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EU: Telecoms package, HADOPI on[RIP Internet, welcome WWW] - OP Update
zeeny
Registered User regular
Registered User regular
Update 13/04:
We really, really need official net neutrality in Europe:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/8f5d6128-4400-11df-9235-00144feab49a.html
Quote highlights:
Rarely does one see such blatant attempts to mislead and influence the public and the legislature.
Google being a US company, the EU is absolutely able to go ahead with this as well.
tl;dr: ISP's misrepresent how peering agreements work, who their clients are and claim they'll pretty much try to force legislators to award them money from google.
OLD OP:
Remember that sensible French 3 strikes policy that has been mentioned in numerous ISP or IP threads and that I have said numerous times would be slapped down by the EU Commission? Well, I was badly, badly wrong.
The EU decided that changing this:
into this:
(clue, post hoc due process is no due process)
If we need an article, here is an 11 page paper on the Telecoms Package here (including analysis of the original Amendment as it was published before the parliament caved in).
The main reason for the change were those folks that say "ze" instead of "the" and those other folks on the Island. Hell, yeah, Go EUROPE! I guess.
Discussion points: How awesome French food is, how very soon we may see service tiered network connections in Europe, how cool English bulldogs are and how backwards retarded sanctioning without judicial oversight is.
We really, really need official net neutrality in Europe:
http://www.ft.com/cms/s/2/8f5d6128-4400-11df-9235-00144feab49a.html
Quote highlights:
...
César Alierta, chairman of Telefónica, said Google should share some of its online advertising revenue with the telecoms groups, so as to compensate the network operators for carrying the technology company’s bandwidth-hungry content over their infrastructure....
“These guys [Google] are using the networks and they don’t pay anybody,” he said.
...
“There is not a single Google service that is not reliant on network service,” he said. “We cannot offer our networks for free.”...
“Let’s see the development of digital society in terms of the winners and the victims. And today, there is a winner who is Google. There are victims that are content providers, and to a certain extent, network operators. We cannot accept this.”
Rarely does one see such blatant attempts to mislead and influence the public and the legislature.
Google being a US company, the EU is absolutely able to go ahead with this as well.
tl;dr: ISP's misrepresent how peering agreements work, who their clients are and claim they'll pretty much try to force legislators to award them money from google.
OLD OP:
Remember that sensible French 3 strikes policy that has been mentioned in numerous ISP or IP threads and that I have said numerous times would be slapped down by the EU Commission? Well, I was badly, badly wrong.
The EU decided that changing this:
applying the principle that no restriction may be imposed on the fundamental rights and freedoms of end-users without a prior ruling of the judicial authorities, notably in accordance with Article 11 of the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union on freedom of expression and information, save when public security is threatened, in which case the ruling may be subsequent.
into this:
"Any such measures liable to restrict those fundamental rights or freedoms may only be taken in exceptional circumstances and imposed if they are necessary, appopriate and proportionate within a democratic society, and shall be subject to adequate procedural safeguards in conformity with the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and with general principles of Community law, including effective judicial protection and due process.
In particular, any measures may only be adopted as a result of a prior, fair and impartial procedure ensuring inter alia that the principle of presumption of innocence and the right to be heard of the person or persons concerned be fully respected. Furthermore, the right to an effective and timely judicial review shall be guaranteed."
(clue, post hoc due process is no due process)
If we need an article, here is an 11 page paper on the Telecoms Package here (including analysis of the original Amendment as it was published before the parliament caved in).
The Telecoms Package - a licence to chill
Written by Monica Horten
Sep 06, 2009 at 12:12 AM
How far does the Telecoms Package represent a licence to chill? And will the European Parliament adhere to its principles to protect free speech on the Internet? That is the challenge for the European Parliament in the Third Reading of the Telecoms Package. This re-work of my previously-published article, explores these issues.
With a few simple words, "conditions limiting access to and/or use of services and applications" the Telecoms Package reverses the users' right to freely communicate in cyberspace, and turns it into an operator's right to impose restrictions.
The Telecoms Package establishes the rules for network operators in the EU. Those "conditions" mean that the operators may, at their own discretion, block the use of applications and services, which could include Skype, peer-to-peer file-sharing, and any other website, service or protocol.
Such restrictions on Internet use are already applied by some operators. The choice is being made for commercial purposes, or because the operator is subject to litigation by third parties. It is independent of requirements to manage the network, and is carried out without consulting the users as to their needs.
Moreover, the Telecoms Package contains provisions which establish the legal foundation at EU level for government measures restricting the Internet for political purposes. Those purposes may include enforcement of copyright. However, the true extent of the intentions for blocking is unknown.
