Rick Falkvinge's Blog, page 40

Why DRM Must Be Outright Banned: Because Legislation Isn’t Coding

Infopolicy: One of the points in the Swedish Pirate Party’s program is that Digital Restriction Mechanisms (DRM) must be outright banned – it is not enough to allow their circumvention. This has been a point of contention among coders.

The reason that this is a point of contention is the mindset of “code is law”. It would be enough to allow circumvention of DRM for it to not have any practical effect, coders would argue – if everybody can circumvent it freely, then tools will be widely distributed to do so, and it won’t matter what stupid pretend-locks come on the discs or packages. That is true in a strictly technical perspective, but it’s just not how lawmaking works.

Code may be law, but legislation isn’t coding.

Legislation is a matter of pointing at the bad guy in order to slap them in the face. In order to do that, you need to establish who the guy breaking the social contract is.

As the law stands right now, circumvention of DRM is illegal. In other words, it is the people running their own code on their own computers in order to manipulate bits on media they have legitimately bought that are the bad guys. That’s not acceptable and that’s what needs to change.

You don’t establish that by changing the law to say that these people may not be quite so bad after all, maybe we don’t need to be quite so harsh against them. Instead, you do that by establish that they are firmly within their rights, and that another party – the firms robbing citizens and consumers of their legal rights – are the guys breaking the social contract.

That’s why DRM must be banned. It is a matter of pointing at the corporations as the bad guys, the ones breaking the social contract. That’s how lawmaking works. If you just say that “the punishments for circumventing shouldn’t be so hard”, the bad laws will be back and harsher again in six months, because the people using their own computers to run their own code will still be the bad guys.

Well, they’re not. So that’s what needs to change. That’s why DRM needs to be outright illegal.

Is The EPP Group In Europarliament Trying A Last-Minute Coup On ACTA?

Infopolicy: There are credible rumors floating about in the European Parliament that the EPP party group – the largest party group trying to save and salvage the ACTA trainwreck – is going to try to kill the ACTA vote through procedural trickery in the European Parliament.

The final ACTA vote in the European Parliament is scheduled for July 4, the Wednesday of this week in the European Parliament. But the actual agenda for the week’s plenary session is established on Monday at 17:00, when most Members of European Parliament haven’t returned from their home countries and returned to Parliament for the week’s session. It is a small meeting that is supposed to be just a formality.

Credible rumors hint at an attempt from the EPP party group to just coup the ACTA vote off the week’s agenda, sensing a defeat in the air and taking advantage of the fact that practically nobody has arrived, and that the agenda for the week is supposed to be set in a mutual understanding to move the political issues ahead, even the ones in dispute.

Yes, this is the same EPP party group that tried to submit too many votes four times during the ACTA meeting in the International Trade committee (while no other groups did).

This is the same EPP party group that got its way in the magical poll that killed Orphan Works availability in Europe in a vote with 113% voter turnout in the Legal Affairs committee.

This is the same EPP party group which apparently considered invoking rules to make the ACTA vote be held through secret ballot in the INTA group, which was derailed by the ALDE group and others calling them on it and preventing that plan from materializing.

My source says the European People’s Party will call for a secret vote on #ACTA PLS RT! #EP

— Cory Doctorow (@doctorow) juni 20, 2012

This is the same EPP party group that is home to MEP Marielle Gallo, who goes on the record saying that “The citizen protests against ACTA is a mild form of terrorism” and “the politicians should be doing the thinking for the citizens”.

Just to set the bar, sort of.

This is not how you gain confidence in the European politicians’ honesty when doing politics. If you’re losing in a matter, you’re expected to battle it out in the court of public opinion and in an open, accountable vote. You are not expected to win by being better at tweaking and exploiting the Rules of Procedure to get your will no matter what, when you’ve lost the argument.

“This is exactly the kind of attempted coups you associate with political youth wings when they’re at their worst”, says Christian Engström, Pirate Member of European Parliament. “It shows just how desperate the ACTA proponents have become.”

Do check which European politicians in your country are members of the EPP group. It would typically be conservative or Christian Democrat parties. Call them on this. This is disgraceful.

SEE ALSO: FFII has also heard about this, and counter-mobilization is starting to happen. But it requires MEPs to reschedule their travel to be in Strasbourg for Monday at 17:00, so it’s a bit of work.

