Lars Gustafsson ställer rätt frågor om EU

Lars Gustafsson ställer EU-kritiska frågor i en debattartikel i Expressen

Författaren och samhällsdebattören Lars Gustafsson ställer rätt frågor i en EU-kritisk debattartikel i Expressen idag. Det är inte själva tanken att Europas stater ska samarbeta som han är kritisk till, utan istället hur samarbetet är organiserat i praktiken rent författningsmässigt.

Han skriver bland annat:

Europaparlamentet, denna extremt välbetalda och skatteprivilegierade församling kan förefalla uthärdlig, överbetald men tämligen maktlös och som sådan ofarlig. Att det som regel är politiker som är alltför idéfattiga eller allmänt inkompetenta för att platsa i medlemsstaternas regeringar som blir kommissionärer – med svindlande skattefria inkomster – är heller inte det stora problemet. Berget av tryckt papper bundet i stiliga volymer är kostsamt, men inte det avgörande.

Om vi får tro Enzensberger består haken i att denna kostnadsslukande och expansiva jätteorganisation förefaller representera ett postdemokratiskt tillstånd. Hur ställs dessa byråkrater till svars? Hur ansvarar dessa aldrig valda kommissionärer inför medlemsstaternas skattebetalare?

Är EU det första genomförda försöket med ett postdemokratiskt styrelsesätt? Är det ett slags mandarinvälde som erövrar det ena verksamhetsområdet efter det andra – jordbruk, fiske, datahantering – utan att egentligen ha någons mandat?

De här frågorna är lätta att svara på, så det gör jag gärna:

• Hur ställs dessa byråkrater till svars?
  - Inte alls, och det vet de om.
• Hur ansvarar dessa aldrig valda kommissionärer inför medlemsstaternas skattebetalare?
  - Inte alls. Personer som har nått till kommissionärsnivån ställer normalt aldrig upp i några fler allmänna val, och det vet de förstås att de inte kommer behöva. I sin roll som kommissionärer representerar de heller inte något politiskt parti, så det finns ingen som väljarna kan låta bli att rösta på för att visa sitt missnöje med vad en kommissionär har gjort.
• Är EU det första genomförda försöket med ett postdemokratiskt styrelsesätt?
  - Nej, det har i och för sig funnits många icke-demokratiska styrelsesätt tidigare i Europa, och EU är ännu inte i närheten av de värsta exemplen. Men det är ingen ursäkt till att låta EU fortsätta utvecklas i den riktningen.
• Är det ett slags mandarinvälde som erövrar det ena verksamhetsområdet efter det andra utan att egentligen ha någons mandat?
  - Ja, precis, och det är just det här som är det stora problemet med EU. Jag har skrivit om det tidigare, bland annat i inlägget EU:s demokratiska underskott i praktiken.

Men efter de här lätta frågorna, som beskriver problemet bra men inte erbjuder någon lösning, avslutar Lars Gustafsson artikeln med ett par betydligt svårare:

• Om alternativet är ett reformerat EU – hur skall reformerna se ut? Och hur skall de initieras?

Vad som är bästa svar på de två frågorna är inte alls lika självklart, så här får jag be mina läsare om hjälp. Men vi behöver ett svar inom en inte allt för avlägsen framtid.

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Tags: piratpartiet, eu, politik

The Hargreaves Review of UK IPR policies

Prof. Ian Hargreaves has conducted a review of UK intellectual property rights policies. Click to download.

The UK government has commissioned a review of its policies on copyright, patents and other intellectual property rights (IPR). The review has been done by professor Ian Hargreaves, who holds the chair of Digital Economy at the Cardiff School of Journalism, Media and Cultural Studies and Cardiff Business School.

The resulting Hargreaves Review (pdf, 130 pages) is very interesting reading.

Let me start by making one thing absolutely clear: The Hargreaves Review is not a ”Pirate Manifesto”. It is written from a general pro-IPR perspective, and there are many cases where I as a pirate disagree with the proposals made, or think that they do not go far enough. In particular, the Review offers no solution to the problem of illegal file sharing, other than the usual enforcement/education policy that has failed so spectacularly for at least a decade.

