The concern that many people have over the upcoming legislation around the Charleton judgement went into high gear when it was announced recently that The Data Protection Commission had instructed Eircom to halt its ‘three strikes’ policy against music piracy. This fear was compounded by the relevant Junior Minister being shockingly dismissive and flippant towards anyone who expressed concern on Twitter. Finally, in the same week, initial ACTA legislation was weaseled through the EU Council by hiding it in an Agricultural & Fisheries session!
If you haven’t read the Charleton judgement, you should do so. There is some good stuff in there but the numbers quoted and accepted by the court are hysterically funny. They claim 675,000 of the 1,571,000 broadband subscribers in Ireland are involved in illegally downloading material. The extrapolations from a few basic numbers are equally risible. Seeing mentions of ancient networks like Limewire, eDonkey and Gnutella is just cringeworthy. Charleton’s favourable view towards a global file registry shows just how dangerous the courts can be when they lack the knowledge and expertise in an area. I assume UPC didn’t challenge any of this nonsense as it wasn’t the legal angle they were working and the just wanted a Safe Harbour judgement like the US.
Sidenote: IANAL, but doesn’t the DPC instruction fly directly in the face of the Charleton statement that “I am of the view that there are no privacy or data protection implications to detecting unauthorised downloads of copyright material using peer-to-peer technology;”?
When Minister Sherlock then tells us that there has already been a call “for submissions from the public” that none of us heard about, we have a recipe for disaster with the legislation effectively being written by EMI and their chums due to lack of a balancing lobby. One can only hope the Department is aware of the recent ECJ judgement on IP rights.
@psneeze Jim. I invited submissions from public. I spoke to all stakeholders.
— Seán Sherlock (@seansherlocktd) December 19, 2011
The podcast I linked to recently drove home this idea very strongly to me. The reason bullshit like SOPA gets anywhere in the US is because the media lobby is incredibly strong and sophisticated. The technology lobby, which should be there to fight off disgraceful internet-breaking approaches like SOPA is barely in existence, is un-coordinated and is immature. In Ireland I don’t think we have any sort of lobby or if there is, it is so ineffective, I haven’t heard of it.
The basic mistake Charleton makes over and over in his judgement, including the final section is his belief that “Solutions are available to the problem of internet copyright piracy”. As Leo Laporte re-iterates throughout that podcast, no solution can ever work in the longterm when everything is “bits”. The only outcome that a technological approach to piracy in Ireland will cause is a giant leap in the revenues of international VPN providers.
We need a lobby group that is there to fight for the interests and rights of internet users and technology businesses that operate on the internet. It should have everyone from Irish ISPs and giant corporations like Google and Amazon to those who represent the fundamental rights of all individuals to full internet access. If left unchallenged, the media lobby will destroy the usefulness of the internet for everyone, in order to protect their dying business models.
In a similar vein, I noted a recent newspaper article where a member of the media lobby purposely tried to confuse US-style fair-use laws (which we lack) with making all copying free. This is the kind of FUD that needs to be smacked back hard by a balancing lobby.
The most successful grass-roots lobby we’ve had to date was Ireland Offline. Is it time to put something similar together, with tons of clout, to ensure we don’t end up with 19th Century mindsets being applied to a 21st century communications medium?
I’m not in a position to kick something like that off, but I’d damn well support it, if those with the skills and contacts did so.
he didn’t invite submission from the public on this, i don’t know what stakeholders he spoke to. there is a copyright innovations consultation but this SI is outside its remit conveniently.
By Stakeholders he presumably meant Universal Media Group, IRMA and Lars Ulrich.
The Charleton judgement is very odd indeed. It’s amazing how he agreed with the reduction in sales of the record industry from 2005 and 2009, calling the 40% drop an underestimate. Is he an expert in consumer spending, has he looked at how people are spending their cash? The computer game industry alone was worth $60.4 billion in 2009 (an industry that really didn’t exists until the mid 90s). The list goes on to what people spend money on, especially the teens (main buyer of singles) – think cell phones, call credit, apps, computer games, condoms, DVDs – all stuff kids of the 80s & 90s generally didn’t have.
eDonkey, gNnutella and LimeWire – like how old is this. Next he’ll be talking about searching the internet with AltaVista and Lycos.
I could go on, but it is shocking how ill informed that Mr. Justice Charleton is on the matter he is judging.
And yet this week, Minister of State Sherlock will hand over all decision making in this area to a bunch of judges who know even less about the subject than Charleton.
The Global File Registry is beyond belief. Crazy idea, so lets create a global database of all known files and then on the fly compare it with what you’re doing online. Beyond scary.
The thought of Ireland’s internet future getting decided in the Four Courts is terrifying.
Sign the petition, good idea but also: send him an email sure: sean.sherlock@oir.ie
He’s fully aware of my position
I also emailed all Cork South West TDs of all persuasions about it.
hey Conor — just found this post on google. you’re spot on.
The best bit for me is that Justice Charleton even fails to quote the famous Colmcille case correctly. he attributes the quote to Colmcille, when it was King Diarmaid who said the words, according to scholars: http://www.law.ed.ac.uk/ahrc/gikii/docs2/corrigan.pdf
Colmcille, in fact, was the original pirate….
That was also an interesting twist today where it looks like the pushing through of the SI by Sherlock was a solo run and he ignored both Civil Servants and Stickie Minister Rabbitte.