3 Mar 2010 | Uncategorized
The Digital Economy Bill — now under attack from quarters as diverse as Billy Bragg and the Federation of Small Businesses — threatens to grant Business Secretary Peter Mandelson’s successors the power to censor web content for any reason, and to punish innocent people for failing to prevent other people from infringing copyright.
The punishments being envisaged for copyright infringement might have, of course, included normal powers, perhaps to fine, as we do with fare dodgers, who commit what might seem a comparable financial offence.
But instead, Mandelson has opted for a medieval approach equivalent to banishment of the offender from everyday society: disconnection of them and their family or business from the internet.
The government knows full well that it cannot actually find out who has downloaded copyright material, only what internet connection has been used.
Because they are unable to identify actual infringers, the government has opted to use an iron fist and simply blame anyone whose internet account has been used for copyright infringement.
This has understandably got libraries and schools very worried, they too face the possibility of being disconnected because of the actions of their pupils.
Similarly, businesses such as hotels, pubs and cafes are getting worried that they too might be punished for the actions of their customers.
Additionally, the powers in clause 11, and the disproportionate punishments have worried groups like Liberty, and now Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights, who said:
“We do not believe that such a skeletal approach to powers which engage human rights is appropriate. There is potential for these powers to be applied in a disproportionate manner which could lead to a breach of internet users’ rights to respect for correspondence and freedom of expression.”
Liberty warn that clause 11 might be used as a broad power of censorship, and point to the mis-application of widely drafted powers including Clause 44 “stop and search powers” introduced for terrorism, and now used to justify searching teenagers across London.
The Secretary of State could for example order that those accessing websites that fit a particular criteria be cut off – for example political or religious websites considered to be extreme. It takes little imagination to envisage where such a power could lead. What has been described as a power to cut off illegal file-sharers is in fact better described as a power to cut of internet access for whomever the Secretary of State sees fit.
The music and film industries have demanded harsh punishments for offenders, but insist that legal processes should be limited, must be paid for and ensured that there are no reasonable defences. Evidence alone is enough to get your business, community group or family cut off.
Copyright holders are mistaken to think that punishments are the key to getting their new businesses to work. Laws rarely work when they need to be backed up by harsh and unfair punishment, especially of the innocent: our sense of fair play will tend to conclude that something in the law itself is at fault.
If you want to help, you can take action via Liberty’s website and at the Open Rights Group website.
Jim Killock is Executive Director of the Open Rights Group
3 Mar 2010 | Uncategorized
Hugo Chavez’s administration has once again come under fire for its record on freedom of expression and its treatment of journalists. But as the government refuses to acknowledge its shortcomings, is it also reneging on its commitment to international treaties on human rights, asks Daniel Duquenal
(more…)
3 Mar 2010 | Uncategorized
We’re saddened to learn of the death of Michael Foot at 96. Foot was a principled politician, a wonderful writer, and a staunch defender of a free press. A longer obituary will follow, but for now, here’s the great man standing up to government threats to the press during World War II
httpv://www.youtube.com/watch?v=64HeuXNWQWY
3 Mar 2010 | Uncategorized
The Iranian authorities have banned a daily newspaper and a weekly magazine as a crackdown on reformist media escalated in the Islamic republic.
Iran’s press watchdog revoked the licences of Etemad and Irandokht on the same day that security forces arrested the 49-year-old film-maker Jafar Panahi, who is a vocal supporter of the opposition leader Mir Hossein Mousavi.
The newspaper Etemad was banned for the first time in its eight-year history after publishing remarks made by the former Iranian president Mohammad Khatami, which suggested that the country is facing a “crisis”, the Iranian Labor News Agency reported.
Mohammed Ali Ramin, Iran’s deputy culture minister for media affairs, suggested that the ban was a “bitter decision” for the government to take.
“After repeated warnings and the persistence of the paper in breaching the regulations, the watchdog had no choice but to ban it,” Ramin said.
Specifically, the board said that the newspaper had violated press law number six, forbidding media organisations from revealing secret orders or publishing discussions of parliament’s closed sessions and trials.
The Press Supervisory Board also prohibited the publication of Irandokht; a magazine run by the family of the opposition leader Mehdi Karrubi that started out as a women’s weekly, but has since altered its focus to cultural and political issues.
No official reason has been given for this decision, but the Iranian journalist Masih Alinejad told CNN that the magazine was closed after Karrubi’s wife Fatameh sent a letter to the Supreme Leader Ayatollah Ali Khameini accusing him of abusing her son Ali.
The reporter for Etemad-e Melli said: “Now we are journalists without newspapers, and we really need help for what is happening in Iran to be heard.”
The press supervision body has been busy since the disputed re-election of president Ahmadinejad in June, with the leading business daily Sarmayeh banned in November and the popular publication Etemad-e Melli closed in August.
Highlighting the perilous situation facing many Iranian reporters, Ghanbar Naderi, a journalist for the Iran Daily, told Al Jazeera that continuing closures in the media have created a culture of self-censorship.
He said: “In these sensitive times, with the country under constant political pressure, as a journalist your first mistake will be your last.”
In a further move reflecting the continuing crackdown on dissenters, Jafar Panahi, one of Iranian cinema’s most prominent directors, is
being held at an undisclosed location after he was arrested with his wife, daughter and 15 guests at his home on Monday evening.
These arrests come just days after Iranian authorities released six journalists from Tehran’s Evin prison, including Mashallah Shamsolvaezin, spokesman for the Iranian Committee for the Defence of Freedom of the Press.
The New York-based Committee to Protect Journalists disclosed last month that Iran is now “far and away the world’s leading jailer of journalists”. This news follows the launch of a new campaign by a number of leading press freedom and free expression groups, including Index on Censorship entitled Our Society Will be a Free Society, which aims to release the journalists and writers imprisoned by Iranian authorities.