The issues are outlined in this paper, which is a re-work of an article I published on iptegrity.com earlier this year. The revisions take account of new information and discussion in more detail the issues related to freedom of speech.
The main reason for the change were those folks that say "ze" instead of "the" and those other folks on the Island. Hell, yeah, Go EUROPE! I guess.
Discussion points: How awesome French food is, how very soon we may see service tiered network connections in Europe, how cool English bulldogs are and how backwards retarded sanctioning without judicial oversight is.
zeeny on
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Yes, yesterday it was effectively confirmed.
Edit: http://www.lemonde.fr/technologies/article/2009/10/22/hadopi-2-le-dispositif-de-base-est-preserve-par-le-conseil-constitutionnel_1257627_651865.html
I'm so sad by the coverage msm is giving to the Telecoms package, I'm going to cry. In all languages you get the same "press release" about the positive fight against "pirates" and how allowing governments the flexibility to manage internet connectivity without the intervention of the judiciary is a good thing. Seriously, wtf is this shit.
Biggest propaganda machine in the world, the EU;o(
So to recap,
• France passes Hadopi three strikes laws for good.
• The EU, which once had portrayed internet access as a "human right," backs off and allows such laws.
Are any other countries about to pass three strikes laws? I know New Zealand had a brush with them a while ago.
UK will pass one within 12 months.
Germany and the whole ex-Eastern block would follow as soon as they can draft it.
The thing is, the Telecoms package was a serious slap to the customer/citizen anyway. It pretty much says "If you're an ISP, you do whatever the fuck you want with virtually no oversight.". Instead of establishing net neutrality, they approved black on white anti-net neutrality actions.
Edit:
from the linked paper:
I mean, tears are totally in place.
This is interesting and while I doubt the Telcoms will do something as blatant as restrict access altogether to some websites, I can see them offering tiered plans which give you more bandwidth to use things like skype for instance. I need to do more research on this matter to talk about it more intelligently, but I'll be sure to come back and add more later.
But I think what we can do now is look at how this might play out - how are companies going to use this new found right to produce more revenue? And I suppose the second question is, will other telcoms attempt to compete by remaining unrestrictive?
I think hes talking about digital Britain but that has to get through before the electrion, I've not heard anything about Tories backing that up nor do they back the phone line tax.
Use google? Digital Britain, P2P consulatation, I mean, when the main consultant on the future legislation is the BMI, how can you even doubt that this will pass without regard of who's in power? They are not calling it "disconnection", but a "technical sanction" right now, but that would change after the EU axed the amendment.
The main lobby in the EU parliament were UK & French representatives, if you live in the UK, have no doubt that you're next.
While our government isn't perfect, far from it, the French leader is married and hitting a singer/model who has her own vested interests and hes friends with people IN the industry and thus he has his own grubby, corrupt interests involved to push for such a thing. We HOPEFULLY have enough checks in place that this will fail, especially when Labour go out of power.
Oh, and we're not even close to the level of corruption present in France in regards to the media. It won't pass here.
It pisses me off greatly still, it is not the governments job to punish people for the music industry. The fact they can't get results on their own shows how little the general public care about it. Fuck, if you actually went ahead with sucha thing I imagine most ISPs would suffer huge drops in profits, theres almost no need for high speed broadband unless you're a youtube addict or have some reason to send and recieve huge files related to work on a regular basis.
Plus its the huge amount of propaganda that the industry uses and the government endorses. Its not theft, you're not taking their property and inconveniencing them by them lacking the property. Its copying at the very worst which is unlikely to be costing them anything.
http://www.networkworld.com/news/2009/102209-mccain-introduces-bill-to-block.html?source=NWWNLE_nlt_daily_pm_2009-10-22
This will be the deepest argument coming from the GOP.
I really do hope Net Neutrality isn't derailed by shills who don't know shit about the internet.
Article 48, section 1 is of course the big one that I hope will shoot this crap down. Three Strikes laws are just "These guys are accusing you. Here's a warning." followed by "Three strikes, you're out" with no court of law involved.
That's what the Pirate Party and their group in the EU Parliament are working for - they want Amendment 138 added to the telecoms package. This amendment will require a court trial and a guilty verdict before anyone can be thrown out of the internet.
And it's Amendment 138 that the Minister Council is crapping all over, as seen in the OP. Because with all these millions of pirates, requiring a trial would just cost time and money, so let's skip straight to the execution.