Most Blatant Pro-ACTA Campaign So Far Is A Copyright Monopoly Violation

Infopolicy: When the International Trade Committee in the European Parliament went to vote for or against ACTA, there was a huge poster on the door breaking about half the rules in the (very long) book, urging the committee to vote in favor of ACTA. That poster has now been discovered to be a copyright violation committed by the pro-ACTA camp.

The poster on the International Trade Committee’s door showed an image of a cargo ship cruising, saying “ACTA will protect and promote Europe’s… IP-intensive industries”, on the day of the vote. A lot of us activists were justifiably upset about this. Now, it turns out that the pro-ACTA lobbyists did indeed create a poster arguing for ACTA that is in itself a copyright violation, showing clearer than ever that the copyright monopoly is, well, bollocks. If the most fervent proponents and lawyers of the copyright monopoly can’t follow it in the most dire of circumstances, there is no further pretending that a teenager or Joe Plumber should be expected to. Accordingly, the harsher enforcement that ACTA would bring is, if possible, even more insane.

Pro-ACTA poster and copyright monopoly violation.

Jérémie Zimmermann found the origins of the cargo ship image as a publicity photo for the Hamburg Süd shipping group. The crux is, the photo may only be used under certain circumstances – specifically, crediting the Hamburg Süd group – and that very requirement of attribution was ignored.

The Aliança Santos. Credit: Hamburg Süd. (See, was that so hard?)

Ironically, the same poster goes on to say “get the facts at actafacts.com”, a site that the Internet community wasn’t sure whether it was “third-grade astroturfing or outright parody”. So let’s get this straight: lobbyists that claim to be experts on the subject of the copyright monopoly and its complex legislation were using an image in violation of that very monopoly in their most crucial lobbying material for harshened enforcement. You just couldn’t make it up. (By the way, Glyn Moody pulled down the pants of the ridiculous claims on the site pretty quickly.)

This episode shows clearer than ever that the copyright and patent monopolies are not intended to be protective of innovation or protective of the economy. They’re obviously too complex even for their strongest supporters and lobbyists to understand and adhere to. Rather, they are intended as legal clubs to be used by the now-rich incumbents against resource-strapped upstarts. The copyright and patent monopolies are only protective of the past, protective against the present and future of innovation, creativity, and economy.

The most fervent lobbyists for the copyright monopoly don’t care a bit about the monopoly as it applies to themselves, only as it applies to others. This is consistent with decades of artist screw-overs by record labels and movie studios. Let’s end this corporativism. Let’s cut back on these ridiculous monopolies.

Don’t forget to mail the MEPs urging them to reject ACTA.

Via Henrik Moltke via Jérémie Zimmermann.

Your Email Privacy Is Under Increasing Threat

Civil Liberties – Andrew Norton: Over the last few days, two stories about emails have hit the headlines, and it leads to questions over the future security of email as a communications medium. What has been considered a fairly private method of communication is now under increasing threat from both government and corporate scrutiny.

Our email accounts carry more than just messages, they are the primary way we sign up for accounts, and verify our identify online. With our email accounts being made insecure, our whole online identity becomes compromised. Everything we do online, comes down to our email addresses. It could be said that they are our online identities. That’s why the threat to the privacy of them is one that should not be taken lightly.

By far the more well-known of the stories was about Facebook, and their decision to change the displayed email of every user on the social network to one @facebook.com. The insidious nature of this change – made without notice let alone fanfare – meant that from the time of the change, which happened sometime Friday, until it gained widespread notice on Monday, people who believed they were emailing a friend were actually sending their email into the internal Facebook message system.

Had they enabled the addresses, and sent out a notice, there wouldn’t have been much of a problem. That they decided to REMOVE any visible email address, and display this Facebook one publicly instead is the problem. All of a sudden there’s one approved email contact published and it happens to be one where the information goes to Facebook’s servers.