But if we leave that aside, there are many positive concrete recommendations in the Review that deserve to be taken seriously.

Evidence based policy making is the first thing that the Review calls for. Already in the Foreword, it says:

We urge Government to ensure that in future, policy on Intellectual Property issues is constructed on the basis of evidence, rather than weight of lobbying…

I could not agree more, and this is an area where there is much room for improvement. In the Executive Summary, the Hargreaves Review writes:

The frequency of major reviews of IP (four in the last six years) indicates the shortcomings of the UK system. In the 1970s, the Banks Review deplored the lack of evidence to support policy judgments, as did the Gowers Review five years ago. Of the 54 recommendations advanced by Gowers, only 25 have been implemented. On copyright issues, lobbying on behalf of rights owners has been more persuasive to Ministers than economic impact assessments.

On copyright, the Review first of all advocates a ”digital copyright exchange [that] will facilitate copyright licensing and realise the growth potential of creative industries”.

Although I have noting against this idea if somebody feels like trying to establish such an exchange under today’s copyright legislation, I seriously doubt that this is going to be enough to solve the problem of easy pan-European licensing, and to lay a foundation for Europe as a Digital Single Market.

But there are other very constructive suggestions. The Review writes in its Recommendations:

4. Orphan works. The Government should legislate to enable licensing of orphan works. This should establish extended collective licensing for mass licensing of orphan works, and a clearance procedure for use of individual works. In both cases, a work should only be treated as an orphan if it cannot be found by search of the databases involved in the proposed Digital Copyright Exchange.

5. Limits to copyright. Government should firmly resist over regulation of activities which do not prejudice the central objective of copyright, namely the provision of incentives to creators. Government should deliver copyright exceptions at national level to realise all the opportunities within the EU framework, including format shifting, parody, non-commercial research, and library archiving. The UK should also promote at EU level an exception to support text and data analytics. The UK should give a lead at EU level to develop a further copyright exception designed to build into the EU framework adaptability to new technologies. This would be designed to allow uses enabled by technology of works in ways which do not directly trade on the underlying creative and expressive purpose of the work. The Government should also legislate to ensure that these and other copyright exceptions are protected from override by contract.

On patents, the Review also has constructive suggestions:

6. Patent thickets and other obstructions to innovation. In order to limit the effects of these barriers to innovation, the Government should:

• take a leading role in promoting international efforts to cut backlogs and manage the boom in patent applications by further extending “work sharing” with patent offices in other countries;
• work to ensure patents are not extended into sectors, such as non-technical computer programs and business methods, which they do not currently cover, without clear evidence of benefit;
• investigate ways of limiting adverse consequences of patent thickets, including by working with international partners to establish a patent fee structure set by reference to innovation and growth goals rather than solely by reference to patent office running costs. The structure of patent renewal fees might be adjusted to encourage patentees to assess more carefully the value of maintaining lower value patents, so reducing the density of patent thickets.

All in all, I think the Hargreaves Review is well worth reading for anyone who takes an interest in IPR policy. Although the Review is written from a UK perspective, most of the reasoning is equally relevant at the EU level and in other member states.

But the most interesting question is of course to what extent the UK government will follow the Hargreaves recommendations. When the previous Labour government got the Gowers Review in 2005, they only acted on half of the recommendations, and left most of the problems of adapting the IPR system to this century unsolved.

Will the current Tory/Liberal UK government do better? Only time will tell.

…………

Others who comment on the Review: Open Rights Group, FutureOfCopyright, Prof. James Boyle, The Register, BBC, David Prosser, Jeremy Silver, Laurence Keye, Wellcome Trust,

Tags: piratpartiet, eu, politik, informationspolitik

EU study on net neutrality

Net neutrality is necessary for both businesses and consumers, but do we need further EU regulation right now?

Net neutrality is becoming a hot topic in the European Parliament. The Commission has come with a proposal, and the parliament will have its say about it. This process has only just started.

Last Thursday an expert who has prepared a study on net neutrality in the EU and the US visited the European Parliament’s committee for the internal market IMCO, to present the study.

