Showing posts with label germany. Show all posts
Showing posts with label germany. Show all posts

29 March 2017

The Copyright Industry's So-Called "Value Gap" Is Actually an Innovation Gap

The is a crucial year for the Internet in Europe, because 2017 will see key decisions made about the shape of copyright law in the EU. That matters, because copyright is in many ways the antithesis of the Net, based as it is on enforcing a monopoly on digital content, whereas the Net derives its power from sharing as widely as possible. The stronger copyright becomes, the more the Internet is constrained and thus impoverished.

There are three key areas in the proposed revision to the EU's Copyright Directive where the Internet and its users are under threat from attempts to strengthen copyright. First, there is the panorama exception, which allows people to take pictures in the street without needing to worry about whether buildings or public objects are subject to copyright. Despite this being little more than common sense – imagine having to check the legal status of everything in view before taking a photo – copyright maximalists are fighting to stop a panorama exception being added to EU law.

The second point of contention concerns the link tax, also known as the snippets or Google tax. The last of these explains the motivation: publishers want Google to pay for linking to their articles using snippets of text. Despite the obvious folly of charging for the ability to send traffic to your site, the copyright world's sense of entitlement is such that two countries have already introduced a link tax, with uniformly disastrous results.

When Spain brought in a law that required search engines to pay publishers for the use of snippets, Google decided to close down its Google News service in the country, which led to online publishers losing 10% to 15% of their traffic.

Similarly, in Germany, which also introduced a link tax, publishers ending up giving Google a free licence to their material, so great was the law's negative impact on their business when Google stopped linking to their publications.

The snippet tax is so manifestly stupid that it is unlikely to appear in the final version of the revised Copyright Directive. But the third area of concern stands a much better chance because of the clever way that the publishing world is dressing it up as being about a so-called "value gap." It's a very vague concept – see this new video that explores what it is - but it boils down to publishers being resentful because digital newcomers came up with innovative business models based around legal access to online music, and they didn't.

An interesting speech on the topic by the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry's CEO in 2016 laments the fact that the "value" of the global music industry has recently declined 36% over 15 years. That's not really surprising: during this period the recording industry did everything in its power to throttle or stall new ways of providing access to music on the Internet.

What the so-called "value gap" is really about here is the long-standing innovation gap among recording companies, and their refusal to adapt to a changing world. Imagine if they had embraced the P2P music sharing service Napster in 2000 instead of suing it into the ground. Imagine if they had set up sharing and streaming servers themselves a decade and a half ago; imagine how much money they would have made from subscriptions and advertising, and how much their value would have grown, not fallen.

If this evident innovation gap only harmed the copyright companies themselves, it would not be a problem, so much as just deserts. But they are now lobbying to get the laws around the world changed in important ways purely in order to prop up their old business models in an attempt to compensate for this failure to embrace the Internet. In the EU, they are using the fallacious "value gap" concept to call for mandatory upload filters for all major sharing sites – effectively large-scale surveillance and censorship.

Given that one of the most important consequences of the Copyright Directive could be the curtailing of basic human rights in the EU, it is disappointing that a seminar run by the Alliance of Liberals and Democrats for Europe (ALDE) group in the European Parliament – supposedly made up of liberals in favour of such democratic freedoms – skews the debate so completely in favour of the copyright industry. Judging by the programme, there is not a single representative of the public speaking at the event – which is pointedly entitled "Copyright reform: Sharing of the value in the digital environment" - pretty much guaranteeing a biased and unhelpful discussion.

That failure by ALDE even to acknowledge that EU citizens have anything useful to contribute, or any right to speak here, does not bode well for the ultimate outcome of the Copyright Directive negotiations later this year. ALDE needs to start caring about and listening to the millions of citizens who voted for its MEPs. At the moment it seems to have uncritically swallowed the backward-looking copyright industry's framing of the problem as a non-existent "value gap", when the deeper problem is its continuing innovation gap. As a result, this year could see key aspects of the Internet's operation, to say nothing of privacy and freedom of speech, gravely damaged because of yet another expansion of copyright's reach and power.

