Before the Government’s mandatory filter is even in place, the potential chilling effect of even the current net censorship regime was felt today when Whirlpool’s hosting provider received a take-down notice from ACMA because of a page that links to a another site on the current ACMA blacklist. Given the steep penalties, up to $11,000 per day, it’s hard to fault the host and Whirlpool for taking this seriously and complying. Read more … »

Michael Geist is reporting that ”[t]he European Parliament has voted for a proposal to bring more transparency and public access to documents. The resolution includes specific language about the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement.”

Acting in accordance with Article 255(1) of the EC Treaty, the European Commission should immediately make all documents related to the ongoing international negotiations on the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) publicly available.

The justification for the language is:

The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) will contain a new international benchmark for legal frameworks on what is termed intellectual property right enforcement. The content as known to the public is clearly legislative in character. Further, the Council confirms that ACTA includes civil enforcement and criminal law measures. Since there can not be secret objectives regarding legislation in a democracy, the principles established in the ECJ Turco case must be upheld.

Geist notes that ”[t]he vote sends a strong signal on the need to open the ACTA process and heightens the pressure on the negotiating countries to remove the veil of secrecy.”

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Despite detailed and concerted lobbying and campaigning to attempt to secure logical and cohesive answers to our questions about what an Australian censorship regime might look like, we are still no closer than we were in November 2008 to knowing what might happen if you click something that the Australian Communications and Media Authority deem you should not.  EFA has taken the initiative to explore the issue itself, in a light hearted fashion, and developed at the same time a way you can let your friends know what may be in store for all Australians.

Have a look at http://nanourl.net/f5b21 to see what EFA’s website may look like at the completion of “successful” trials, you can show anything you like to your friends.

Asher Moses reports that “The Government’s plan to introduce mandatory internet censorship has effectively been scuttled, following an independent senator’s decision to join the Greens and Opposition in blocking any legislation required to get the scheme started.”

This news has set the blogosphere and twitter alight with celebration. Unfortunately, that may all be a bit premature.

While it is true that a mandatory filtering proposal is likely to require legislation to implement (especially without the support of the Internet Industry Association and a voluntary code of conduct), it is not clear that any future legislation is dead in the water just yet.

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Thanks to an impressive campaign spearheaded by Creative Freedom NZ, New Zealand’s controversial ‘guilt upon accusation’ clause, s 92A, will be delayed and may be suspended and may be abandoned.

Section 92A is a graduated response provision that requires ISPs to “adopt and reasonably implement a policy that provides for termination, in appropriate circumstances, of the account with that Internet service provider of a repeat infringer.”

Unfortunately, the definition of ‘repeat infringer’ is not clearly defined. The provision states that “repeat infringer means a person who repeatedly infringes the copyright in a work by using 1 or more of the Internet services of the Internet service provider to do a restricted act without the consent of the copyright owner.”

This wording is familiar - it is almost word for word identical to the Australian limitation on safe harbours in s 116AH, which provides that “The carriage service provider must adopt and reasonably implement a policy that provides for termination, in appropriate circumstances, of the accounts of repeat infringers.”

There has been an incredible showing of online protest at the forthcoming introduction of s 92 in New Zealand, and a lot of international support. We at EFA are heartened by the change that New Zealanders have been able to achieve. This is a notable victory for users, and is very encouraging for similar action worldwide.

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Communications Minister Stephen Conroy announced last week that government’s pilot of ISP-level internet filtering is about to go ahead,  with six ISPs named in the first phase of the trial. The Senator has for months refused to answer any questions or criticisms about the plan, citing this pilot as evidence that all concerns are being listened to and worked on. However, fundamental policy issues remain unaddressed, and some in the community, including Electronic Frontiers Australia, worry that the pilot will serve as little more than a smoke screen. Read more … »

“Safer Internet Day” has come and gone, and the Government’s trial of mandatory filtering has finally been announced, with six small ISPs participating. The trial, with poor results practically inevitable, will do little to dampen discussion about this policy. The stated rationale for the new filtering regime, to protect children, has ensured the debate remains emotive and controversial. Read more … »

It’s when they stop talking about you, that’s when you’ve got to worry. Or so the old saying goes. Perhaps, then, we at Electronic Frontiers Australia should be gratified that filter-backers such as Clive Hamilton still hold up EFA as the epitome of “extreme cyber-libertarianism”, a gang of internet anarchists who don’t care what happens to children as long as Government keeps its hands off our Internet. Read more … »

Michael Atkinson thinks computer games are different.