You can download the study titled Network Neutrality: Challenges and responses in the EU and in the U.S. as a pdf (71 pages). I think it is well worth at least skimming through, for anybody interested in the net neutrality issue.

The study starts out by explaining why net neutrality is important:

1.2. The many faces of net neutrality

Departures from network neutrality (i.e. unreasonable discrimination) could raise a number of quite distinct potential issues of societal welfare, among them:

• Anticompetitive behaviour: Is there a risk that a network operator with significant market power (SMP) might project its market power into upstream or downstream market segments that would otherwise be competitive?
• Innovation: Might a network operator (especially a vertically integrated network operator that possesses some form of market power) act as a gatekeeper, inhibiting the ability of content providers or application service providers with which it competes from offering new, innovative products or services?
• Freedom of expression: Might a network operator interfere with the ability of its customers to express views with which the network operator disagrees?
• Consumer awareness: Do consumers understand the service that is being offered to them, and are they receiving the service that has been committed?
• Privacy: To the extent that a network operator treats some Internet traffic differently from other traffic, does this necessarily imply that the network operator is delving more deeply than it should into the user’s personal affairs (e.g. by means of Deep Packet Inspection [DPI])?

In Chapter 2, the study goes into some depth to explain that traffic prioritization on technical grounds is, and always has been, a necessary and useful established practice for how the Internet works.

I believe that this is a view that most people agree with, and that traffic prioritization on legitimate technical grounds is uncontroversial. It is when Internet service providers start prioritizing on commercial grounds that the problems appear.

Chapter 3 and 4 deal with the economics of traffic prioritization, and evolving business models that rely on quality differentiation. The study points out that quality differentiation is a normal and well understood practice that, in the absence of anticompetitive discrimination, in general benefits both producers and consumers.

But when a producer with market power in one market segment attempts to project that market power into upstream or downstream segments that would otherwise be competitive, that constitutes economic foreclosure. Foreclosure harms consumers, and imposes an overall socio-economic deadweight loss on society:

3.2. Economic foreclosure

A key concern regarding network neutrality has been with economic foreclosure. Foreclosure occurs when a firm that has market power in one segment attempts to project that market power into vertically related market segments where competition would otherwise lead to efficient outcomes.

[... For example:]

The end-user has, in the normal course of events, a free choice among Internet search engines such as Google, Yahoo, and Bing. Suppose, however, that the user’s broadband ISP were acquired by (to pick an example) Google, or otherwise were to form some affiliation with Google. Might the broadband ISP then favour Google, to the detriment of competitors (Yahoo and Bing in this example), and to the detriment of consumer choice?

This is the situation we want to avoid.

Chapter 5 focuses on differences between the US and the EU. In the US, there have been a number of high profile examples where lack of net neutrality caused problems. This is partly due to lack of competition in the US market for broadband access, and partly due to lack of regulation that would have been necessary to counteract this lack of competition.

In the EU, there have so far been only a few major examples of net neutrality conflicts: The blocking of Skype (voice over IP) by telephone companies who see it as competition against their own mobile phone services, and the blocking of Bittorrent traffic (file sharing) by some operators, are the two most prominent examples.

Chapter 6 contains the key findings and recommendations of the study:

6.2. Recommendations

In light of the current state of play, we think that it is important to avoid inappropriate, disproportionate, or premature action. Based on the findings noted in the previous section, our key recommendations are:

• Do not impose any further network neutrality obligations until there is sufficient experience with the obligations already imposed through the 2009 amendments to the regulatory framework to make a reasoned judgment about their effectiveness;
• Support both technical and policy research to enhance the effectiveness of the consumer transparency obligations, and to ensure that the minimum QoS obligations can be effectively imposed should they prove to be needed;
• Continue to study the aspects of network neutrality where complaints may have some basis, including (1) charges and conditions that mobile operators impose on providers of Voice over IP (VoIP), and (2) impairment of peer-to-peer traffic; and
• Reserve judgment on any further obligations until there is a clearer vision of what harms to societal and/or consumer welfare, if any, are visible once the 2009 provisions are fully implemented.

