Censorship

Camera License

Not long ago in a recent awareness campaign the London police managed to link photography to terrorism.

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This was silly enough and would only really have two effects – either it is ignored or it creates panic. But even worse is the example when a policeman asked a person taking photographs whether he has a license to do so…

The BBC reports that Phil Smith was taking pictures in a public place and was challenged by a police officer who asked if he had a licence for the camera.

After explaining he didn’t need one, he was taken down a side-street for a formal “stop and search”, then asked to delete the photos and ordered not take any more. So he slunk home with his camera.

Obviously the policeman was wrong but the considering the strange climate of fear and paranoia coupled with the official power of the police the potential for abuse is great indeed.

Posted on by mklang

Steal This Film II

Copyright never was what it used to be and the struggle to define the purpose and limits over the protection of intellectual property (or indeed the idea of intellectual property) continues daily.

One example of the ongoing debate is an op-ed in the Swedish paper Expressen a group of Swedish politicians called for the legalization of file sharing. One of the politicians was a police officer. But this is more an example of the exception than the rule.

The real attempt to draw the lines that may limit copyright occur every day and are defined in the way in which we all collectively use our technology. The act of file sharing by an individual is, in of itself, an unimportant act. Taken collectively file sharing is a massive active form of resistance and a re-interpretation of the the general consciousness of justice, right, wrong & morality.

Another important position is taken by those who actively comment and interpret the acts of all those involved in the re-definition of copyright. An important contribution to this is the film Steal this Film II. It features scholars such as Yochai Benkler, Felix Stalder, Siva Vaidhyanathan, and Howard Rheingold and portrays file sharing and the copyright debate as a historical development in the urge to regulate the spread of information.

Over at the Industrial IT Group blog Jonny has written a very good analysis of the importance of the film. Watch the movie, read the analysis and get involved in the most interesting re-defition of law in our time. 


Posted on by mklang

Filtering Swedish Parliament

The Swedish Parliament has installed a filter in order to stop access to child pornography (Swedish press release). The filter was not installed in order to stop activities which were occurring but rather to prevent their occurrence. Most probably the decision to install such a filter was done to prevent what could have become a public relations nightmare.

The filter will delete any child pornography images it detects and no logs are created. The decision to create no logs may be strange but with the Swedish freedom of information policy this is probably done again to prevent public relations messes from occurring? Oh correct my cynical soul (if I had such a thing) if I am wrong.

Therefore in order to prevent a problem that has not occurred the highest decision making body in Sweden has placed its free access to information into the hands of who? Most probably a private company. If I was a more paranoid person then I would say this was a bad decision. This means that Swedish members of parliament will be unable to find information freely and independently.

Naturally I am not supporting child pornography – don’t be obtuse. I am, however, against putting free access to information into the hands of a private body. This is self censorship. Done in order to avoid public relations disasters.

Of course the parliamentarians could complain but considering the political atmosphere surrounding this issue anyone complaining would probably be placing themselves in a questionable light. This has the makings of a classic paranoid witch-hunt.

Posted on by mklang

Another idiotic regulatory attempt

The latest idiotic proposed legislation comes from Italy. The proposal is that all blogs and websites need to be registered (and taxed).

Beppe Grillo writes

Ricardo Franco Levi, Prodi’s right hand man , undersecretary to the President of the Council, has written the text to put a stopper in the mouth of the Internet. The draft law was approved by the Council of Ministers on 12 October. No Minister dissociated themselves from it. On gagging information, very quietly, these are all in agreement.
The Levi-Prodi law lays out that anyone with a blog or a website has to register it with the ROC, a register of the Communications Authority, produce certificates, pay a tax, even if they provide information without any intention to make money.

Oh my God, Lets start with the easy stuff.

First, How will they intend to police this law. The law can apply to all Italian sites. What is an Italian site? Is it:

  1. a site with an Italian domain
  2. a site on a server in Italy
  3. a site in Italian

Second, what happens when the site is based in several locations with data pulled from several sources? Do they get a tax reduction?

