Don’t make people pay for music – Let them: An Alternative View Of Copyright Law

Alternative Rock icon Amanda Palmer presents a way of looking at copyright law and piracy. Her prolific use of Twitter and crowd funding sites like Kickstarter has allowed her to make a living asking for support, allowing her fans to make a choice to pay for music. This is a hugely insightful talk on copyright, piracy and the boundless opportunities of the internet. She highlights online tools and their role in the changing dynamic and culture of the music industry. Ultimately however, she emphasises that it is trust and the simple act of asking for help that has allowed her to build a career as a musician.

German Courts Refuse to Bow to US Pressure in MegaUpload Case

A German court in Frankfurt (Beschl. v. 14.05.2012 – Az.: 5/28 Qs 15/12) has ruled that a request for mutual legal assistance from the United States regarding stripping assets belonging to Kim Dotcom, has no basis for legal action in Germany.

Mural of Kim Dotcom painted by Cart’1 courtesy of Thierry Ehrman – Abode of Chaos.

Kim Dotcom, the founder of the file-sharing MegaUpload site was arrested in Auckland, New Zealand in January of this year. He had been sought by the US authorities on copyright infringement charges relating to pirated content on his websites.

As a part of the criminal investigation against the file-sharing service Megaupload, certain assets were supposed to be removed. This request was issued by the American FBI when they called for legal assistance from the German authorities.

The Frankfurt judges have since rejected this request, because it contains insufficient evidence. The US legal team failed to demonstrate that a web hosting service for the illegal upload of copyrighted files, amounts to a  criminal offence.

According to the German ‘Telemediengesetz’ (communications legislation), a hosting service for foreign files will generally not be accountable unless the host had active knowledge of illegal activity. The judges also emphasised that the concept of knowledge is limited to positive knowledge. Therefore if the service provider believes that it is possible or likely that a specific piece of information is stored on their server, this is not sufficient evidence of knowledge of abuse.

According to the court ruling, there is no legal obligation to monitor the transmitted data or stored information or to search for any illegal activity.

Since the US legal team did not mention any other circumstances that could constitute a criminal offence in their request for mutual legal assistance, the German court concluded that their request for the recovery of assets is unfounded.

Legal Spoken Word Poetry

Michael Bossone performing ‘PUSH – A Spoken Word Poem about Law, Technology, and Fear’ first shown at Law Tech Camp London 2012 last week.

The conference was dominated by the theme of embracing technology in the legal profession.

The Communications Data Bill: Bogeymen and Blanket Surveillance

Despite warnings from digital rights groups, privacy advocates and experts in the tech world, the government has gone ahead with their plans for blanket surveillance measures on the internet, including controversial practices such as deep packet inspection (DPI).

The draft Communications Data bill published yesterday proposes that individuals’ data is stored using so called “black boxes” tracking their detailed internet use i.e. every website they visit, Google search terms, emails etc. A vast amount of data can be stored in these devices and using specialist software this data can be analysed using search functions and selection methods.

Currently Government Central Head Quarters (GCHQ) can access a large amount of data and conduct surveillance of specific suspects, the difference in the CCDP bill is that this data would be accessible in relation to any member of the public. The idea behind this seems to be that by conducting “blanket surveillance” the authorities could catch criminals who are not yet suspects.

Throwing such a wide net however would also consequently entangle innocent people and breach their privacy, while most likely only finding those criminals who lack basic internet skills. The issue here is rather who the authorities actually wish to target and where they plan to concentrate their resources, than assuming everyone is a suspected criminal. Apart from a terrifying intrusion into people’s private information this would be an arduous task for police, who currently are lacking the resources to analyse comparatively low levels of data already.

This brings me on to the next issue – costs. The proposed cost for the implementation of the bill is over a billion pounds. Judging by experience on spending for the Olympics this figure is likely to rise by quite a lot. At a time when there are cuts to essential services in the NHS, legal aid and right across the public sector, where will the government manage to drum up the money for implementing a misguided and ludicrous piece of legislation – which looks to only benefit the security industry itself.