In its April 2011 Communication, the Commission noted that the 2009 amendments have not yet been transposed, and remarked that “…it is important to allow sufficient time for these provisions to be implemented and to see how they will operate in practice.” We concur. We think that imposition of significant further obligations at this time would be ill-advised.

My own summary of the report as a whole would be that it says that:

• Net neutrality is important and good,
  since
• Lack of net neutrality may hurt both businesses, consumers, and society as a whole,
  but so far
• This has been more of a problem in the US than in the EU,
  since
• There have only been a few big EU cases where net neutrality has been the issue,
  so
• We should keep a close eye on how the market develops,
  but
• We should not introduce further regulation at this time.

To me, this general position makes a lot of sense, but I look forward to any comments.

Download the study Network Neutrality: Challenges and responses in the EU and in the U.S. and let me know what you think.

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Tags: piratpartiet, eu, politik, informationspolitik

Hur man tjänar pengar på nätet

Det finns mycket pengar att tjäna på internet, men man måste förstå elementär marknadsekonomi för att ha en chans

Blogge 之乎者也 förklarar för alla film- och skivbolagsdirektörer hur man tjänar pengar på att sälja digitala produkter på nätet. Han gör det så pedagogiskt och koncist att jag kopierar hela hans inlägg:

Nä, det går förstås inte att konkurrera med gratis, men det är inte heller där drabbningen står för ickemateriella objekt i producent- respektive piratleden.

De olika branscher i innehållsindustrin som önskar sälja på nätet behöver hitta det (dynamiska) optimum som ger bäst utfall och minst svinn, i en renodlad marknadsmodell. Parametrar som är av betydelse här är hur enkel och tilltalande lösningen är, hur lättanvänd och snabb den är liksom om den har en prissättning som är rimlig – där begreppet ”rimlig” avgörs av marknaden, inte av hur mycket direktörerna vill ha in eller i relation till forna tiders priser för fysiska plastbitar.

I praktiken betyder detta rena, standardiserade webbsajter som fungerar överallt för alla operativsystem, webbsajter som laddar brutalt snabbt, som är överskådliga och lättlästa och som inte är överbelastade med seg smörja – branschen har en oerhörd ”förmåga” att vilja klämma in så mycket som möjligt på så liten yta som möjligt med den sämsta teknik som existerar.

Det betyder också enkla betalningssystem och snabb leverans på stabil lina, men framförallt betyder det att produkterna måste vara rena snarare än försedda med trailers, reklam, FBI-varningar, regionskydd, rootkit, DRM och andra begränsningar som stör konsumentens upplevelse.

De som har lyckats på nätet har också uppfyllt alla eller de flesta av dessa kriterier. DRM och andra kopieringsskydd har övergetts, priserna har satts optimalt i förhållande till vad ”gratis” men mer obekväma och tvivelaktiga lösningar medger (alla kan inte hantera torrentklienter, alla vet inte hur man spelar matroska-filer, alla har inte lust att vänta i fem timmar på att nedladdningen ska bli klar, alla vill inte riskera att bli smittade av virus o.s.v.). Betrakta Apple som ett bra exempel.

Den lösning som upphovsrättsindustrin föreslår, nämligen att staten ska reglera sönder och samman internet samt tvinga tekniska operatörer att kontrollera det innehåll som skickas i linorna leder bara till att nätet som vi känner det brakar samman, att det blir ett slags motsvarighet till kabelteve under näringslivets kontroll – detta om något skulle förstöra den kreativitet som flödar på nätet, en kreativitet som inte står under upphovsrättskonglomeratens kontroll.

Pirater på nätet är bara ett problem i sådana fall där man kapitaliserar på andras produkter, och först då är det befogat att använda statliga och överstatliga tvångsmedel. Det normala utbyte som sker mellan vanliga användare, där produkterna delas och således är ”gratis”, är inget egentligt problem, eftersom dessa användare i vilket fall som helst inte valt att köpa produkterna – för att de är för dyra, för att de är belamrade med smörja, för att det är för obekvämt, eller för att man helt enkelt inte kan hitta produkten man söker i producenternas regionindelade och snäva utbud. Beräknad ”utebliven vinst” är således bara ett tramsbegrepp.

