The European Commission says that free speech is not a fundamental right guarded by the EU

A few months ago, I asked the European Commission to examine whether harsh free-speech restrictions are allowed under the EU treaties. My question was prompted by the Irish law against blasphemy, which has made blasphemy a punishable offence.

Today, I had a letter in my mailbox from the European Commission’s unit D1.

This is was unit D1 had to say.

Dear Karl Sigfrid!

Thank you for your complaint letter concerning the change of the Irish Defamation Act from 2006.

Domestic laws on blasphemy are part of the national justice system in each member state. The European Commission has no authority according to the treaties to intervene in this area. It is the responsibility of the member state to ensure that freedom of speech is preserved in connection with this type of legislation.

Note that the letter was in Swedish and that this is my own English translation. The original wording in Swedish can be found here.

Blasphemy Trials – Soon in a Court Room Near You?

After my article in EU Observer on Irish blasphemy laws, I have recieved lots of feedback. Some positive and some negative.

I have the greatest respect for those who don’t want outsiders to interfere with Irish national law. However, all EU citizens have an interest in making the EU Commission clarify what is allowed under the EU treaties. The purpose of my complaint about the Irish legislation is to put the EU Commission to work.

The last couple of days, I’ve defended my free-speech position in Irish radio and tv shows. Now Swedish advocates of blasphemy laws have been awakened by the Irish debate, so the upcoming week might have to be dedicated to the defence of the right to speak freely on religions here at home.

The Evening Herald on EU and the New Irish Blashphemy Legislation

The Irish newspaper the Evening Herald has noticed the complaint that I filed against Ireland’s new blasphemy law, and they have given me an opportunity to explain my action:

Swedish MP Karl Sigfrid today said he had lodged a complaint with the Commission, asking it to rule if the new Irish law is consistent with EU treaties. These include EU provisions on free speech enshrined in the current EU treaty and the European Convention on Human Rights.

“Free speech is a necessary condition for scientific debate and is the best way to rational conclusions about what the truth is,” Mr Sigfrid, a Moderate Party MP, told the Herald.

“It’s a very dangerous thing to replace open debate with violence from the Government when someone opposes what the conventional truth is.”

The Evening Herald

OneSwarm Replaces The Pirate Bay in Sweden

The new file-sharing tool OneSwarm is spreading fast, especially in Sweden. From April, a new anti-file-sharing law will enable copyright owners to request Swedish file sharers’ identities from Internet Service Providers. This identification will be difficult, or impossible, when file sharers use OneSwarm, which offers anonymity protection. Another difference compared to BitTorrent is that OneSwarm users don’t depend on a central server. Hence, websites like The Pirate Bay will be unnecessary.

According to the OneSwarm team at the University of Washington, more that 100 000 people visited their website during the first twelve days after the OneSwarm client was released. This was despite the absence of any marketing efforts. More than 40 percent of the people who visited the project’s website came from Sweden.

The number of computers that currently have OneSwarm installed is unknown since the software can be freely distributed. Just from the project’s own website, more than 25 000 copies have been downloaded.

As support for interaction with major social-network sites will be built into OneSwarm, the number of users is expected to rise dramatically.

Make the ACTA Negotiations Public

In EUObserver, I demand that the EU makes the negotiations on the new antipiracy treaty ACTA public:

Since last spring,‭ ‬The European Union,‭ ‬the United States,‭ ‬Canada,‭ ‬Switzerland and Japan have been‭ negotiating a new anti-online piracy treaty‭ ‬-‭ ‬the so called ACTA treaty. The process is characterised by extreme secrecy,‭ ‬and even though the negotiations could result in new,‭ harsh‬ file-sharing laws in member states it’s impossible for the media and for the public to participate in the discussion.‭

Protests from organizations and IT businesses have been ignored by the EU.‭ ‬Any member state that believes in openness should protest and demand that the European Commission makes public which new anti-file-sharing laws they are pushing for with a European mandate.