An email intended for a private email box, sent by someone unaware of the swap or the nature of the email address could send information to it, unaware that it is feeding the Facebook advertising machine. The message enters Facebook’s systems, if the sender’s email address is associated with an account, it’s shown as being from that account (and is virtually indistinguishable from an internal Facebook message)

In a quick test I ran, I sent my Facebook email a message from another email address. One not associated with a Facebook account. Within a minute, the message was sitting in Facebook’s message centre, but hidden in ‘other’ messages. I got no notification of it, no number in the message icon, no email notice. When an email is sent from an address with an associated account, it looks almost indistinguishable from a regular chat message, and again, no email notice, although this time the site does alert you to a message.

this is what an email from an address without a Facebook account looks like

So either way, unless you log in to Facebook, you won’t know you have been sent an email. Unless you check a folder most aren’t aware of, you won’t know of messages from non-Facebook associated email addresses. Meanwhile, Facebook has access to contact information and message contents, because of how they’ve changed your displayed information. This could in fact be described as a Man-in-the-Middle attack, for email.

For a company that’s in hot water already over the way its IPO was handled (again, an issue of information disclosure) this was not a smart move.

Meanwhile, on the other side of the world, border officials in Israel have a different opinion on email privacy. If they want to read your private emails at will, you will give them access or forget about entering the country.

Think about that for a moment. This goes beyond the US border searches (where you can at least exert some control over what you have on you) which were already excessively intrusive. In one case, reported on by the Times of Israel, a suspected Palestinian supporter and activist was placed before a computer screen at Israel’s International Airport.

The traveller, 42-year-old American citizen Sandra Tamari, was then told to log into her personal Gmail account, so that a security agent could search it for incriminating evidence. Tamari declined the request and was denied entry into the country. Nor is she alone in this – at least three other American women have been expelled from Israel for similar reasons. The email search was not premeditated, or backed by any sort of court; the agent only became aware of the address during a physical search of Tamari’s belongings.

It’s not just confined to emails either. There are reports that other people have been asked to log into Facebook or other services so that Israeli officials can determine if someone is Palestinian supporter.

Israeli officials portray these data-mining fishing trips as normal security practice, for a country constantly under threat. Yet it is Israel that is clearly the rogue state here, rather than one who should be applauded or seen a security visionary. While Iraq was invaded by the US for possibly being in violation of UNSC Resolution 1441, (which turned out to not be the case) Israel has violated over 20 UN Resolutions, and has been called on to respect the 4th Geneva Convention.

Clearly not a country whose actions we should be following, but yet is anyone in any doubt that this idea will spread? It remains to be seen just how much longer email, for a long time considered to be private as far as online communications go, will keep that status. Of course, technology can help mitigate things somewhat, as public/private key encryption remains a possibility. Yet don’t expect them to let you in if you don’t decrypt emails for them as well.

INFO

I use Enigmail for Thunderbird for my emails. My public key ID is 0xD6DD7E47

The end of the day it’s a no-win scenario for free speech activists. They are, after all, the easiest to go after and make headlines about, giving the impression to the masses of security without actually making anything secure. In fact, since such measures only foster ill-feeling, such policies only make things LESS secure… but that’s acceptable to those behind it, because there has to be a reason to implement even more intrusive policies at a later date. That is the real (and only) effect of such policies after all.

Meanwhile, your email security is under increasing threat, from companies wanting to monetize it, or Governments wanting to monitor it.

Gallo: If You’re Campaigning Against ACTA, You’re A Terrorist

Copyright Monopoly: In a remarkable statement, the copyright monopoly fundamentalist Marielle Gallo – of the Gallo Report infamy – says that the citizens of Europe who have been campaigning against ACTA are terrorists.

In a just-published interview (in French), Marielle Gallo – a Member of the European Parliament, no less – calls the anti-ACTA campaigns “A soft form of terrorism” (une forme douce de terrorisme). Yes, she really does say that the citizens of Europe, her constituency, who contact her colleagues in Parliament regarding a concerning political matter should be regarded as terrorists.

Screenshot from PCInpact with the Gallo interview (in French)

This shows a couple of things.

The monopoly maximalists have completely gone bonkers, off the deep end, and fishing. Calling your own constituents terrorists in media when they express political opinions that differ from your own is more than political suicide, it’s straitjacket material.
The monopoly maximalists are scared beyond their wits of getting their dogma questioned, their facade scratched at, and losing their control of the monopoly-maximizing discourse. Apart from the obvious proof of having lost their wits, they are now acting in desperation and are at a loss for stronger words to denounce their opponents. (“Pirate” has kind of lost its denouncing effect when people get elected on the pirate banner.)
Accordingly, the pendulum is starting to swing back in the right direction. The reason for the dogmatic maximalists’ obvious discomfort to this level of ridiculous statements – on the record, no less – can be no other than a feeling of situational control slipping through their fingers.