Samma lagar måste gälla på nätet som bortanför tangentbordet. I den fysiska världen byter vi objekt med varandra, och vi delar immateriellt stoff för eget bruk, detta utan att vi har operatörer, näringsidkare och poliser som observerar, registrerar och övervakar varje steg vi tar. Först om vi smäller upp en butik av något slag i syfte att kapitalisera på detta stoff blir det av intresse för staten att gripa in. Samma modell måste rimligtvis gälla på internet.

Att den ideella delningen på nätet sker mer effektivt och i mycket större skala spelar ingen egentlig roll, ty allt på nätet, inklusive försäljning, sker i större skala än tidigare. Grundproblemet är alltjämt att innehållsbranschen inte lyckats anpassa sig till en ny tid och ny teknik, att man krampaktigt håller fast vid gamla paradigm och att man begär att staten ska lösa de problem man själv inte kan hantera på ett kreativt sätt.

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Andra som kommenterar: Opassande, Anders S Lindbäck, Frekar06, Anarkokapitalist, Netopia, Anna Troberg (PP)

Tags: piratpartiet, eu, politik, informationspolitik

Question to the EU Commission on books for the blind

EU Commissioner Michel Barnier presented his blueprint for copyright legislation this week

EU Commissioner Michel Barnier visited the European Parliament on Monday, to talk about the Commission’s blueprint for intellectual property issues, which was then officially released on Tuesday.

I took the opportunity to ask him what the Commission is planning to do about accessible books for visually impaired persons, now that the European Parliament has expressed its support for an international WIPO treaty to address the ”book famine” problem.

Unfortunately, I did not get any clear answer from the Commissioner, so I have now submitted the question in writing instead:

Priority Written Question to the Commission (Rule 117 (4))

AUTHOR(S): ENGSTRÖM, Christian

SUBJECT: European Parliament vote and EU position on WIPO Treaty for Visually Impaired

On May 12th, 2011 the plenary session of European Parliament adopted a report called ”Unlocking the potential of the cultural and creative industries” (INI/2010/2156), that made clear its support for the international binding ”Treaty for the visually impaired and other print disabled persons” presently being considered at the World Intellectual Property Organization. Article 70 of the report “Calls on the Commission to work actively and positively within the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) to agree on a binding legal norm based on the treaty proposal drafted by the World Blind Union and tabled at WIPO in 2009”.

To date the EU Council and the European Commission, that represent the EU position before WIPO, have rejected the treaty proposal and have instead supported soft law “recommendations” and voluntary licenses.

Given the position expressed by the EP, in favour of a binding legal norm based on the treaty proposal proposed by the World Blind Union, how will the Council and the Commission proceed during the upcoming discussions and special session on this issue at WIPO in June 2011?

I submitted the question as a ”priority question”, which means that the answer should appear on my EU-parl page for written questions in three weeks.

But above all, I of course hope that the Commission will do the right thing at the WIPO discussions that will start in the middle of June.

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Previous posts:

9 November 2010: Supporting a treaty on books for the blind
13 February 2011: An amendment for books for the blind
18 February 2011: Briefing: A WIPO treaty on books for print disabled
28 February 2011: Books for the blind in JURI: Win!
17 March 2011: Books for the blind in CULT: Win!
12 May 2011: Books for the blind in the EU Parliament: Win!

Tags: piratpartiet, eu, politik, informationspolitik

Picture by Christian Engström, free for publication CC0.

More transparent voting in the European Parliament

The big screen after a roll call vote. Click to find details about the vote at VoteWatch.eu

The European institutions need to become a lot more transparent, if they want to have any chance of gaining the confidence of increasingly eurosceptic citizens. The European Parliament is by far the best of the three institutions, and much more open and transparent than the Council or the Commission.

But the Parliament could improve, too.

When we vote in plenary in the European Parliament, we have an electronic voting system that is used to make ”roll call votes” (RCV). It works just as you would expect. A big screen tells you which item you are voting at the moment, and you have a few seconds to press one of the three buttons for yes, no, or abstain.

