[Chapter-delegates] EU consultation on ACTA

Sun Mar 21 04:51:34 PDT 2010

On 21 Mar 2010, at 08:52, Christine Runnegar wrote:

> Thank you very much Christian for this information. 
> 
> I am familiar with the UK Digital Economy Bill and have been watching its
> progress. 
> 

I am not sure "progress" is the word that comes to mind when discussing this Bill ;-)

> The Spanish case also looks very interesting. Do you know if the judgment is
> available on the Internet?
> 

Here is a link to a pdf of scanned judgement (in Spanish)
http://estaticos.elmundo.es/documentos/2010/03/13/sentenciaelrincondejesus.pdf

I don't have a link to an official site of a spanish court etc. Maybe a Spanish ISOC member / Chapter can advise?

Christian

> Best regards,
> Christine
> 
> -----Original Message-----
> From: Christian de Larrinaga [mailto:cdel at firsthand.net] 
> Sent: 19 March 2010 5:30 PM
> To: Christine Runnegar
> Cc: chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org
> Subject: Re: [Chapter-delegates] EU consultation on ACTA
> 
> Christine 
> 
> Excellent note.  I hope the meeting spends its time pushing for an
> unequivocal opening up of ACTA. 
> 
> One thought I'd welcome you taking (at the back of your mind) into the
> meeting with you is the Digital Economy Bill in the UK. To give one example
> of an issue. There is a risk to community wifi hotspots that could make it
> so onerous to operate due to requirements to defend IPR, filtering measures
> and so forth that some senior telecoms policy experts see the UK losing its
> community and small business open wifi hotspots. 
> 
> The linkage in the Bill between networks and IPR enforcement of content is
> breaking neutral carrier status of access networks and this will ossify the
> deployment and evolution of edge networks. If something similar is in ACTA
> then this could extend around the world. 
> 
> A second thought to have in the bottom draw is the recent judgement by a
> spanish judge in relation to the legality of linking to content and use of
> P2P services for not for profit reasons. This is yet another indication that
> the position of the IPR lobby is not a legal one at least not everywhere and
> is primarily defensive of a business model. 
> 
> http://www.dmwmedia.com/news/2010/03/15/spanish-court-declares-p2p-link-site
> s-filesharing-legal
> 
> Spanish Court Declares P2P Link Sites, File-sharing Legal Authored by Mark
> Hefflinger on March 15, 2010 - 11:21am.
> Madrid - A Spanish court has upheld its previous finding that a site
> aggregating links to downloads on file-sharing networks does not infringe
> copyrights, TorrentFreak reported.
> 
> The judge in the case previously rejected Spanish copyright society SGAE's
> petition to shutter ElRincondeJesus.com as an injunction before the trial
> started.
> 
> Judge Raul N. García Orejudo ruled that providing links is not the same as
> distribution of media, and noted that the site does not derive direct or
> indirect profits -- and is therefore not a business.
> 
> However, the judge went even further, and commented directly on the legality
> of file-sharing by individuals.
> 
> "P2P networks are mere conduits for the transmission of data between
> Internet users, and on this basis they do not infringe rights protected by
> Intellectual Property laws," Orejudo said in the ruling.
> 
> "Therefore, if an individual uses P2P networks like eDonkey or BitTorrent to
> obtain copyright material for non-profit reasons, the act is completely
> legal."
> 
> This suggests to me that there is an important discussion to be had on IPR
> by governments but that there really is not sufficient harmonisation nor
> consensus between the legal systems to establish a one solution fits all
> approach. 
> 
> A third thought. Internet can support diversity in and between markets. We
> do not need a one size fits all solution. It is not a technical requirement.
> 
> 
> best regards
> 
> 
> 
> Christian de Larrinaga
> 
> 
> 
> On 19 Mar 2010, at 08:10, Christine Runnegar wrote:
> 
>> 
>> Dear ISOC colleagues,
>> 
>> Thank you Alejandro for alerting the ISOC community to the upcoming 
>> European Commission public consultation on the negotiations concerning 
>> the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA).
>> 
>> 
>> EC public consultation on ACTA
>> 
>> As many of you may already know, a document said to be a section of 
>> the draft treaty known as the "Digital Chapter" was recently made 
>> available on the Internet. As far as I am aware, there has been no 
>> official confirmation of this document or its contents, so we need to 
>> be careful in drawing conclusions.
>> 
>> We hope that the European Commission's public consultation on 22 March 
>> 2010 in Brussels will provide further information regarding the 
>> substance of the matters being negotiated as they relate to the 
>> Internet so that ISOC can speak from an informed position. To this 
>> end, ISOC proposes to send Frederic Donck (Director European Regional 
>> Bureau) and Christine Runnegar (Senior Manager Public Policy and 
>> coordinator of the ISOC Working Group on emerging policy responses to 
>> online copyright infringement) to observe and report back to the broader
> ISOC community.
>> 
>> If anyone else in the ISOC community is planning to attend, perhaps we 
>> could arrange (off list) to meet before the meeting starts.
>> 
>> ISOC is also proposing to submit a brief statement in advance of the 
>> meeting on Monday (attached). We apologise for the short time frame, 
>> and welcome your comments and suggestions by cob Friday 19 March 2010
> please.
>> 
>> 
>> Additional background
>> 
>> It appears the participants in the ACTA negotiations intend to include 
>> provisions to specifically address the enforcement of intellectual 
>> property rights in the digital environment (see See Background in the 
>> NZ Invitation for Submissions on Enforcement in the Digital 
>> Environment http://tinyurl.com/yz6xurp).
>> 
>> Further, the Summary of Key Elements Under Discussion provided by the 
>> European Commission Director General for Trade, in November 2009, (see
>> http://tinyurl.com/yfd7ste) states:
>> 
>> "This section of the agreement addresses some of the special 
>> challenges that new technologies pose for enforcement of intellectual
> property rights.
>> Elements under discussion in this section include the availability of
>> remedies:
>>   - 	in cases of third party liability, without prejudice to the
>> availability of exceptions and limitations;
>>   - 	related to infringing material online, including limitations on the
>> application of those remedies to online service providers;
>>   - 	related to the circumvention of technological protection measures,
>> including the availability of exceptions and limitations;
>>   - 	related to the protection of right management information, including
>> the availability of exceptions and limitations."
>> 
>> 
>> NZ Consultation
>> 
>> The New Zealand Ministry for Economic Development has also launched a 
>> public consultation. More information regarding this consultation can 
>> be found
>> here: http://tinyurl.com/yarv743. We are also presently proposing to 
>> submit a brief statement along the lines of the statement for the EU 
>> consultation, but we will shortly provide you with further information
> regarding this.
>> 
>> Kind regards,
>> Christine
>> 
>> ______________________
>> 
>> Christine Runnegar
>> Senior Manager Public Policy
>> Internet Society
>> Galerie Jean-Malbuisson 15
>> CH-1204 Geneva
>> Switzerland
>> 
>> Tel: +41 22 807 1455
>> www.isoc.org
>> <Draft letter re ACTA 18 Mar 
>> 2010.pdf>_______________________________________________
>> Chapter-delegates mailing list
>> Chapter-delegates at elists.isoc.org
>> http://elists.isoc.org/mailman/listinfo/chapter-delegates
> 
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