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Internet under threat
Avaaz
DATELINE: 27/1/12
Right now, a new global treaty could encourage corporations to police everything that we do on the Internet. Last week we successfully pushed back the US censorship bills - if we act now, we can get the EU Parliament to bury this new threat to all of us - click below to sign the petition:Join the campaign here:
http://www.avaaz.org/en/eu_save_the_internet_spread/?sbcAccording to Avaaz: "ACTA (the global Anti-Counterfeit Trade Agreement) could allow corporations to censor the Internet. Negotiated in secret by a small number of rich countries and corporate powers, it would set up a shadowy new anti-counterfeiting body to allow private interests to police everything that we do online and impose massive penalties - even prison sentences - against people they say have harmed their business. Europe is deciding right now whether to ratify ACTA - and without them, this global attack on Internet freedom will collapse.
Last modified: Friday, January 27, 2012
Your comments:
I'm no expert in ACTA but it does seem to be one of those measures slipped in by the likes of the World Trade Organisation aimed at increasing the hold of large corporates on intellectual property.
In America, corporates can be legal authors, so they own the copyrights. Mickey Mouse belongs to the Disney Corporation, not the humans who originally developed the character. I happen to think that a copyright in something ought to be connected in some way to the lifespan of the person or people who created the thing in the first place.
Presumably, since corporations do not die, in the US they can own copyright in perpetuity. I'm not sure anyone ought to worry overly if a website produced and sold unauthorised images of Mickey Mouse. In fact, I'd make a small wager that many such websites exist whose continuation would be threatened by ACTA.
On the other hand, no-one wants to see counterfeit goods on the market. Although some people might like the idea of buying something that looks exactly like a Rolex without it actually being a Rolex, in general you wouldn't want to buy fake drugs which may not work or pirated music which does not reward struggling composers.
But it's a complicated area and, in my view, the CPBF should start a debate about it. We should be aware that issues like copyright do have a direct bearing on the CPBF's mission - copyright is increasingly used to prevent people from publishing, most notably in my memory when Craig Murray's book and blog were threatened by the UK Government arguing that much of the material he wanted to publish was Crown Copyright because it involved letters to and from the Foreign Office written by ministers, civil servants or Murray himself when he was an ambassador. Crown Copyright, presumably, under the rule that anything written by an employee of an organisation as part of their duties is the property of the organisation not the author.
I'm sad to say that the CPBF often seems to be too concerned with the issues it has grown up with - Murdoch, lobbying and the BBC - to take the problems associated with new media seriously enough. These problems are certainly difficult, but that's all the more reason an experienced voice like the CPBF's should be heard tackling them.
Incidentally, much the same goes for the debate about Leveson. Try as I might, I can't see anything in the Inquiry or in the thoughts of those who wish to engage with it that considers the 'Leveson issues' as having a global dimension - it's about the British media and that's that. I think Leveson himself refused at first to even consider websites. I gather he's relented on that, but from what I can tell he's relented only far enough to consider websites as another version of a newspaper - that is, as a national entity. He's obviously not looked at Guardian editor Alan Rusbridger's recent boasts about his paper's 250 million readers, or if he has he seems to have dismissed them.
Of course, the Guardian can only get 250 million readers on and off line because most of them are outside the country. That has ramifications for privacy, defamation and, yes, copyright.
Posted by: Gary Herman: 27 Jan, 2012 18:46:37
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Notices
Events & Announcements
World Press Freedom Day
More reporters are currently imprisoned in Turkey than in any other country in the world. Only a matter of weeks ago lawyers failed to persuade a Turkish court to release a 76-year-old journalist from a Turkish internet news station.
World Press Freedom Day on Friday May 3, 2013 is being marked in Britain by a rally to highlight the dangers facing journalists in Turkey and in this podcast, Nicholas Jones speaks to Barry White, Organiser at the Campaign for Press and Broadcasting Freedom, and Sam Bamford, the TUC's policy officer for Eastern Europe and Africa about the importance of a campaign to highlight international press freedom.
The World Press Freedom Day rally is being staged by the National Union of Journalists at the NUJ head office, Gray’s Inn Road, London WC1 on Thursday May 2, 6pm-8pm.
DATELINE: 27/4/13
UK launch of EU media campaign
DATELINE: 13/3/13
The UK launch of a 'European Citizens' Initiative' calling for EU rules against concentration of media power will take place on Thursday March 21 from 11:00am – 12:30pm in Committee Room 4A at the House of Lords, London. Guest speakers will include actor and activist Hugh Grant (pictured), media consultant Claire Enders, Professor Steven Barnett, Barry McCall (President of the NUJ) and Marc Gruber (Director of the European Federation of Journalists).
A European Citizens' Initiative is an official petition, like a Downing Street petition. If it succeeds in gathering a million signatures across the EU, the Commission is obliged to respond.
This petition calls for the EU to act to protect media pluralism and press freedom.
CPBF Annual General Meeting
DATELINE: 1/3/13
Make a note in your diary
Saturday 13 July 2013 from 10.00am
NUJ HQ, 308/312 Gray's Inn Road, London WC1.
Leveson, media ownership, CPBF future work.
DOWNLOAD FREEPRESS NOW
DATELINE: 26/3/10
Download Freepress in PDF, ePub or mobi format. Issue 194 now available.
MEDIA FOR ALL CONFERENCE
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Previous stories
International
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