When the vote has been closed, the big screen displays the votes cast, both in numbers and with little green, red or white dots representing the individual members (MEPs) who took part in the vote. Afterwards, the information about how each MEP voted is made public, and there are sites like ItsYourParliament.eu and VoteWatch.eu where you can check how individual MEP voted.

It is a perfectly good system, but there is one problem.

For most of our votes, the electronic system is not used. Instead, we vote by raising our hands the second the President (speaker) says ”in favour”, ”against”, or ”abstentions”. The President then makes a judgement as to whether it was a yes or a no, and calls out his decision.

If he is uncertain, he can call for an ”electronic check”. We then redo the vote using the electronic system.

If an MEP feels that the President may have misjudged the outcome of a vote done by show of hands, he can demand an electronic check by shouting ”Check!” when the President has made his call. As I understand the Rules of Procedure for the Parliament, a check should always be carried out if a MEP requests it, but frequently the President ignores calls of ”Check!” from the floor, if he feels confident that he was right in his call.

After an electronic check the number of votes in favour, against, and abstentions are displayed on the big screen, but not the little dots representing the individual MEPs.

No data on how the individual MEPs voted is saved in these normal votes, regardless of whether they are completed by show of hands (where it would be impossible) or electronic check (where the data exists, but is discarded).

In the majority of votes that are not roll call votes, neither citizens nor other MEPs can check how a particular MEP voted.

I think all votes in plenary in the European Parliament should be carried out as roll call votes (except possibly minor points of order). This is a way to increase the transparency of the Parliament in a simple and straight-forward way, that can be implemented immediately and does not even cost any money. The electronic voting system is already there and has been paid for, whether we use it or not.

The standard argument against having all votes as RCVs is that it would take more time. I seriously doubt that this is true. The show-of-hands procedure is perhaps slightly quicker when everything goes smoothly, but if you add the time that the (fairly frequent) calls for electronic checks take, it often feels like it would have been quicker if we had done it all by roll call votes from the start.

There was a discussion in plenary in Strasbourg this week that resulted in one member asking for all the votes of a (random) report to be carried out as RCVs. The President granted the request, and it did not feel like the vote took any longer than it would have if we had voted the way we normally do.

And even if it were to be shown that it does in fact take slightly longer on average, I think we should still use roll call votes all the time. The Swedish national parliament has done so since it first got an automatic voting system, and I believe it is the same in national parliaments more or less everywhere.

MEPs are elected to represent the people who voted for them. Of course the voters should have the possibility to check how their representatives are doing their job.

To have all votes in plenary as roll call votes is a straight-forward reform to increase transparency in a concrete way. The European Parliament can implement at no cost and without delay, it it wants to.

I think we should.

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Tags: piratpartiet, eu, politik, informationspolitik

Books for the blind in the EU Parliament: Win!

The EU Parliament voted in support of a WIPO treaty for books for print disabled people

The European Parliament today adopted the report Unlocking the potential of the cultural and creative industries with an overwhelming majority. The report contains the following two articles:

69.  Stresses the need finally to address the ‘book famine’ experienced by visually impaired and print-disabled people; reminds the Commission and Member States of their obligations under the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities to take all appropriate measures to ensure that people with disabilities enjoy access to cultural materials in accessible formats, and to ensure that laws protecting IPR do not constitute an unreasonable or discriminatory barrier to access by people with disabilities to cultural materials;

70.  Calls on the Commission to work actively and positively within the World Intellectual Property Organisation (WIPO) to agree on a binding legal norm based on the treaty proposal drafted by the World Blind Union and tabled at WIPO in 2009;

This was a win in the fight to address the ”book famine” that visually impaired people are experiencing. It means that the European Parliament has strongly expressed its support for a binding international treaty under the auspices of WIPO. This is what organizations like the European Blind Union and the World Blind Union have been asking for for a long time.

But the real opposition to addressing the book famine comes from the Commission and the governments of the Member States. The next step will have to be to convince the Member State governments to change their stance and start supporting a WIPO treaty.

This is an unusual political issue, in that everybody that learns about the issue agrees, once they have become aware of it. The only reason the book publishers have been able to block a treaty that would solve the problem, is that they have been able to keep their lobbying efforts out of the public spotlight. If we can change that, we will win in the Member States as well.

