public

Censorship Swedish Style

As I have reported earlier the Danish Muhammad Caricatures scandal led the Swedish foreign office to close down a website which carried the cartoons.

The scandal is growing so its time for an update. Previously the Foreign Minister, Laila Freivalds, claimed that the actions were carried out by a civil servant acting on his own initiative. This has now changed when she admits that she had knowledge of what the Civil Servant was going to do. The act may even have been carried out under the Foreign Ministers initiative.

Much of the “defence” (moral & political not legal) seems to be that the Foreign Ministry did not (and cannot) order the closing of a website. The Foreign Ministry simply contacted the Internet Service Provider (ISP) and informed them that one of their customers (a right wing party) had copies of the cartoons.

The difference, according to the Foreign Minister, is one of coercion and recommendation. While this difference does exist it is interesting to note that the recommendations made by a private individual, an interest group and the office of the Swedish Foreign Minister will be treated differently. The Foreign Minister (or indeed any Minister) knows this and therefore the act of recommendation cannot be one of simple recommendation.

Additionally the Foreign Ministry (or indeed any other Ministry) does not have the mandate to call up private citizens to make recommendations in matters of freedom of the press and speech.

Naturally the ISP has it in its power to tell the Office of the Foreign Minister to sod off. Politely or impolitely. But it comes as no surprise that a small ISP in a cut throat market is not going to risk publicity or political, social or legal reactions on the part of an unsavory customer worth (in the best case) less than 300 USD per annum.
The conclusion? Internet censorship whether in China or in Sweden works.

I dedicate this picture to the Office of the Foreign Minister for not knowing

the difference between influence and coercion.

Posted on by mklang

Public Domain Comic

Law books are traditionally text heavy with little or no pictures. Very rarely including humor or light entertainment. Therefore it is great to see what law professors can do when they want to change this!

The Center for the Public Domain have created a cool comic explaining copyright and the public domain. It takes the form of classic horror comics and describes the adventures (or misadventures) of the hero Akiko, the documentary film maker. I thought it was geat! So go look at “Tales from the Public Domain: Bound by Law” by Aoki, Boyle & Jenkins

Read it online or download it here.

Posted on by mklang

Three Hours

Three hours is the length of Peter Jackson’s 2005 version of King Kong.
Yesterday I spent three hours in a seminar discussing my text. Seven senior researchers poked and proded, criticised and question me and my text. The time and energy they spent on preparing and then discussing with me is part of my learning experience and I cannot thank them enough for their energy.

The result?

A new deadline – what else? The reworked text shall be ready by the 21 April – which is exactly 307 years after Jean Racine’s death and 96 years after Mark Twain’s death. What does it all mean? Nothing. Except that I have work to do.

And a public defence almost certainly in mid-June!

Posted on by mklang

Hickory Dickory Dock

At 1 pm today the senior seminar begins. This means that the senior researchers at my department will give me feedback on my thesis. The result of this meeting will be whether or not I will publicly defend my thesis in June or not. I am supposed to be preparing and thinking great thoughts but all I have in my mind right now is the old nursery rhyme:

Hickory Dickory Dock
The mouse ran up the clock
The clock struck one
and down he run
Hickory Dickory Dock

Hickory Dickory Dock
The mouse ran up the clock
The clock struck two
The mouse said “boo”
Hickory Dickory Dock

Hickory Dickory Dock
The mouse ran up the clock
The clock struck three
The mouse said “wee”
Hickory Dickory Dock

Hickory Dickory Dock
The mouse ran up the clock
The clock struck four
The mouse said “no more”
Hickory Dickory Dock

Posted on by mklang

Reading tip

In an chapter entitled “Exploring Creative Commons: A Skeptical View of a Worthy Pursuit” Niva Elkin-Koren writes:

It may well be that there is nothing wrong with copyright per se, but only with the way these rights were exploited by copyright owners in recent years. Changing social practices may have a powerful signalling effect, the importance of which could not be overstated. Yet, establishing a workable and sustainable alternative to the current copyright regime would require enforceable legal measures that would restrain the power of copyright owners to govern their works. To achieve this goal it would not be sufficient to facilitate self-restraint and encourage copyright owners to treat their copyright as guardians, protecting it from any attempt to restrict access and reuse. In the long run, creating an alternative to copyright would require a copyright reform.