Overall, this is an excellent sign. Let’s continue with this form of “terrorism”. Myself, I just call it democracy at work.

Beyond a win on ACTA, we should take the opportunity to reverse the trend and express our opinion that the monopolies should begin to dismantle.

UPDATE: Several people have pointed out that Gallo also states in this interview that the Members of European Parliament should be doing the thinking, and not citizens.

Dutch Pirate Party Now At The Door To Parliament

Pirate Parties: In the European Pirate Parties’ race for the first national parliament seat, an unexpected contender has appeared as a possible winner: the Netherlands. The Dutch Piratenpartij just had its first poll showing it would get a parliamentary seat in the September elections.

The Pirate Parties are gaining seats on more levels and in more countries all the time. While it is arguably still a nascent movement, the parties are still quite respectably represented. It started with two seats in the European Parliament from Sweden in 2009, then a number of local seats until the big bang in Berlin in the fall of 2011, after which the German Piratenpartei has had a string of solid successes at beating Germany’s five-percent threshold for parliamentary entry, gaining seats in state-level parliaments there.

There are pirates on local city councils in Austria, Czech Republic, Switzerland, and Spain.

The movement has also had its first government seat – Slim Amamou, Secretary of State for Sports and Youth in Tunisia. Noteworthily, this was in Northern Africa, and not in Europe.

Many Pirate Parties are polling at one-half to two per cent. This may seem insignificant, but getting to this level is immensely harder than getting from two to five per cent of the vote.

An interesting situation has appeared in the Netherlands – the Dutch go to the elections on September 12 of this year. Now, the Dutch Piratenpartij doesn’t have as impressive numbers as its German counterpart, but it is assisted by a particular feature of the Dutch political system: there is no threshold for entry to parliament. If you earn your seat, there’s no further cutoff.

The Piratenpartij needs 0.66% for one seat, and Dutch media has been reporting that the Pirate Party is one of three parties practically straddling that threshold – and just last weekend, we got a poll where the Dutch Pirate Party would have gotten a seat, were the elections held today.

However, we probably won’t see a repeat of the Berlin scenario, where the Pirate Party was the newcomer of the year and media’s darling in all the spotlights. That caused the German Piratenpartei to gain more visibility week by week, climbing from the 4.5% one month before the election – below the threshold – to the election result of 8.9% in that month, much thanks to the newcomer factor. The Dutch, due to their lack of parliamentary threshold, are used to newcomers – so it’s not mediaworthy in the same way that it looks like a newcomer might make it to Parliament. The Dutch Pirate Party will have to defend its seat in that poll through hard work and hard work alone.

That said, it’s a watershed event that the Dutch Piratenpartij has a seat in a poll.

By the way, I said European Pirate Parties at the start of this article. That’s not entirely accurate, of course. There are Pirate Parties pretty much worldwide, even if the original parliamentary hack depends on running in proportional-representation elections typical in Europe. That constraint would limit the original concept to Europe, Asia, South America, and the African democracies – mostly, but not quite. Even though Canada, the U.S., and other former British/French colonies adopted the British/French non-proportional system, there are some spots which do vote proportional.

An exciting contender worth mentioning is the Australian Pirate Party, which has proportional elections in October in the Australian Capital Territory, and which is now getting noticed. With hard work, I’d say they have a fair shot at getting the first national parliamentary seat in October, if the Dutch should stumble on the finish line in their September elections.

Our Final Push: ACTA Vote In Ten Days, Mail The European Parliament

Activism: Ten days from today, on July 4, the European Parliament will vote on ACTA. This is the end-of-level boss; this is where ACTA lives or dies. We have won in five out of five committees – it is time for one huge final push.

Every Member of European Parliament (MEP) and assistant I have spoken to have said the same thing – the calls and mails from ordinary, concerned citizens have made all the difference. This is not obvious when looking from the outside, but as I walked around in the European Parliament last week, that impression was stronger than I had ever anticipated.