The report that the European Parliament adopted today is not legislative, so it is not legally binding in itself. But it is a step in the right direction, and an opportunity to raise awareness and put pressure on the Member States.

Persons with disabilities have a right to take part in cultural life on an equal basis with others. The governments of the Member States must take appropriate measures to ensure that persons with disabilities enjoy access to cultural materials in accessible formats.

A binding WIPO treaty is the right way forward. This is now the official opinion of the European Parliament.

…………

Previous posts:

9 november 2010: Supporting a treaty on books for the blind
13 februari 2011: An amendment for books for the blind
18 februari 2011: Briefing: A WIPO treaty on books for print disabled
28 februari 2011: Books for the blind in JURI: Win!
17 mars 2011: Books for the blind in CULT: Win!

Tags: piratpartiet, eu, politik, informationspolitik

What are Cecilia Malmström’s promises on Internet censorship worth?

When arguing for Internet blocking of child pornography, EU Commissioner Cecilia Malmström promised to oppose any idea about extending the blocking to other areas

I have just submittedthe following question to the Commission:

Written Question to the Commission (Rule 117)

AUTHOR(S): ENGSTRÖM, Christian
SUBJECT: Commissioner Malmström’s personal actions to oppose extended Internet blocking

On May 6, 2010, Commissioner Malmström gave a keynote speech at a conference, presenting the Commission’s proposed Directive to combat sexual abuse, sexual exploitation of children and child pornography. On the subject of blocking sexual child abuse pictures on the Internet, Commissioner Malmström said:

”[T]he Commission’s proposal is about child abuse images, no more no less. The Commission has absolutely no plans to propose blocking of other types of content – and I would personally very strongly oppose any such idea.” [1]

On 17 February, 2011, the Council’s Law Enforcement Working Party LEWP presented its intention to propose concrete measures towards creating a single secure European cyberspace with a certain ”virtual Schengen border” and ”virtual access points” whereby the Internet Service Providers (ISP) would block illicit contents on the basis of the EU ”black-list”. [2]

What has Commissioner Malmström personally done to oppose this idea?

[1] http://www.meldpunt-kinderporno.nl/files/Biblio/Speech-Malmstrom-Combating-sexual-abuse06_05_2010.pdf

[2] http://register.consilium.europa.eu/pdf/en/11/st07/st07181.en11.pdf

An answer from the Commission should be expected in about 6 weeks, and will appear on my EU-parl page for written questions.

Update: The answer has now arrived:

EN
E-004996/2011
Answer given by Ms Malmström
on behalf of the Commission
(20.6.2011)

According to the information at the disposal of the Commission, the initiative referred to by the Honourable Member is a presentation by an expert of the Hungarian delegation with the title ”Towards the single Secure European Cyberspace” given during a joint meeting of the Law enforcement Working Party and the Customs Cooperation Working Party of the Council of the European Union. It is not a specific proposal for action proposed or endorsed by the Council, the General Secretariat of the Council or the Presidency.

The Commission will not react to a presentation made by a national expert.

The Commission has tabled a proposal for a Directive on combating sexual abuse and sexual exploitation of children as well as child pornography [1], which takes the obligation of Member States to remove and block access to websites containing or disseminating child pornography into account. The proposal is currently under discussion. The Council has adopted a general approach on 3 December 2010, and the Parliament LIBE Committee has taken an orientation vote on 14 February 2011.

The Commission does not envisage to propose the blocking of other types of illegal content.

—–

[1] COM(2010) 94 final: Proposal for a Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council on combating the sexual abuse, sexual exploitation of children and child pornography, repealing Framework Decision 2004/68/JHA.

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Others who write about the subject: The Daily Telegraph, Tags: piratpartiet, eu, politik, informationspolitik

Radioinslag om EU:s digitala järnridå

Lyssna på radioinslaget om internetcensur i EU

Radioprogrammet Medierna i SR P1 tog i lördags upp frågan om den digitala järnridå med internetcensur på bred front som ministerrådet diskuterar.