If it's a crime, they can pull your plug if they want to. And a guilty verdict in a court still isn't needed. Being accused is enough.
edit: more linkage
Yeah they got completely dropped for New Zealand I'm pretty sure.
kpop appreciation station i also like to tweet some
Story pasted from EDRI-gram
Communications, starting with 1 July 2010, a 1 Mbit Internet connection will
be defined as a requirement of the Universal Service. Thus, Finland becomes
the first country in the world to make access to broadband Internet a legal
right.
The decree states that by the end of 2009, the Finnish Communications
Regulatory Authority will establish which of the telecom operators will be
imposed this universal service obligation. The designated universal service
providers will have to be able to provide access for all residential or
business users, at a reasonable price, to a high-quality connection of at
least 1 Mbit/s. The providers may choose themselves the technology used to
provide the service. The average speed of downstream traffic must be at
least 75 per cent of the required speed in a 24 hour period. While in a four
hour measuring period the average speed must be at least 59 per cent of the
required speed.
Ms Suvi Lindén, Finland's Minister of Communications, believes that high
speed access to everybody will improve people's quality of life especially
in the less populated areas, will boost business, enable electronic
communications and encourage online banking.
Finland is already amongst the first countries in the world from the point
of view of access to Internet connection. According to Laura Vilkkonen, the
legislative counselor for the Ministry of Transport and Communications,
about 95 percent of the population have some sort of Internet access. She
also stated that the one-megabit requirement is only an intermediary step as
the target is to reach speeds of up to 100 megabit per second for all by
2015.
"We think it's something you cannot live without in modern society. Like
banking services or water or electricity, you need Internet connection,"
Vilkkonen said.
Access to a minimum of 1 Mbit Internet connection available to everyone in
Finland by July 2010 (16.10.2009)
http://www.lvm.fi/web/en/pressreleases/view/920100
Finland makes broadband access a legal right (14.10.2009)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/technology/2009/oct/14/finland-broadband
Fast Internet access becomes a legal right in Finland (15.10.2009)
http://www.cnn.com/2009/TECH/10/15/finland.internet.rights/index.html
Carl Bildt (Swedish ex-PM, currently foreign minister) has said that he wants it to be a human right.
Think I'll make a thread about that, actually.
In the UK at least youre basically cut off from media if your Internet is taken away and you cant afford a TV license which is more expensive than a basic sky subscription. If youre paying for an Internet subscription then they shouldn't have the right to take it away, if youre paying for your car and use it to speed they don't take it away, they penalise you though but they still need actual evidence.
I read so much shit about this and other insane proposals going on in the EU that I just don't know where to start.
On the high end, the regular downloaders will simply enhance whatever they're already doing, if they even need to and be beyond reprisal.
On another note some movie mogul has said that piracy means fewer movies are getting made. Paranormal activity was made for something like $11,000 and has made 20 mill while being online. On the flipside Transformers too was available in less quality form and is a terrible, terrible abomination and yet made several hundred million dollars worldwide despite the presence of a free version.
That our politicians refuse to do research and instead take the industries at their very exaggerated word is saddening.
This text was agreed upon by... some department or other in the EU, for the telecoms package:
The limed part is what made it take so long. Or to be specific, the word "prior" in that sentence. The record company lobbyists fought tooth and nail to get "prior" out of the phrasing so they could just disconnect people from the internet at a mere accusation, no investigation, trial or procedure required.
So... this is a good thing, right? This is what WILL be going into the package, confirmed?
This is the result of the final trialogue. I'm not actually sure exactly how finalized this is, but it seems very certain that this is the text that will end up in the telecoms package.
The three-strikes bullshit isn't touched by the telecoms package because that's not in the mandate the telecoms stuff can affect, but it does prevent you getting a "strike" without a fair hearing.
This text guarantees three rights:
This is stuff in the "duh, that's obvious" department, but remember that there are lobbying organizations fighting against exactly these rights, and they didn't exist in the telecoms package until just now.
No it's not. Those are separate laws on national level, outside of the mandate of the telecoms package.
Ok so the French enact a 3 strikes law and thats their right to do so but this stuff DEMANDS that the accussee is entitled to fair and balanced representation before any action is taken?
Yep.
Well its better than nothing. I'd still prefer that Internet access be deemed a basic right but at least this will somewhat protect people and make pursuing minor offences not worth it.
It will be very interesting to watch the fireworks when the telecoms package collides with ACTA.
If^h^hwhen ACTA gets signed and then countries move to write the corresponding legislation, the best place one could live in is a cave without electricity.
He also does a deeper analysis of some key phrases in the text.
Wait, what? The pirate bay spoofs IPs? I hadn't heard anything about that.
Uh, yeah. What the hell are you talking about, DW?