23 November 2013

Windows 8+TPM: Germany Warns of 'Loss of Control'

Last year, I wrote about some serious issues with Microsoft's Secure Boot Technology in Windows 8. It seems that the German government has started to wake up to problems with Windows 8, as this headline in Die Zeit attests:

On Open Enterprise blog.

27 October 2013

German Supreme Court Confirms RapidShare Must Police The Internet And Restrict Anonymous Use

A post on TorrentFreak updates us on the continuing saga of the file-hosting site RapidShare. The Supreme Court in Germany has apparently confirmed a regional High Court decision that had itself confirmed two earlier verdicts concerning the Swiss company: 

On Techdirt.

26 October 2013

German Minister Calls Security A 'Super Fundamental Right' That Outranks Privacy; German Press Call Him 'Idiot In Charge'

One of the striking features of the Snowden story is that there has been no serious attempt to deny the main claims about massive, global spying. Instead, the fall-back position has become: well, yeah, maybe we did some of that, but look how many lives were saved as a result. For example, the day after the first leaks appeared, it was suggested that PRISM was responsible for stopping a plot to bomb the NYC subways. However, further investigation showed that probably wasn't the case. 

On Techdirt.

19 September 2013

Germany's Spies Have NSA Envy: Currently Working To Build Their Own Comprehensive Snooping System

One unfortunate knock-on effect of the revelations about the extent of NSA information gathering seems to be that the spies in other countries are starting to feel under-informed by comparison. Of course, many of them already knew about what was going on: in addition to the British and the Dutch, there are now reports that Germany was also kept informed at the highest levels (original in German.) That would probably explain the revelation by the news magazine Der Spiegel that Germany has been trying to beef up its own snooping capabilities for a while

On Techdirt.

Is The US Using Prism To Engage In Commercial Espionage Against Germany And Others?

As we noted last week, one of the key claims following the revelations about the Prism program was that it was aimed at those outside the US, and that US citizens were caught up in it only incidentally. A further leak concerned the Boundless Informant analysis tool, one of whose maps showed which regions of the world were subject to most surveillance. Along with obvious hotspots like Iran and Pakistan, Germany too was among those of particular interest, as was the US (whoops.) A story on reason.com offers a clue as to why that might be

On Techdirt.

31 March 2013

If Microsoft Shuts Down Google Maps In Germany, How Does That Benefit The Public?

Most sane human beings have stopped trying to keep up with the interwined legal actions arising out of the smartphone patent wars between Apple, Google, Motorola, Nokia, Microsoft and all the rest. The cases, though, are still grinding through the courts, which periodically throw out their verdicts. According to Florian Mueller, one such decision in Germany is imminent

On Techdirt.

German Newspaper 'Snippet' Law Passes: Watered Down, But Still Stupid

For a year now, Techdirt has been following the sorry saga of Germany's attempt to make search engines and others pay for licenses to show even small excerpts from online newspapers. The main motivation seems to be to take money from Google for being successful, and to give it to the German publishers that are struggling. 

On Techdirt.

17 March 2013

Top German Police Officer: 'Anyone On The Internet Has Left The Private Sphere'

The Internet as a mass medium is still relatively young, so it's no surprise that its function in society and in our daily lives is still being defined. One important question concerns the nature of our actions online: to what extent are they public? Here's one rather extreme view, expressed by Jürgen Maurer, vice-president of Germany's Federal Criminal Police Office, as reported by Der Spiegel (original in German): 

On Techdirt.

10 March 2013

The Continuing Disaster Of Open Government In Germany

Recently, Techdirt noted that the European "database right" could pose a threat to releasing public data there. But that assumes that central governments are at least trying to open things up. A splendid piece by Sebastian Haselbeck on the Open Gov Germany blog, with the self-explanatory title "German government screws up open data," underlines that things can fail because the government itself sabotages transparency moves. 