Medierna skriver på programmets site:

Kritik mot europeiska censurplaner
Nyligen avslöjades det att lagstiftare i EU skissar på planer att införa ett centralt filter för internettrafik i EU och att skapa ett ”virtuellt Schengen” där EU ska ha en central svartlista med sajter som ska blockeras. Tidigare har det handlat om sidor med barnporr, men nu har även annat börjat nämnas, som olagliga spelsajter och sidor med ”olagligt innehåll” i största allmänhet.
Kritikerna kallar det för en ”digital järnridå”.

Bland andra medverkar jag och Sveriges EU-kommissionär Cecilia Malmström.

Lyssna på programmet. (Första inslag, 2 minuter in i programmet.)

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Andra som skriver om den digitala järnridån: Anna Troberg, Henrik Alexandersson,

Tags: piratpartiet, eu, politik, informationspolitik

Vad ska en digital järnridå stänga ute?

En del av den gamla järnridån, som vi var så glada när den försvann

EU:s ministerråd vill bygga en digital järnridå, eller ”virtuell Schengen-gräns”, för att stänga ute olagligt material från Europa. Förslaget kommer från en arbetsgrupp som heter LEWP, Law Enforcement Work Party. Det framgår av ministerrådets protokoll från februari (PDF), som inte har blivit allmänt uppmärksammat förrän nu.

Punkt 8 i protokollet lyder så här:

8. Cybercrime

The Presidency of the LEWP presented its intention to propose concrete measures towards creating a single secure European cyberspace with a certain ”virtual Schengen border” and ”virtual access points” whereby the Internet Service Providers (ISP) would block illicit contents on the basis of the EU ”black-list”. Delegations were also informed that a conference on cyber-crime would be held in Budapest on 12-13 April 2011.

Några detaljer ges inte, men det talas om illicit content, olagligt material, i största allmänhet, och inte bara exempelvis bilder på övergrepp mot barn eller uppmaningar till terrorism.

Här är några exempel på vad som är ”olagligt material” i några medlemsländer:

• Litauen – homosexualitet. Litauen antog nyligen en lag som gör det olagligt att informera om homosexualitet eller beskriva homosexualitet i positiv dager.
• Polen – aborter. Information till polska kvinnor om hur de kan få lagliga och säkra aborter utomlands är olaglig enligt polsk lag.
• Irland – hädelse. Exakt vad man får och inte får säga om Gud torde vara svårt för en lekman att hålla reda på, men hädelse är ett brott enligt irländsk lag.
• Frankrike – nazimemorabilia. Det är förbjudet att annonsera historiska föremål från Tredje Riket. Boken Mein Kampf är också förbjuden i Frankrike.
• Sverige – mangabilder. Domen mot manga-översättaren nyligen visar att japanska manga-bilder som säljs i vanliga affärer i Japan kan klassas som barnporr i Sverige. Vår egen EU-kommissionär Cecilia Malmström har för övrigt lanserat ett eget förslag till censur på EU-nivå, som även det inkluderar tecknade bilder där inget riktigt barn kommit till skada på något sätt.
• Sverige – nätpoker. Utländska pokersajter är olagliga i Sverige, och våra politiker här hemma skulle gärna vilja blockera dem.
• Hela EU – fildelning. Som vanligt när det kommer olika förslag om blockering, filtrering eller censur är naturligtvis blockering av fildelningssajter det som står högst på lobbyisternas lista, och därmed på ministerrådets och EU-kommissionens.

Ska allt det här blockeras av myndigheterna för att skydda oss stackars medborgare? Är det så här vi vill ha det?

Jag vill inte det. Jag tycker inte censur i fredstid hör hemma i en demokrati. Jag tycker att alla ska ha rätt att sprida och ta emot information fritt, utan inblandning av myndigheter och oberoende av landsgränser.

Är jag en extremist för att jag tycker det?

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Andra som skriver om den digitala järnridån: Nyheter24, Svensk Myndighetskontroll, Computer Sweden, The Daily Telegraph, Karl Sigfrid, Robotpartiet.

Picture by Christian Engström, free for publication CC0.

Tags: piratpartiet, eu, politik, informationspolitik