Free expression in the news

May 7th, 2013

GLOBAL
The PS4′s Share Button Needs To Be All Or Nothing, Publisher Censorship Won’t Work
The PlayStation 4 is doing many things right. It’s ticking the boxes the developers want to see – it’s certainly powerful enough and that RAM is well received; it’s making gamers happy with great first party titles and solid third party support; and it’s making publishers happy – it’ll even offer publishers the ability to block which sections of the game players can share.
(The Sixth Axis)

EGYPT
How free are Egypt’s new voices?
Two years after the 2011 revolution in Egypt, a growing number of satellite TV channels are expressing a range of views – from liberal to ultra conservative. (BBC)

INDIA
Debate on free speech limits at Mario Miranda Cartoon Festival
After joining The Current in 1952, Mario Miranda drew his first political cartoon poking fun at Bombay’s home minister at the time, Morarji Desai. The cartoon delighted Miranda’s editor, DF Karaka, but annoyed Desai and elicited angry responses from the public. “That experience taught Mario the lesson that in India for an ambitious cartoonist to lampoon some political personage was to invite trouble,” wrote author Manohar Malgonkar in the book “Mario de Miranda”.
(The Times of India)

Resisting the impunity
The agency of journalists to push the envelope and the wider public’s demand for credible, trustworthy news sources are the positive development. On the flip side, there is a real fear of casting away the hard-won freedoms, and, as its extension, a vibrant, common forum for dialogue and debate is under severe strain. The challenges come from multiple sources.
(The Hindu)

Bollywood censorship to be relaxed
India’s all-powerful censor board is planning a lighter approach to Bollywood after decades chopping tens of thousands of film scenes, from onscreen kisses to violent endings.The Himalayan Times)

IRELAND
A crock of gold for libel tourists who bring cases to Emerald Isle
Ah, the good old law of unintended consequences pops up again. Who would have thought that Irish jobs could be affected by the passage at Westminster last week of the Defamation Act?
(Ruth Dudley-Edwards, Irish Independent)

MALAWI
President Joyce Banda waiting for advice on press pact
President Joyce Banda has said she is waiting for expert advice from the Attorney General (AG) and the Minister of Justice on whether to sign the Table Mountain Declaration. The President has come under fire from the press as well as human rights activists over her refusal to sign the accord which proposes abolition of insult laws in Africa.
(The Daily Times)

RUSSIA
A year into Russia crackdown, protesters try again
A year ago, Russia’s political opposition was on the rise and aiming for new heights at a demonstration on the eve of President Vladimir Putin’s inauguration. Instead, authorities cracked down, ending their tolerance toward the thousands of Putin opponents who presented him with the greatest challenge to his rule since he took over the country in 2000.
(Washington Post)

UNITED KINGDOM
Why Britain Refuses To Publish Amanda Knox’s Memoir
We flatter ourselves when we boast of mastery of the ironic style. Unlike literal-minded Germans and Americans, we are not ashamed to live behind masks and speak in riddles. (Nick Cohen, the Observer)

World Intellectual Property Day: Copyright and creativity in a digital world

April 26th, 2013

Does copyright do more to enhance free speech than to stifle it? This question comes into sharp focus every 26 April on World Intellectual Property Day, which aims to “promote discussion of the role of intellectual property in encouraging innovation and creativity”.

This year’s theme is “Creativity: The Next Generation”. Debate around whether copyright encourages or actually hinders creativity has intensified in recent years as laws designed to address offline infringement have struggled to keep up with digital technologies and the internet. Also struggling to keep up are artists, most of whom have seen slower revenue streams due to mass online piracy of their work. Many copyright laws and treaties already exist or are in the works to protect artists and the broader intellectual property industry against digital piracy, but some of their implications for free speech are troubling.

The 1998 US Digital Millenium Copyright Act criminalised the production, distribution and use of tools that can circumvent digital copyright controls. It also limited the liability of internet service companies for their users’ copyright infringing activities if the companies agreed to implement notice and takedown procedures for copyright holders to seek redress.

Circumvention tools can be used for fair use activities that do not infringe copyright, making the criminalisation of tools without regard for intent potentially chilling in its broadness. Copyright holders from the recording and film industries also sometimes abuse notice and action systems by flooding them with bogus claims where fair use is clearly protected. The undue burden this places on service providers can encourage them to over-comply with requests in order to stay on the safe side of copyright laws. Such over-compliance can mean unnecessary censorship. The Centre for Internet and Society documented this to be the case in India, sending flawed takedown requests to seven web companies, six of which over-complied and removed more content than legally required under the country’s Information Technology Act.