Read the complete article

Organizations Demand Open ACTA Negotiations

100 non-profit organizations demand that the ACTA process opens up to public scrutiny. ACTA, or Anti-Counterfeit Trade Agreement, is an international intellectual-property convention that according to some interpretations could mean stricter control of technological innovation and new powers to customs-control employees. Most alarming are the speculations that laptops and mp3-players could be searched when taken through customs.

Two ACTA-meetings have taken place, the latest in Washington DC. Since the meetings are classified, it’s virtually impossible to find out what the negotiations have so far resulted in. Issues that have been discussed are customs regulation and legal tools for civil-court IP-infringement procedures.

At upcoming meetings, the really sensitive issues will be brought up – copyright infringement on the Internet and criminal-law measures. In addition to this, the parties will discuss establishing an international task force to fight intellectual-property violations. The task force will make sure that countries signing the ACTA agreement stick to the regulation.

Many are worried about new legislation that we might need to implement as a result of ACTA commitments. These concerns may be justified. However, the purpose of ACTA is something else – to establish a new IP-regime without third-world countries at the negotiation table. Once ACTA is in place, the plan it to make more countries join.

So why should countries that have little to benefit from extended intellectual monopolies join ACTA? A not too far-fetched theory is that the ACTA treaty will be attached to future third-country trade agreements. Countries that refuse to sign don’t get access to the European and American markets.

Secret Antipirate Treaty Sneaking Up on Us

Wikileaks has published a story about an international antipiracy agreement being negotiated in secret. The process aimed at establishing this treaty, Anti-Counterfeit Trade Agreement(ACTA) has according to Wikileaks been initiated by the US, the EU, Japan and Switzerland. Instead of going through the conventional organizations for trade and Immaterial Property Rights, a number of countries have chosen bilateral negotiations. At a later stage, more countries will be expected to sign the agreement. Selected copyright lobbyists have been allowed to see the discussion paper that the negotiations are based on. Apart from that, the document has been kept secret until it ended up on Wikileaks.

Several of the proposals in the discussion paper can be recognized from EU’s 2004 Intellectual Property Rights Enforcement Directive(IPRED) and from IPRED2, which hasn’t been approved. For instance, countries signing the treaty will be forced to introduce sanction that deter copyright infringement. According to Wikileaks, there is also a paragraph aimed at criminalizing commercial and non-commercial tools that can be used for copyright infringement. If this is true, it means that the EU commission through a trade agreement are trying to tie up member states to regulation that they have been unable to push through EU’s internal legislation process. This is the equivalent of a national government signing a treaty that commits the country to laws that the parliament rejects.

Another paragraph suggested in the discussion paper would force ISP’s to hand out customer information to rights holders. Today, it’s up to each EU country whether to use that legal tool. The question is whether the implementation can continue to be voluntary if the EU is tied up through ACTA. The Canadian newspaper Calgary Herald writes that ACTA can require ISP’s to disclose customer data even without a court order.

In 2007, the EU commission announced that they sought a mandate to participate in the ACTA negotiations. Now they have that mandate, from a meeting with the European agriculture ministers. The issue was never discussed at the meeting, and the ministers were most likely not aware of the decision they made. The EU position was in reality determined at an earlier meeting with the 133-Committee, a committee without political representation whose actions cannot be examined by the public.

With decentralized file sharing networks and with new ways of sharing files outside the internet, for example via bluetooth devices, the antipirates cannot stop the file sharing as such. Instead they try to attack the possession of copyrighted material by allowing body searches and by examining citizens’ electronic equipment. This 1984 government has probably been an unthinkable scenario to most people, but maybe that where we’re heading.

European Parliament Says No to Internet Ban

With 314 votes against 297, the European Parliament decided that it’s wrong to cut someone’s internet connection, even if that someone is a file sharer. This is a clear signal that the parliament rejects the French plan to fight illegal file sharing by banning citizens’ from the internet.