As the final vote approaches, scheduled for July 4, it is easy to let your guard down. But this is when all the trickery happens. The battle of ACTA is not over: it will be over in ten days, but not before.

It can be hard to know what to write to a MEP to make your voice heard. Believe it or not, they are people like you and me, and so, they react like you and me would to mails they receive. You don’t have to be a legal political expert to voice your concern: to the contrary, writing exactly what you feel is often the most effective way to come across.

Of course, “exactly what you feel” can sometimes be counterproductive. We need to remember that we are intruding into somebody else’s job, even if that job is to represent us. Anything aggressive or steamventing will be directly counterproductive, and threats are completely off the table. To the contrary, these people want to do a good job. Take the opportunity to help them be the best MEP they can be.

It is time to mail the entire parliament. I have set up a mail alias that resolves to all MEPs: europarl-all@falkvinge.net. As before, if you prefer mailing them one by one, a mailto link for that is here. Now remember, this will be sent to over 750 legislators. A personal mail describing how you feel and what you think about ACTA is the most effective way, and I would really encourage you to do that rather than use the sample letters straight off. Some MEPs even think that a lot of identical letters arriving means that an automated Denial-of-Service attack is in progress, rather than individual citizens voicing their concerns (hence the P.S. in these sample letters).

Send a mail now.

You can – and should – mail the MEPs even if you don’t live in the European Union. This is a global matter.

If you live in Europe, I suggest you send something like this to all MEPs:

TITLE: Please reject the ACTA treaty in plenary

Dear Member of the European Parliament,

As a citizen of Europe, I urge you to reject the ACTA treaty in the plenary session on July 2-5.

It is a treaty designed to curtail Europe’s civil liberties and our European sovereignty to benefit American corporations and foreign special interests. It is designed to lock out any and all necessary reforms of the copyright and patent structures to benefit European culture and innovation. It is designed in bad faith, in secret, to prevent the next generation of entrepreneurs from displacing the current kings of the hill with better products and services.

Europe should strive for being competitive, not for safeguarding old structures that are already obsolete, and we should be proud of our Enlightenment heritage of respecting civil liberties – no matter if they are exercised on- or offline.

Let the scheduled date of the vote, July 4, be a date when we celebrate Europe’s political independence from American special interests. We need to feel and establish that independence – and that dignity.

Sincerely,

[your name]

[your country]

P.S.: I have understood that some MEPs have voiced concerns that mails like this one would be part of an automated process, and even regarded it as a form of attack, in that sense. I want to underscore that this mail is not part of an automated process. I may be using a sample letter to voice my concerns, but the concerns are no less real just because I paste somebody else’s words for my concerns into my own e-mail program.

I am not an attack – I am a European voter, pleading for my representatives to represent me against US businesses. (For the technically inclined, the mail headers will show that the identical copies you may have received of this sample letter were all sent manually, one by one, by different people.)

If you live in the United States, a slightly different message would be appropriate, tailored to the fact that it is the US special interests who are pushing this treaty, rigging the game in the world just like they have been rigging it inside the United States.

Again, remember, this is just an example. Rewrite or adapt to your words and liking.

TITLE: Please reject the ACTA treaty

Honored Member of the European Parliament,

I am a citizen of the United States of America. Trade representatives of my country have been pushing a treaty for so-called free trade and anti-counterfeiting across the world, including onto Europe. This ACTA treaty is not about free trade, nor about counterfeiting. It is about ensuring that hardworking entrepreneurs in other countries don’t get to compete with American corporations, by creating lopsided deals and terms.

I believe in the American Dream. I believe that if you compete with better products and services, the hard work will reward you, but also that you don’t get any special favors because of birth, gender, or the color of your skin. I believe that anybody can and should be able to create a good life for themselves through hard work and being proud of what you accomplish.

Sadly, lately it has become obvious that this game is rigged. A very small group of special interests in the United States has rigged the game in their favor. It is rigged within the United States, and in the world as a whole as well. ACTA is part of this scheme. This is not what I stand for. These U.S. trade representatives who try to get to the top of the ladder before you in Europe, only to then kick away the ladder, are not people I have elected, nor given my consent to represent me.