Third, what is a website? Can you define it legally? Is there a difference between the site, server and domain? What about:

  1. A facebook profile
  2. A blog on blogger
  3. An advert on ebay
  4. A wikipedia page
  5. A flickr profile

These may be unique individual websites – but they can also be seen as part of a larger domain.
Fourth, what about free speech rights? Basically an unregistered website would be in violation of the law but would/should the reaction be to close down the site? What happens if a newspaper does not register can they be closed down?

Fifth, administration. How much money and resource can be used to police a law such as this? Can the revenue it brings in even begin to cover the investigative resources required? No of course not. Imaging attempting to chase every Italian blog. How do you know when they are Italian?

Proposals to regulate the Internet come at regular intervals. Often they are barely thought through and will collapse before they even reach the enactment stage. Some laws on Internet regulation have been enacted but are then thankfully forgotten by those who should enforce them.

In the end proposals such as these show that regulators seem to lack even a basic understanding of the technology which most of us use. They also lack a fundamental modern historical approach to regulation. It is really a case of being condemned to repeat the past since we cannot remember it. All the earlier crappy failed attempts to regulate the Internet have failed but since the people proposing regulation have no memory of this we are doomed to see the same mistakes repeated again and again.

At best this provides a form of light relief and humor.

(via BoingBoing)

Posted on by mklang

You've got to be kidding?

Consumer Law and Policy Blog has a great article on the moronic “browse-wrap” agreements, a derivation of the “shrinkwrap” licensing terms that appear inside packaged software. The Browse-wrap agreements is the terms and conditions which the company believes that they are able to enforce on anyone who happens to browse over to their website.

In fact the company Inventor-link has the following terms in there browse-wrap (“Privacy and User Agreement):

Furthermore, we strictly prohibit any links and or other unauthorized references to our web site without our permission.

So even without visiting their website they claim that people cannot link to their site without their prior consent.

Consumer Law and Policy Blog writes:

Depending on the circumstances of the case, browse-wrap agreements may or may not be enforceable. Where a company has included a provision prohibiting fair use for purposes of criticism, however, it is hard to see how any court would enforce the agreement. Readers of a site have little opportunity to review and agree to such terms, and a reasonable consumer who had reviewed the terms would be unlikely to agree to them.

Attempting to control linking is not a new phenomena. Back in 2001 KPMG attempted to intimidate the owner of a website and prevent him from linking to the KPMG theme song (oh, yes!) by claiming that he had not been approved through a “Web Link Agreement”, read the story (and the cheesy song lyrics) on Wired.

The article over at Consumer Law and Policy Blog contains an interesting analysis of the situation and I recommend that everyone should read the article and take a stand to make sure that idiotic licenses (?) such as these become as worthless as the code they are written in.

Posted on by mklang

Internet Censorship China

Reporters Without Borders and Chinese Human Rights Defenders (a Chinese Internet expert working in IT industry) has produced a study on the Chinese official system of online censorship, surveillance and propaganda. For obvious reasons the author of the report prefers to remain anonymous. The RSF press release promises:

This report shows how the CCP and the government have deployed colossal human and financial resources to obstruct online free expression. Chinese news websites and blogs have been brought under the editorial control of the propaganda apparatus at both the national and local levels.

… [The report] explains how this control system functions and identifies its leading actors such the Internet Propaganda Administrative Bureau…, the Bureau of Information and Public Opinion… and the Internet Bureau…

Internet censorship is a vital topic any work in this area is very welcome. Two PhD thesis’ of interest in this area are Stuart Hamilton’s To what extent can libraries ensure free, equal and unhampered access to Internet-accessible information resources from a global perspective? and Johan Lagerkvist The Internet in China: Unlocking and containing the public sphere.

Posted on by mklang

Kissing Policemen

A Russian photograph depicting two kissing policemen by a Russian art collective has been excluded (banned?) from an exhibition of contemporary Russian art due to be exhibited in Paris next week. Alexander Sokolov, Russia’s culture minister has banned the photo entitled Kissing Policemen (An Epoch of Clemency).

