

Hellrazer

Apologies mods but I have to say that this is a f***ing disgrace.And this country may aswell be in the dark ages.This FG and Labour government are no better than what came before them.

James Forde

A sad day indeed.

I will not be voting with the government in the upcoming referendum on European fiscal policy change.

I hope many others will do the same.

katana1

What has our country become with these morons in charge.What happened to all their promises-Oh yah --all lies--its like the same government with different faces that we had when the EU took ownership.
Signed --angry and emailed everyone I know to pull their heads out of their a**es and sign this rather than complain about how unfair it is.(Sorry about the ranting)

Spoonman75

So the voices of over 80,000 concerned Irish citizens (That's another word for registered voters, Mr. Sherlock) mean nothing?

:mad:

charlemont

The country is getting worse by the day.

Wibbs

Right from the start of this thread...

CptSternn wrote: »

After all the blackouts to stop the Americans it is nothing short of amazing this man thinks he can sneak the same legislation in here without any debate.

And yet that's precisely what he did. Charlemont sums it up for me

KyussBishop

As posted in another thread:

KyussBishop wrote: »

Great; countdown to the next court case against an ISP begins.

The first site to be targeted is most likely The Pirate Bay; now, consider this: The Pirate Bay does not actually host any copyrighted content (effectively, it just links stuff), so if it is successfully blocked there will be no limits to how this law can be abused (targeting any sites linking potentially infringing content).

It is an all or nothing thing now; either the courts will set a sane precedent, refusing to make ISP's block The Pirate Bay, which will then severely neuter this law, or they will set a precedent by blocking TPB, which will open a huge can of worms and will be the start of internet censorship.

There's no way to block TPB without putting Google and a huge swathe of other sites under threat as well (for linking stuff); so either a judge is going to neuter this law, or set the precedent for an Irish internet blacklist.

DavidCollins

Alright guys, time to plan the next step forward. Here's my view on the matter.

For now we need to wrap up loose ends and prepare ourselves for the next step. If you've arranged to meet with a politician, follow through. This will not be the last of the issue and we need to know it as much as they do.

How this issue will go forward will depend on things happening we can't quite predict.

I foresee four possibilities (there of course may be more, or a combination):

1. The SI only gets used to force ISPs to block websites that are clearly devoted to piracy.

In this instance, while we could complain about the concept of web infrastructure being tangled with, we'd be in a weak position and would not easily get support. This scenario puts us in the weakest position of all others.

2. The SI gets used for a multitude of of reasons beyond what even Sean Sherlock predicted.

I see this scenario as most likely, and it puts us in a stronger position. Every single time that and unwarranted or unexpected use of the SI happens, we need to harangue Sean Sherlock, local TDs and the press about how terrible this is and draw it right back to the SI that Sherlock wrote and Bruton signed and many TDs supported. They've taken responsibility for the SI and we need to be ready to remind them.

3. The SI gets challenged as being unconstitutional, and succeeds

This is an interesting scenario. It'll require a company receiving an injunction under the SI to appealing to a higher court. Without getting into the legal technicalities, there's a few reasons why the SI is unconstitutional and previous court cases where such SIs have been declared void. Whether this will happen in this case is another question.

4. The Media companies believe that copyright law is still too lax and push for even more restrictive legislation.

Then we have to start things up again, this time upping the volume. Of course, if the previous SI caused enough damage and controversy, it'll be a lot easier to resist.

Most of these puts us on the defensive. We wait for opportunities and take advantage of them, hoping to turn the government away from reckless copyright legislation and trying to get the existing SI removed/amended and ensure something like this doesn't happen again.

The next election will happen by 2016 at the latest. If the SI is really as bad as we say it is, then that should be plenty of time for the ill effects to be shown and give support to our cause.

By that election, aside from Sherlock not being relected (obviously, and I'm honestly not keen on Bruton signing the thing in), we should focus on using it to launch a new generation of TDs that respect and acknowledge digital rights or at least realise that it is a vote loser. It wouldn't hurt to actively promote copyright reform such as suggested in that ArsTechnica article.

If anyone wants to run for TDs, let us know (though it's not easy). Alternatively keep a keen eye on the ballot paper for the TDs stance when it comes to stuff like copyright and vote accordingly, there are a lot of TDs on our side out there, and the last election showed we're not afraid to vote in independents. Ensure a lot of attention has been brought to the issue beforehand so that TDs can't shirk away giving their stance on the issue.

If all goes well, Ireland will emerge as a more tech savvy nation that knows the price of ignorance when it comes to communications technology and will be the wiser for it.

Spacedog

Sherlock is a copyright obsessed media lobbyist hatchet man. He signed ACTA on behalf of Ireland in Tokyo, Japan on Thursday 26th January. and is today inviting submissions for it's implementation under a different name BEFORE it is ratified by the European Court of Justice or the European Parliament.

I will keep a close eye on this mans career after he leaves office, chances are he will become an extremely well paid consultant in IRMA or similar organisation.

Edit: ACTA was actually signed by the Irish Ambassador to Japan Mr. John Neary, not Sean Sherlock.

KyussBishop

Is it possible for an injunction to happen in secret? With an order barring any party from disclosing it publicly? (i.e. a secret blacklist)