This rigged game is not America, and I will not let this small group of special interests soil the name of my country and my dreams. ACTA is not in Europe’s interest, nor in anybody’s, except for these few special corporate interests that are trying to legislate their place at the top of the food chain. Nobody has that right. It is up to you, as a legislator, to put the foot down and assert that nobody indeed has this right.

ACTA lives or dies globally with the vote in the European Parliament. I understand the ACTA vote in plenary is scheduled for July 4. I urge you, as a citizen of the United States of America and of the world, to reject it. Europe and America should be the best of friends on equal terms – and not on terms of trickery and exploitation. That is not what I stand for.

On July 4, we celebrate our Day of Independence from European special interests, in memory of a decision made a little over two centuries ago. I would be honored and proud if you would consider reciprocating. Please reject ACTA.

Sincerely,

[your name]

United States of America

Finally, if you live in neither the US nor the EU, I suggest something along these lines:

TITLE: Please reject the ACTA treaty

Honored Member of the European Parliament,

I am a citizen of [your country], and I am following the ACTA process in the European Union closely. You may have heard from negotiators claiming to represent me by name of my country. I wish to make clear that they do not represent me: the drafting of ACTA has not been handled by people I have elected, nor given my consent to. Rather, this has been driven by old and obsolete industries who want ACTA to legislate their place in their market, legislate it against the citizens and entrepreneurs of the world.

In this, I stand with the citizens of Europe who have rallied against the treaty. This is a global and important matter.

I urge you to reject ACTA, not just for the citizens of Europe, but for those of the world, including me. It locks in an old regime of industries and prevents necessary rejuvenation: it is the industries of the 1970s and 1980s that are fighting against the entrepreneurs who would take their place in a market economy. Rather than competing with better products and services, they go this route in desperation. Also, in this fight, the world’s civil liberties are happily sacrificed by the old monopolistic industries, clamoring for more monopolies and harsher enforcement. The payment comes from us all in forms of our fundamental freedoms – not just as citizens, but as builders of the global economy.

ACTA lives or dies globally with the consent of the European Parliament. The world is watching – the next generation of citizens and entrepreneurs is watching. I ask you to vote for the future, rather than the past. Reject ACTA. Vote for the European Parliament to withhold its consent.

Sincerely,

[your name]

[your country]

That’s it. This is the final ramp-up. In ten days, it’s the moment of truth in the roll call vote in the European Parliament’s session in Strasbourg. If we manage to defeat ACTA there, we can make it into a major turning point in the overall war for net liberty.

Let July 4 be the day we celebrate Europe taking a stand for independence against American special interests, and inspire the world to follow!

Final Europarl Committee Rejects ACTA. Internet-Lobbyists, 5-0.

Infopolicy: Today, the final and ultimately responsible committee in the European Parliament gave its recommendation on ACTA. Its opinion was clear: Reject ACTA. This brings five recommendations to the European Parliament to reject and kill ACTA once and for all, with none against.

A lot of prestige had been building up toward today’s vote in the International Trade committee (INTA), which was about to give its recommendation to the European Parliament on the ACTA treaty. Six months ago, it looked like a no-brainer that ACTA would pass. Then, protests on the streets in Poland appeared, spreading through Europe like wildfire. The Polish government promised to put ratification of ACTA on hold, pending the outcome of the European Parliament. Shortly thereafter, so did pretty much everybody else. Things were up in the air all of a sudden.

So, all eyes on the European Parliament.

I have written before on why ACTA lives or dies with the acceptance of Europe: if two the world’s three largest economies do not accept a trade treaty, it does not exist. China (#3) is not a party to ACTA, and it is being pushed by the US of America (#2). If the European Union rejects it, the treaty is without practical effect.

So, again, all eyes on the European Parliament.

For an acceptance or rejection in the Europarl, one committee becomes primarily responsible for every issue, recommending a course of action to their colleagues. For the many issues handled every day, this is usually a very helpful process – getting input from the people most knowledgeable on the topic. For complex topics, another committee can sometimes join in, sending their own recommendation to the responsible committee in turn.

For ACTA, there have been four such advisory committees in addition to the responsible main committee. Those four were Industry, Civil Liberties, Development, and Legal Affairs. They voted on May 31 and June 4, and all voted to recommend a rejection. This was encouraging for the net activists, very encouraging, but didn’t really say anything about the vote in International Trade – the main committee – for such a high-profile issue.