The proposal was tabled by Christofer Fjellner, Swedish MEP for the Moderate Party. Fjellner’s proposal was put forward as an amendment to the Bono report. Guy Bono, responsible for the report, has himself played a major role in forming the pro-Internet coalition that won majority in today’s vote.

The European Parliament’s file-sharer friendly statement is well timed. France will soon get the opportunity to chair the EU, and one priority will be to force European ISPs to cut the Internet connection of anyone illegally downloading a song or a movie. If insisting on his plans, Sarkozy now faces an uphill battle.

Sweden Rejects Sarkozy’s War on File Sharing

French President Nicolas Sarkozy wants to disconnect European file sharers from the Internet. The idea is already in the process of being realized in France, and will according to Sarkozy be a step toward “a civilized Internet” where ISPs watch the information that their customers exchange.

A couple of weeks ago, the Swedish government rejected the French model, but if France gets its way Sweden could be forced to implement these laws against the will of the parliament. It’s therefore of great significance that my party colleague Christofer Fjellner has tabled a proposal to stop Sarkozy’s internet ban and preserve file sharers’ online integrity.

What Fjellner has done formally is proposing an amendment to the so called Bono Report. Representatives for all parties that are included in the Swedish parliamentary majority alliance have signed the amendment, worded like this:

“Calls on the Commission and the Member States to recognise that the Internet is a vast platform for cultural expression, access to knowledge, and democratic participation in European creativity, bringing generations together through the information society; calls on the Commission and the Member States, therefore, to avoid adopting measures conflicting with civil liberties and human rights and with the principles of proportionality, effectiveness and dissuasiveness, such as the interruption of Internet access.”

The European Parliament votes on the proposal on April 9, which is this Wednesday. The decision will not be legally binding, but is important for positioning purposes.

No ISP Surveillance in Sweden

Two years ago, Sweden’s government ordered a study on how to fight the file-sharing phenomenon. The result was the Renfors report. Among other things, the report proposed cutting file sharers off the Internet and giving ISPs a responsibility for their customers’ communication. In reality, this would force ISPs to engage in internet surveillance.

Now Sweden’s non-socialist government throws the Renfors report in the trash. That is good news. Sweden’s no to internet surveillance signals that we embrace new technology. Most importantly, we Swedes distance ourselves from the French model, also favored by the EU Commission, that gives ISPs a responsibility to watch their customers.

As we discard the Renfors report, ISPs can focus on satisfying customers’ demands rather than engaging in police activities. Maybe the recording- and film industries too can follow this path and adapt to the 21st century.

There has been many setbacks lately for those who want to persecute file sharers. One recording company after the other has been forced to give up copy protections that give paying customers a lower-quality product than what illegal file sharers get.

Despite this, the attacks on file sharing and the free internet will continue. John Kennedy at IFPI says that their top priority is to push legislation that makes ISPs responsible for their customers’ communication.

The copyright industry has proposed even harsher measures than what we see in Europe today. Not only do they want to make ISPs responsible for controlling the digital highways. If IFPI were in charge, we would also have net censorship. All file sharing would be blocked as filters would prevent internet users from accessing web sites containing unauthorized copyrighted material.

The strategy of the copyright industry has been to stop film and music on the internet with the assistance of police and courts. Meanwhile, they have neglected the development of legal, user-friendly alternatives. A Swedish IT magazine had their experts comparing the industry’s film sites with illegal websites that violate copyright laws. The experts concluded that the illegal sites are more user friendly, have more extensive catalogues and offer movies adapted for ipods and widescreen television. There are even popular but illegal pirate sites that can charge customers by sms. Instead of suing teenagers and claim that you can’t compete with free, the film- and recording industries should develop services that are actually usable.

Sweden’s no to Internet surveillance signals that we embrace the technology, and that our role in the world is to fight the ever more harmful effects of today’s copyright. With the extreme proposals in the Renfors report out of the way, we can now have a more nuanced discussion on how to proceed with a decriminalization of file sharing.