[P2P-F] [opennetcoalition] No Net filtering in the name of consumer protection!

Thu Aug 4 10:53:47 CEST 2011

On Wed, Jul 06, 2011 01:53:41 AM +0700, Michel Bauwens wrote:
> Hi Marco,
> 
> I don't think that article is understandable for outsiders, but if
> you want to write something on it for the p2p blog, feel free!

Michel,

sorry to have left this unanswered. The main reason why I didn't
answer earlier is that I was hoping to have something new to report
about that online-censorship-disguised-as-copyright-protection
proposal:

> Note: practically the same thing is happening now in Italy, see my
> post here:
>     http://stop.zona-m.net/2011/07/agcom-how-many-italians-realize-who-is-its-real-target/

but now, one month later, the main thing to report is that there is,
IMHO, nothing definite, just even more confusion than in early July:
what will the complete rules be? who will approve them, will they
listen, or at least pretend to listen, to outside advice? Above all,
will they be applicable (ie a concrete danger) or so twisted to fade
away into oblivion? Not clear.

Of course, it <may> depend (insert sad grin here) on the fact that
right now all of Italy is more or less frozen at (not) looking more
serious and urgent realities...

Apart from this, surely it's my fault (I mean it!) but I honestly have
problems to see where exactly the problem you mentioned is:

> I don't think that article is understandable for outsiders

The gist of that post of mine is:

AGCOM, the Italian Communications Authority, should issue a new set of
rules to enforce online copyright protection. Synthesizing from some
excellent articles in Italian by lawyer Guido Scorza, a lawyer who
closely follows these issues:

AGCOM (that is not a Court of Law!) would self appoint itself as a
sheriff entitled, by a code written only by AGCOM and media industry
lobbies, to shut down or make unreachable from Italy, without real
investigation or appeal, any website that they consider guilty of
copyright violation. According to current laws, AGCOM has no legal
standing whatsoever to implement this.

My (Marco) opinion is that:

The real goal of rules like these, or at least their most dangerous
effect, has nothing to do with protecting the gains of the media
industry and it surely won’t be “small personal websites” (assuming
such a definition still makes sense today) to lose.

The proposed rules are physically impossible to apply to achieve their
_declared_ goal: however, AGCOM and friends don’t really care because
their real goal is not defending copyright and TV royalties: it is
only to have enough legal tools to quickly shutdown whoever creates
political problems.

Wasn't this clear?

Of course there's no problem to put on the blog this excerpt, but I'm
not sure atthis point if what I meant is clear.

Marco
--
Digital Citizenship basics:
http://mfioretti.com/node/129