There has been no shortage of stunts pulled that were, at best, questionable. Yesterday at 1800, the person responsible for ACTA in the European Commission (roughly the executive branch of Europe), Karel de Gucht, held a firebrand speech to the committee, telling them how to vote. He added that if Parliament votes the wrong way, he’ll just re-submit ACTA to the next parliament (!). He was rightfully scolded for that by some Members of the European Parliament (MEPs) later, showing an unacceptable level of disrespect for the separation of powers and for the democratic institution of Parliament.

So this morning, the INTA committee gathered for its vote. Some industry group had managed to put up a poster across the entire door, urging them to vote for adoption. This breaks a very long set of very bureaucratic rules and raised quite a few eyebrows. The room was filled to and over capacity – TV cameras were lining the walls, and people were standing in the back and along the sides, all seats being taken in the quite large room. INTA had 32 items on its agenda, starting at 10:00, and ACTA was last.

When an issue is adopted or rejected in committee, the committee starts out from a draft report suggesting a stance it should take, and then, any MEP on the committee can suggest a change – an amendment – to the draft. The draft report in INTA said that the committee recommends parliament to reject ACTA (“withhold its consent”). Some MEPs wanted these particular words to be replaced by others, so there were some amendments on the table. The two first amendments said the exact same thing – replace the words “reject ACTA” with “adopt ACTA” – and the third replaced “reject ACTA” with “postpone a decision until the European Court of Justice has said whether ACTA is legal or not”.

The party group lines were quite defined. The positions had been established, the prestige had been bet, the trenches had been dug. Those in favor of ACTA were the EPP and the ECR party groups, comprising almost exactly half of Parliament, and those against were the rest.

INTA started out with 29 MEPs present, and everybody kept counting who was present to try to figure out which side had the majority. Early counts said that the for and against sides had 14 votes each, so there was frantic activity figuring out where the 29th vote went.

Then, mid-session, an INTA MEP with voting rights showed up, bumping the total vote count to 30. Lather, rinse and repeat all the frantic guesses about majorities for ACTA.

Fifteen minutes later, repeat the same thing happening all over again as the 31st MEP appeared in committee.

At 11:30, the INTA committee finally got to the thirty-second item on today’s agenda, ACTA. The first thing that happened was that the first two amendments, those wanting to adopt ACTA, were withdrawn.

This led us to the situation where there was not even a proposal on the table to adopt ACTA. It was “say no now”, or “decide later”. So ironically, the trade group who was breaking half of the rules in the book by putting the “adopt ACTA” poster on the outside of the committee door couldn’t even theoretically have their will.

Moment of truth. Amendment three, changing “reject” to “postpone”. The vote was called, the vote was closed, and the numbers came up on screen. 13 votes in favor of the amendment, 19 votes against it, no abstains. WE WON! WE WON!

…but wait…?

19 plus 13 is … thirty-two. There are 31 MEPs. There was one vote too many. The vote is repeated, but at this time, it was practically over: one vote less from either side would not change the outcome. The amendment would be rejected, and the draft report would be adopted, recommending the European Parliament to reject ACTA.

The new vote said 19-12. The amendment was defeated by 19-12, and the draft report recommending a rejection of ACTA was adopted by the same numbers.

Thunderous applause interrupted the session. WE WON!

So what does this mean? The ironic thing is that it doesn’t really mean much in terms of the adoption or rejection process. ACTA is such a high-profile issue that people are already decided, quite regardless of the committee recommendation. But it does give you an indication of how the majorities lie — and what the vote in plenary in about 10 days will look like.

In the press conference after the INTA session, the sentiment in the room was one of post-mortem. “Exactly where did this ACTA drive the crazy train off the nearest cliff?”. Even though the ultimate vote in the European Parliament plenary still remains, the vote some time July 2-5, the sentiment was clear: it’s over. (Hint: it’s actually not. Not at all. This is where we need to make our final push. Returning to that in tomorrow’s post.)

Everybody in the press conference reiterated at today’s vote would not have had this outcome without energetic and persistent activity from citizens, urging MEPs to oppose ACTA. Yes, that’s you: you should pat yourself on the shoulder here.