The chapter is part of the book The Future of the Public Domain, (P. Bernt Hugenholtz & Lucie Guibault, eds.)
Kluwer Law International, forthcoming 2006. It is also available at SSRN.

Posted on by mklang

Freedom of the press

First I would like to state right off – I did not (still do not) want to get involved in the satirical images of the Prophet discussion.

The BBC report that the Swedish government have closed down a far right news site which contained the images (via Suburbia).

The Swedish government has moved to shut down the website of a far-right political party’s newspaper over cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad..It is believed to be the first time a Western government has intervened to block a publication in the growing row…
Swedish Foreign Minister Laila Freivalds described Kuriren’s move as “a provocation” by “a small group of extremists.”

“I will defend freedom of the press no matter what the circumstances, but I strongly condemn the provocation by SD-Kuriren. It displays a complete lack of respect,” she said in a statement.

Again – Without wanting to get involved in the fight about the cartoons.
The politician claims to be defending the free press while closing it down. This is retoric from another age, another country another ideology. An interesting thing to add to this is a “what if” experiment. Would the government react in the same way if one of the largest daily newspapers printed the same material? Does political courage in Sweden only apply if the opponent is weak?

How’s that for a thought this weekend?

Posted on by mklang

23 days

Todays production was +1478 bringing the total up to 177 pages and 87 064 words. It was a good day.

And the countdown is still in the twenties. Today was lots of work on filters & censorship (Look at OpenNet iniative). On Yahoo! helping China chase cyberdissidents and Google creating a ideologically clean (Chinese style) search engine for China. Its obvious that the companies are bending over backwards to gain access to the Chinese market. Despite all the corporate retoric their actions speak louder than words.

censorship
Censorship by Eric Drooker

Reading tip for the weekend: Rosemary Coombe “Commodity Culture, Private Censorship, Branded Environments, and Global Trade Politics: Intellectual Property as a Topic of Law and Society Research“

Posted on by mklang

human enhancement

A new book from the on the subject of human enhancement entitled â??Better Humans? The politics of human enhancement and life extensionâ?? (edited by
Paul Miller & James Wilsdon) is out now and available for download.

This is from the online blurb:

We all share a desire for self-improvement. Whether through education, work, parenthood or adhering to religious or ethical codesâ?¦more consumerist pursuits hold the key to self-improvement: working out in the gym, wearing makeup, buying new clothes, or indulging in a spot of cosmetic surgery.â?¦Within the next 30 years, it may become commonplace to alter the genetic make-up of our children, to insert artificial implants into our bodies, or to radically extend life expectancy.

The book is a collection of 12 essays on the implications of human enhancement technologies and includes chapters like â??Is it wrong to try to improve human nature?â?? (by Arthur Caplan, â??Brain gainâ?? (by Steven Rose), â??Better by designâ?? (by Sarah Franklin) & â??The unenhanced underclassâ?? (by Gregor Wolbring).

via Techne

Posted on by mklang

29 Days

The first day of major re-writing. 29 days left until I have to hand it all in. Result of the day: -2200 words (todays total: 79 800)

Builders
Sternberg – Builders

The main topic of the day was Access. Recommended reading: Ken Worpole & Liz Greenhalgh “The Freedom of the City” (1996).

Posted on by mklang

Yahoo! & the Nazi auctions

A story which seems to drag on forever now is closed?

The auction site ran by Yahoo was ordered by a French court to stop providing auctions of Nazi memorabilia to the french public in violation to French law. Yahoo! stopped since their French assests were threatened but then compained that their rights to free speech were being violated by the French.

This case was an excellent example of a culture clash. It provides a look at the difference between European and US free speech regulation. Whether corporation should have speech rights. Whether free speech means speech without any limitations. American legislation tends to grant speech rights to corporations and is disinclined to limit free speech – nomatter the cost. European law (if there is such a thing) tends not to grant speech rights to corportations and is very much inclined to limit speech rights.
The case also demands a re-appraisal of the view that the Internet cannot be controlled by governments. It shows that the US cannot control the internet through its legislation.

It also shows the different approach a multi-national corporation takes towards governments. The difference between Yahoo!’s attitude to the French compared to the Chinese governments is an excellent example of the way in which multinationals act.

Anyway Yahoo! has now lost its lawsuit were it claims that the French courts violated the companies rights to sell Nazi memorabilia. The Yahoo! Case has been a central part of cyberlaw since 2000 – is it all over now?
Source: The Register

Posted on by mklang