Papers and Articles on Internet Policy

ACTA, SOPA & the EU - essential background

The Copyright Enforcement Enigma jacket

SOPA and PIPA have put Internet copyright into the mainstream news agenda. The Copyright Enforcement Enigma introduces you to this topic. It explains the history of copyright sanctions. It puts 3-strikes and blocking policies into context. And it unravels the strange story of how it all got mixed up in the Telecoms Package and Amendment 138. When you finish it, you will understand why the ISPs and fundamental rights are under attack! Click here to get it!

Telecoms package

The Telecoms Package (Paquet Telecom) was a review of European telecoms law. Ordinarily, it would have dealt with network infrastructure and universal service and other purely telecoms matters. However, buried within it, deep in the detail, were important legal changes that related to enforcement of copyright. These changes represented a threat to civil liberties and risk undermining the entire structure of Internet, jeopardising businesses and cultural diversity.

The bottom line is that changes to telecoms regulations are needed before EU member states can bring in the so-called "3 strikes" measures - also known as "graduated response" - of which France led the way, but other governments, notably the UK, followed. A swathe of amendments were tabled at the instigation of entertainment industry lobbying. These amendments were aimed at bringing an end to free downloading. They also brought with them the risk of an unchecked corporate censorship of the Internet, with a host of unanswered questions relating to the legal oversight and administration.

The Telecoms Package was voted in the plenary session of the European Parliament on 24th September. It followed a brief debate on 2nd September, and a committee vote in July. In November last year it was put to vote in the European Council. Now - winter 2009 - it is headed for a second reading in the European Parliament. The official start will be 18th February, but negotiations are underway now. The plenary vote was planned for 21 April. It has been re-scheduled to 6 May. This timetable has not left much time for public debate, and it reminds me of the rushed passage of the data retention directive (see Data Retention on this site). It is, if you like, regulation by stealth.

I had originally planned that this site would just highlight reports from elsewhere, related to my research topic. But at the time, it felt wrong to me that such critical changes - which will infringe on people's freedoms and fundamentally alter the social and legal character of the Internet - should happen without at least the opportunity for a full and frank public debate. So I set out the issues as I see them, and reported on relevant public events.

I have written a series of briefing papers. You are free to download them. They are released under a Creative Commons licence. You are free to use them, but you should attribute it to me as the author, and reference their publication on iptegrity.com.

The first paper discusses why we should protect the 'mere conduit' principle: 'The ‘Telecoms Package’ and the copyright amendments – a European legal framework to stop downloading, and monitor the Internet

The second paper discusses network filtering: Deep packet inspection, copyright and the Telecoms Package

The third paper discusses copyright enforcement policy: Packaging up copyright enforcement - how the Telecoms Package slots in the framework for a European policy to restrict Internet content

Six MEPs table AT&T's Internet-limiting proposals

Monica Horten

Published on 25 March 2009

Six members of the European Parliament have tabled AT&T's proposals to limit users access to the Internet.

Six MEPs have taken text supplied by the American telecoms multi-national, AT&T, and pasted it directly into amendments tabled to the Universal Services directive in the Telecoms Package. The six are Syed Kamall , Erika Mann, Edit Herczog , Zita Pleštinská , Andreas Schwab , and Jacques Toubon .

AT&T and its partner Verizon, want the regulators in Europe to keep their hands-off new network technologies which will provide the capability for broadband providers to restrict or limit users access to the Internet. They have got together with a group of other telecoms companies to lobby on this issue. Their demands pose a threat to the neutrality of the network, and at another level, to millions of web businesses in Europe.

The Universal Services directive is supposed to set out the rights of users and

How the EU is bargaining away the Internet

Monica Horten

Published on 23 March 2009

Political deals are being done which remove users rights to distribute Internet content, impose conditions on Internet access and which could permit broadband providers to limit access to a specified list of websites or a premium paid-for Internet. Net neutrality, and millions of Internet businesses, are under threat if this goes ahead.

***The next and final trialogue is Tuesday 24 March ***

Behind closed doors, members of the European Parliament are negotiating away users rights to the Internet, in a bid to come to a quick political agreement on the Telecoms Package. It is happening in the discussions known as trialogues, which bring together the Parliament, the Council and the Commission, to try to agree a resolution on politically sensitive or technically difficult aspects of the Telecoms Package. An agreement between the three institutions would wrap up the Package in the Second Reading.

The European Parliament as an elected body, is supposed stand up for users rights, but instead it is agreeing to limit rights in the way that the Council, led by the UK and France, wants to do. They are trading changes in the revisions to telecoms law, and users are the ones who are likely to come off worst.

Catherine Trautman (rapporteur on the Framework, Access and Authorisation directives) is understood to want a deal that keeps ‘lawful content' in the Package, in return for agreeing to a text from the council on ‘no distortion of competition'. The Council wants a ‘compromise' which removes users right to distribute information. With any of these options, users rights are compromised. Mrs Trautmann's option will impose an onerous obligation on ISPs to monitor content. The ‘lawful content' amendment is referenced by several other articles in more than one directive, so it would really hook in this notion to the heart of what users can and cannot do.

Malcolm Harbour (rapporteur on the Universal Services directive) is believed to be tackling the sensitive Internet issues by

Toubon hijacks Telecoms Package for copyright

Monica Horten

Published on 23 March 2009

Copyright is back in the Telecoms Package second reading as a users rights amendment is hijacked for copyright enforcement by French MEP Jacques Toubon. Article 32a of the Universal Services directive, (formerly known as Amendment 166) has instead been turned into an attack on the fundamental rights of Internet users.

Copyright enforcement will be permitted in a cynical legal twist on a Telecoms Package amendment designed to protect users rights. Article 32a of the Universal Services directive (also known as Amendment 166) was designed to protect users' rights against copyright enforcement measures such as graduated response / 3-strikes . These measures impose sanctions such as cutting people off the Internet for downloading music or entertainment, and especially target peer-to-peer users.

The amendment was filed unsurprisingly by the French MEP Jacques Toubon , who has been working for 12 months to get copyright enforcement into the Telecoms Package - the cooperation amendment (Article 33.3) of the Universal Services directive is also his amendment, drafted by the French collecting society SACD. A different version of Toubon's amendment has also been proposed by the Council as a"compromise".

MEP Toubon's amendment twists the wording of this amendment, such that it appears to mean that users Internet access can be