In the press conference, we also learn that the reason for the large majority in INTA against ACTA was due to Polish MEPs not following the party lines, but referring to their home constituencies and saying they couldn’t do anything but reject. This changed the majority from harrowingly even between adoption and rejection, to having a safe margin on the side of rejection. It is a reasonable assumption that this phenomenon will carry over to the parliament at large.

Thank you, Poland!

5-0 to the Internet. Now, on to the final vote in July and ACTA’s final dismissal.

(This article is also published at TorrentFreak.)

LIVE: Europarl ACTA Vote In INTA Committee

Infopolicy: The INTA committee in the European Parliament, which is the responsible committee for ACTA, will shortly come to a vote. Live updates here.

The committee session starts at 10:00 in room JAN-4Q1 in the European Parliament. It will give the final recommendation to the European Parliament on how to vote in the final vote in 13 days.

10:07 - The live video broadcast from this session is right here. Unfortunately, it appears to be Windows-Media only, so it doesn’t work on Android.

10:04 - There is a live broadcast of this meeting for those who prefer following video. I am trying to find it; Google-fu with “INTA committee video european parliament” should be a starting point. Despite being past 10:00, the meeting has not yet started.

10:01 - Jeremiah Zimmermann from La Quadrature du Net is also here in the room.

09:59 - The voting margins are harrowingly narrow, and nobody knows which way INTA will lean. One thing is clear – INTA does not care at all about the recommendations of the previous committees (ITRE, DEVE, JURI, and LIBE); this issue is far too high-profiled to vote on somebody else’s recommendation. But that sword swings two ways: that also means that INTA’s recommendation today will be next to meaningless, being little more than a half-time indication of what the plenary majority looks like, rather an actual recommendation with weight. Still, it draws enormous interest.

09:56 - What we can expect from today is that the conservative and big-business party groups (ECR and EPP) will attempt to recommend a postponement of the final vote on ACTA until after the European Court of Justice has given its final opinion, thus delaying the final vote by about two years. Nobody knows if an INTA recommendation of postponement means an automatic postponement by the European Parliament as a whole: as usual, the ones deciding that are the ones interpreting the rules, and the ones interpreting the rules are the ones who are politically strongest for the time being.

09:53 - On location in the INTA room, JAN-4Q1. I can’t recall having seen a room this full 15 minutes ahead of the session start time before.

(Updates are streamed – no need to refresh.)

Oil Company Sues ISP, Kills Greenpeace Protest Site Against Them

Repression: Greenpeace protests an oil company with a parody site. The oil company files a lawsuit against the ISP of Greenpeace, claiming copyright monopoly violation of the company’s look and feel. The ISP shuts down the Greenpeace protest site immediately, complying with the threat from the oil company, without fighting the lawsuit or waiting for the court. Yup: the abuse-friendly copyright monopoly is now abused by oil companies to suppress Greenpeace, too.

Greenpeace had launched nestespoil.com, a protest site against Finnish oil company Neste Oil, highlighting how their practices lead to deforestation and increased carbon emissions. Neste Oil were not amused, and launched a lawsuit. Not a lawsuit against Greenpeace, mind you, but against their Internet Service Provider, Loopia.

Screenshot of Greenpeace’s protest site

Neste Oil filed the lawsuit in the district court of Västmanland in Sweden, where Loopia is based. According to Greenpeace, the oil company has also filed a complaint with WIPO, demanding the transfer of the domain nestespoil.com from Greenpeace to the oil company Neste Oil.

Greenpeace are, predictably, furious. Neither Neste Oil nor Loopia want to comment on the case.

Greenpeace’s original protest site, NesteSpoil.com, still leads to the blocked-site placeholder closed.loopia.se. In the meantime, Loopia competitor Binero has approached Greenpeace and offered to put the site back up, asking Neste Oil in public to take a hike. Greenpeace has also put the site back online under nestespoilreturns.com, with a big banner telling the story of Neste Oil’s bullying of the protest site.

This is the exact result of intermediary liability for copyright monopoly violations. We’ve been talking about this all the time – it leads to extrajudicial suppression of speech that somebody doesn’t like. It’s more than time to declare the copyright monopoly inapplicable to nonprofits, like Greenpeace, and to private individuals.