Major companies including Google, Twitter and most recently Microsoft issue regular reports showing how many copyright removal requests they receive and comply with. Google received nearly 20 million URL removal requests on its search product alone last month, the majority of which came from copyright owners in the recording and motion picture industries and organisations that represent them. A big company like Google might have the resources to sort legitimate requests from the rest, but many small companies certainly do not.

A recent flurry of intellectual property bills and treaties on both sides of the Atlantic pose further challenges to freedom of expression. The Stop Online Piracy Act and PROTECT IP Act both failed in the US, and the European Parliament rejected the the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement in 2012 following global campaigns by internet activists and web companies opposed to their provisions. These bills and treaties have all been put on the backburner but run the risk of flaring up again if legislators move to push them forward a second time. The US bills would create a blacklist of websites accused of providing illegal access to copyrighted content, which could kick off a digital witch hunt from overprotective copyright holders that wish to censor sites even in cases of fair use. ACTA aims to shift the current IPR debate from international fora to secretive backrooms. It would also increase intermediary liability, making websites more responsible for user activity and more likely to restrict users’ online expression.

Important to note is that many people simply don’t understand copyright, causing them to unknowingly break these laws. About half of participants in a recent survey were confused about the legality of uploading and downloading copyrighted materials online. Major prosecutions, including that of a US woman who was fined $1.9 million for illegally downloading 24 songs in 2009, have increased awareness of copyright laws and their sometimes disproportionate consequences. A new Copyright Alert System in the US aims to do the same, relying on ISPs to voluntarily slow down internet speeds for users who regularly pirate copyrighted content.

Legal reforms and public knowledge alone will not stop pirating. Artists who have traditionally relied on rich patrons, governments and organised industries to bring their work to fruition are experimenting with new funding and marketing models to meet online challenges and to take advantage of new opportunities. Small donations from more than 3 million people on the crowdsource funding platform Kickstarter have financed more than 35,000 creative projects, bringing in $500 million in the past four years. Many musicians are also shifting their business focus from singles to concert sales, an experience that cannot yet be replicated online and that many fans are still willing to pay for.

Artists need to eat, and pirates should be punished. But for this to happen, copyright laws and their enforcement should to be just and proportionate and new funding models for creative industries should be pursued. Perhaps next year’s World Intellectual Property Day theme should focus on reforming copyright laws and exploring new business models to safeguard the next generation’s creativity and freedom of expression.

Belarus: Pulling the plug

March 4th, 2013

Europe’s last dictatorship plans even tighter controls over citizens’ access to the digital world, Index shows in a new report (more…)

Downloading evil

January 7th, 2013

Writing for Index on Censorship magazine in 2007, the late Stan Cohen argued that child pornography and jihadi violence were testing the limits of tolerance   (more…)

What future for free speech in the new Egypt?

December 27th, 2012

As Egypt closes 2012 with the approval of a new constitution, Ashraf Khalil reflects on a tumultuous year, and looks ahead to an uncertain future (more…)

High threshold set for social media prosecutions

December 19th, 2012

Guidelines issued today on when criminal charges should be brought against people posting offensive or abusive comments on social media sites could boost free speech (more…)

UAE blogger and activist beaten

September 19th, 2012

Prominent UAE blogger Ahmed Mansoor says that he was beaten by an unidentified man on 17 September. Mansoor was attacked as he was approaching his car at Ajman University of Science and Technology, where he studies law. The attacker knocked Mansoor to the ground and began punching him, but ran away once people entered the parking lot. Once Mansoor was free, he tried to follow him, but was quickly blocked by another unidentified man, who drove off with the attacker. Mansoor says this is the second time that he has been beaten. The United Arab Emirates has been cracking down on political activists and groups, most recently arresting 13 activists tied to Islamist group al-Islah on 16 July. Mansoor was imprisoned and released last year for posting messages critical of political figures in the now-banned UAE Hewar forum. The blogger has been active in speaking out against the crackdown, which has also resulted in the arrest of prominent human rights activist and lawyer, Mohammed al-Roken.

Bahraini activist acquitted of Twitter charges but remains in prison

August 23rd, 2012

Prominent Bahraini human rights activist Nabeel Rajab was today acquitted of insulting the Sunni citizens of the island of Muharraq on Twitter. Rajab was sentenced to three months in prison on 9 July for his remarks on the site. However, the activist remains in jail after being sentenced to three years in prison last week for his involvement in “illegal protests”. Rajab, who is also head of the Bahrain Center for Human Rights (BCHR), has played in active role in condemning the government’s brutal crackdown on  anti-government protests and activists since the start of unrest during February last year. Rajab was presented with the Index on Censorship Advocacy Award earlier this year.