The South Australian Attorney General presented his arguments against an R18+ classification for video games to the Gamespot video gaming web site. His arguments can be divided into those in favour of censorship generally, and those that argue that computer games are special, and need to have a higher level of censorship than other media. 

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EFA has lodged its submission to the Department of Broadband, Communication and Digital Economy’s Future Directions review.

The submission tackles a number of important issues for the digital economy, including open access to public sector information, electronic accessibility of printed material to people with a print disability, broad-based ICT training, and copyright policy.

We conclude the submission with a reminder that our policy framework ought to empower Australians to access and build upon information in the digital economy:

As Australia transforms into a knowledge based economy, the policies we choose to adopt for the creation and dissemination of information become crucially important. It is becoming increasingly clear that greater access to information and greater technical and legal abilities to remix, build upon and improve that information are fundamental drivers of innovation. EFA believes that the single most important issue in an innovation policy is ensuring that Australians are empowered to innovate, and that the barriers we impose to innovation are justified with reference to our social goals.

Edit: This submission is available under a Creative Commons Attribution-Noncommercial-Share Alike 2.5 Australia License.

The Labor Party went to the last election with a comprehensive plan for “cyber-safety” - that is, making the Internet safer for children. The centrepiece of this policy, and its most expensive component, is the controversial national ISP Internet filtering scheme, sometimes referred to as the “Conroy Curtain”. Plans for this scheme are advancing, and a live ISP trial was supposed to begin before Christmas. But does the scheme really hold water as a cyber-safety measure, or does it have a different motivation?

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A recent study entitled “Filtering in Oz: Australia’s Foray Into Internet Censorship” by Derek Bambauer of the Brooklyn Law School in New York examines the Rudd Government’s upcoming Internet filtering plan and provides a thorough analysis of its legitimacy. This report is important - not only is it authored by a reputable and neutral foreign observer but it focuses more on the legitimacy of the scheme than the technical or other concerns, and highlights some serious problems.

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Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA) today welcomed widespread opposition to Internet censorship proposals by the government.

“The forthcoming protests by the Digital Liberty Coalition and the petition by GetUp! show the depth of community disagreement with the government on this issue”, said EFA spokesperson Danny Yee.

The proposed censorship system would target web material that would be legal in other media. “Australians are unhappy with existing censorship of computer games and films. The last thing they want is even more stringent censorship of online content.”
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Last Friday, Dale Clapperton and Nicolas Suzor appeared on behalf of EFA to give evidence to the Commonwealth Senate Select Committee on the National Broadband Network. EFA had previously provided a written submission to the Senate, voicing concerns about the increased cost to users and the potential anti-competitive effects of the proposal.

The full text of the hearing is available on the Hansard Senate website (direct link to PDF).

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Electronic Frontiers Australa (EFA) today expressed concern about a lawsuit filed against Internet Service Provider iiNet in the Federal Court. A consortium of media companies have sued the ISP for allegedly allowing its users to download infringing movies and TV shows by failing to terminate their accounts after allegations of infringement by the copyright industry.

“This lawsuit is the latest attempt by the movie industry to bully Internet Service Providers into becoming copyright police,” said EFA spokesperson Nicolas Suzor. “ISPs are not in a position to monitor and terminate internet access to users based upon unsubstantiated threats from copyright owners, and should not be asked to do so.”
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Internet engineer Mark Newton has published a followup to his earlier letter and meeting with his MP, Government Frontbencher Kate Ellis. Many of our members and the public have written to their MPs about this issue and have been frustrated with the responses they have been getting, which are basically boilerplate containing the same misleading assertions they were complaining about in the first place.

EFA has been supportive of Mark’s credible and well-reasoned activism against the filtering proposal, and his latest letter continues in this theme. He raises a point that has concerned us and many others, the still ambiguous nature of what is to go on the secret blacklist:

It is further interesting to note that the Minister has now added the term “unwanted” to his rhetoric, after having had it pointed out that the ACMA blacklist he keeps waving about is not actually a list of “illegal” material . I trust you will agree that his replacement term, “illegal and unwanted,” reinforces community concerns about the scope of the ALP’s proposal, especially given that the Minister has refused to clarify what, exactly, the new term means, and who gets to decide what is “unwanted.” 

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