On Techdirt.

10 February 2013

German Court Recognizes That An Internet Connection Is Now Indispensable For Modern Life

The German Federal Court of Justice in Karlsruhe has acknowledged that an Internet connection is indispensable for life in the modern world, and that being cut off for several months deserves monetary compensation per day for the knock-on losses that inevitably causes: 

On Techdirt.

08 December 2012

German Chancellor Says Only Print Media Can Teach You 'Real' Reading

Angela Merkel may be Germany's Chancellor, and therefore a busy woman, but since she trained as a chemist, you might expect her to have a more positive view about new technology than this statement from a recent interview (original video in German), reported by the Netzpolitik blog, would suggest: 

On Techdirt.

Iran's Latest Move To Stifle Dissent: Requiring ID Cards To Go Online

For a while, Techdirt has been tracking Iran's continuing efforts to throttle its citizens' access to troublesome materials online. These have included blocking all audio and video files, and even shutting down Gmail, albeit temporarily. But stopping people accessing sites in this way is not the only approach. Here's another, from a report by Der Spiegel (original in German): 

On Techdirt.

A Tale of Two Lock-ins

Yesterday I was reviewing Mozilla's current position in the browser sector and its wider achievements in the Web world. One thing I omitted to mention there was that even if it did nothing more for the rest of its existence - unlikely given its current fecundity - it would still deserve our thanks for what it managed to accomplish in the early years of its life.

On Open Enterprise.

Recording Industry Rep Suggests Parents Should Slap Their Children To Stop Piracy

One of the many problems with the "guilty until proven innocent" approach to tackling unauthorized filesharing is that it's not clear exactly who should get the punishment. For example, in France, we saw someone convicted not for infringement that he had committed, but something his then-wife had done and even admitted. And it's not just spousal activity that is problematic, as TorrentFreak reports in this interesting case from Germany

On Techdirt.

11 November 2012

German Company Wants To Protect Its Use Of The '@' Sign: What Could Possibly Go Wrong?

A little while back, Techdirt wrote about a rather brave French company that tried to trademark the Anonymous logo. Now Der Spiegel is reporting that someone wants a German "wordmark" on the "@" sign (original in German). The company involved has the rather unusual name "@ T.E.L.L.", where the initials apparently stand for "Tradinghouse for Exclusive Luxury Labels". Although it's not really clear what the connection is, it is seeking to protect its use of the @-symbol for various classes of luxury goods (application in German), including the following: 

On Techdirt.

13 October 2012

German Gov't Inadvertently Reveals Police Monitor Gmail, Skype, Facebook & Use Snooping Malware

Transparency is worth having for itself, since governments often tend to behave a little better when they know that someone is watching. But occasionally, requests for data turn up something big and totally unexpected because someone failed to notice quite what the information provided implies. 

On Techdirt

Before and After ACTA - the Video

In the last year I've written what some might have felt were rather too many thousand words about ACTA. But I'd argue that it was an important moment, not least because of the European Parliament's refusal to ratify the treaty, which was quite unprecedented for an international agreement of this kind.

On Open Enterprise blog.

German Pirate Party Makes Some Shockingly Unshocking Proposals For Copyright Reform

As Techdirt has reported, after a year of amazing successes, the German Pirate Party is going through something of a bad patch at the moment. One reason is that it seems to spend more time squabbling in public than on crafting policy documents that will win over the public. That makes the recent appearance of proposals for copyright reform particularly significant. 

On Techdirt.

29 September 2012

Top Pirate Party Member Has DMCA Takedown Notices Issued In Her Name

Julia Schramm is one of the rising stars of the German Pirate Party: in April, when she was just 27 years old, she was elected to the national party's executive committee. No surprise, then, that she is against copyright: in a podcast she described intellectual property as "disgusting" (original in German.) More surprising is that, despite this, she signed a contract with Knaus-Verlag, part of the publishing giant Random House group, to write a book. Perhaps the $130,000 advance had something to do with it. 

On Techdirt.