Apparently Mr Sokolov sees the photo as a political provocation and has banned it together with 16 other works. (via Guardian Online)

Well no one will try to argue that Russia is a tolerant society or that the position of minister of culture is there to promote the arts.

The photo is a variation on, or homage to, the British artist Banksy’s Kissing policemen.

Kissing Policemen by Banksy (photo by David Singleton)

Posted on by mklang

Regulating Violence

Is the regulation of violence in video/computer games censorship? Or is it a question of protecting the innocent? Naturally paternalism in all forms includes a “pappa knows best” attitude however there are cases of censorship/control/paternalism which we can accept and other forms which we tend to react against.

The forms of Internet censorship (more here) displayed by states such as China and Saudi Arabia are usually criticized as forms of censorship unacceptable in democratic societies while they themselves argue the need to protect their cultures and citizens against the corrupting influences online. It is, it may seem, a question of perspectives.

Then what of the regulation of violent computer games? Are computer games supposed to be seen as forms of speech to be protected? Or are we on a dangerous slippery slope when we start excluding forms of speech? The New York Times has an article showing that the US courts tend to find laws against computer game unconstitutional.

Considering the US approach to Free Expression this is not surprising. The European approach – in particular the French, German and Scandinavian models could not be as clear cut in this question. This only means that the US is against censorship and feels the cost of this decision is worth it, while many other jurisdictions feel that the damage caused by this extreme acceptance of free expression may cause discomfort and hardship to individuals and groups beyond the eventual benefits of the speech.

The ever eloquent Judge Posner is quoted in the article:

“Violence has always been and remains a central interest of humankind and a recurrent, even obsessive theme of culture both high and low,” he wrote. “It engages the interest of children from an early age, as anyone familiar with the classic fairy tales collected by Grimm, Andersen, and Perrault are aware. To shield children right up to the age of 18 from exposure to violent descriptions and images would not only be quixotic, but deforming; it would leave them unequipped to cope with the world as we know it.”

The problem is that there is often great value (moral rather than economic) in quixotic pursuits and the practice of subjecting people to hardships in order to prepare them for eventual future hardships is really only useful in military training and never a satisfactory way of raising children.

Posted on by mklang

Free Expression & T-shirts

Did you know that you could be arrested for wearing a t-shirt with an inappropriate text on it? No I am not talking arrested for indecency or for bad taste. Several people in the United States and the United Kingdom have been arrested for wearing t-shirts with political messages on them. In July last year I presented several examples of this on this blog.

In 2004 Nicole and Jeff Rank were removed from the event at the West Virginia Capitol in handcuffs after revealing T-shirts with President Bush’s name crossed out on the front. Nicole Rank’s shirt had the words “Love America, Hate Bush” on the back and Jeff Rank’s read “Regime change starts at home”

The good news is that the couple settled their lawsuit against the federal government for $80,000, the American Civil Liberties Union announced Thursday (via ABC news).

It’s good to hear that the even if protesters are arrested the right to freedom of expression is still a valued and protected right. However, the threat of being arrested is not something that most people want to experience and therefore freedom of expression is diminished even when people are compensated later.

Posted on by mklang

War blogs silenced

Wired News reports that In a directive (dated 19th April) US troops have been ordered not to blog without first clearing each post with a superior officer. There is also a discussion going on at the Wired Blog Danger Room.

Military officials have been wrestling for years with how to handle troops who publish blogs. Officers have weighed the need for wartime discretion against the opportunities for the public to personally connect with some of the most effective advocates for the operations in Afghanistan and Iraq — the troops themselves. The secret-keepers have generally won the argument, and the once-permissive atmosphere has slowly grown more tightly regulated. Soldier-bloggers have dropped offline as a result.

The new rules (.pdf) obtained by Wired News require a commander be consulted before every blog update.

It’s hardly a surprising move. It’s doubtful whether blogs were revealing security information (US troops should be better trained in this case) but on several occasions information on blogs and films of YouTube (for example Iraqi kids run for water) have caused embarrassing situations which hardly have improved anyone’s opinions of the war.

Posted on by mklang