While the security industry may prove lucrative for the government, the harm that this bill will cause to the public greatly overrides any government-business relations. Such an outright invasion of individuals’ privacy and the breach of personal freedoms and basic human rights cannot be justified by the government in any way whether it is business-motivated or not.

Analysing internet use can paint a very intimate picture of someone’s private life such as their health, financial situation and their personal relationships. It is not only an extreme breach of a person’s privacy but it is also completely unnecessary. Most of those affected will be innocent members of the public who may be unaware of the full extent of the bill and who do not know how to encrypt websites. Furthermore, the criminals that the government is referring to, can easily bypass the surveillance measures, thus making them even more difficult to catch.

While the government insists it will not read the data, it claims that it must have access to it for the purpose of catching criminals. Charles Farr – the head of the Home Office’s of security and counter-terrorism office, was extremely defensive when questioned about the bill and merely stated “trust us, we know”. On the contrary, it appears that any sensible person with expertise in the field of internet security would know that the proposals in the bill make very little practical or financial sense. Therefore trusting the government to “know what it’s doing” seems more and more naive on this issue.

It appears that this is just one of several bills the government is putting forward which seeks to take away fundamental personal freedoms and infringe basic human rights. Only on Sunday, Theresa May criticised judges for “not qualifying” Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights (ECHR) and being too lenient on criminals who use Art.8 to remain in the UK (even though only 2% of foreign nationals facing deportation after criminal proceedings successfully apply Art.8 to remain in the UK). These recent policies proposed by the government are particularly worrying as they may have severe consequences for basic human rights in the UK.

The government has taken the line that this is an effective way of catching the usual bogeymen – terrorists and paedophiles. What they are still failing to consider, is that the system is relatively easy to bypass and simply requires the use of encrypted pages – in simple terms this means that websites using “https” rather than “http” cannot be tracked.

Tweet Your Victim/Facebook Your Perpetrator

While the appalling behaviour of Twitter users in the Ched Evans case has caused an uproar in the UK, there is a contrary case taking place in Germany. The recent social media use in the UK saw a rape victim being named on Twitter, whereas the German case involved a woman naming a man who had been harassing her by sending her sexually explicit messages. Ariane Friedrich an olympic high jumper who trained as a police officer, posted the name and location of the man who had been sending her the messages on Facebook. This has caused a huge discussion in Germany, where privacy laws are known to be particularly stringent.

The man allegedly sent her images of his genitals with the sexually explicit/suggestive message stating that he had “just showered and shaved”. Ms Friedrich became enraged and posted his name and location on Facebook, adding that she will be filing a complaint with the police shortly.

Since she posted the message 2200 people have clicked the “like” button under the post along with 400 comments. In a later post Ms Friedrich explained  that she has “carefully read” through both supportive and critical comments. She added that “of course it had been a big step to make such a vulgar e-mail public”, but she said that this is not the first time she has been insulted and sexually harassed. She also stated that she had previously had a stalker. She claimed that she now felt it was time for her to act and to defend herself, even this posting sparked a huge reaction leading to a further 1100 comments. While some argue that her behaviour was completely justifiable, others claim that her self-administered justice amounts to an erosion of the law.

Her liability would depend on whether her claims are genuine or not and whether the named man actually sent those messages. If her assertion is proven to be true, then she will not be liable for defamation or libel. However if this is not the case, the situation could become more complex. In a well known German tabloid, the man (described in the German media as ‘a man with the same name as the alleged author to the messages’) claimed he had been hacked and has closed his Facebook account as a result. However it is probably unlikely that a judge would make the assumption that Ms Friedrich is accusing an innocent person. Therefore seems unlikely that she will be charged in relation to defamation. However she could be liable under civil law as she breached his right to privacy by making his personal details public. If the named man went to court over the issue he could possibly win in a civil claim, if the circumstances surrounding the publication of his details had sufficient gravity.

While the Friedrich case is very different to the Ched Evans/Twitter case, one case infringing the victims privacy while the other concerns the alleged perpetrator.  Germany has much stricter privacy law than the UK, mainstream media are much more restricted than in the UK. Naming a rape victim, when they should have anonymity for life raises serious concerns about protecting victims. The contrast between these two cases highlights different aspects of privacy law and the ethical minefield surrounding social media.