Google Brazil chief jailed, court orders YouTube blackout over clips

Google Brazil chief jailed, court orders YouTube blackout over clips | World | News | National Post: "Google’s head of operations in Brazil was detained by the country’s federal police Wednesday after the company failed to heed a judge’s order to take down YouTube videos that the court ruled violate Brazilian electoral law.
The detention came as another court ordered YouTube to remove clips of an anti-Islam film that has been blamed for deadly protests by Muslims around the globe, both joining a spate of court-ordered content-removal cases against Google’s video-sharing website in Brazil.
The arrest of Google executive Fabio Jose Silva Coelho was announced in Sao Paulo. A press release issued by the federal police said he was not expected to remain in jail and should be released later in the day after signing a document promising to appear in court." 'via Blog this'

The Twitter Joke Judgment: The Law with Unintended Consequences?

The Twitter Joke Judgment: The Law with Unintended Consequences?: "By describing and defining the Internet as a 'public electronic communications network' for the purposes of the Communications Act because it is ultimately funded by the public and because it facilitates communication with the public as a whole, the judgment appears to implicate inadvertently a wide range of network and service providers within the scope of EU and UK communications law.  It leaves open the possibility, for example, that Twitter could be bound by the above regulatory requirements.
In Chambers, the prosecution won on this point, successfully establishing that the message was sent over a public electronic communications network, and the defendant won his case overall. "
'via Blog this'

panGloss: Section 127 Communications Act 2003 - Threat or Menace?

panGloss: Section 127 Communications Act 2003 - Threat or Menace?: " LJ Bingham in Collins, in para 7 he observes the existence of the 1988 Act and thus deduces that the purpose of s 127 is "not to protect people against receipt of unsolicited messages which they may find seriously objectionable". Instead, it is "to prohibit the use of a service provided and funded by the public for the benefit of the public for the transmission of communications which contravene the basic standards of our society".
This history can clearly be seen of course in the preceding ancestor statutes - which originate from a time of state monopoly services over post and phone.  What LJ Bingham seems to be acknowledging is that  s 127 as formulated way back when, was about not wasting public money on transmitting material which was unpleasant. As such, the  words used forbid categories of speech which would now be permitted speech  in public using the Handyside test - or to put it another way, would be allowed in any pub or park." 'via Blog this'

Copyright in thirteen clips | Lex Ferenda

Copyright in thirteen clips | Lex Ferenda: "Copyright in thirteen clips
As part of the wholesome September activity of revisiting past teaching, I was reminded of a class I am not teaching this year, but may be of wider interest (or at least trivia).  It’s a presentation on copyright law to an audience of (mostly) media studies students.  This task came my way a couple of years ago and after a pleasant bit of reading and brainstorming the result was the all-about-copyright playlist, which after further changes looked like this.  Enjoy the links!" 'via Blog this'

OECD – Who studies abroad and where? - University World News

OECD – Who studies abroad and where? - University World News: "These data illustrate the dramatic growth in foreign enrolments over the past three decades, with the number of students enrolled outside their country of citizenship rising dramatically from 0.8 million worldwide in 1975 to 4.1 million in 2010 – an increase of more than five-fold" while overall university numbers increased only 77% in that period. 'via Blog this'

Germany pushes for an end to massive fines for hijacked Wi-Fi

Germany pushes for an end to massive fines for hijacked Wi-Fi | ZDNet: "Some German lawyers specialise in this field (a practice known as Abmahnung in German law), demanding huge sums of money on behalf of rights holders if they find copyright infringements have been made over a free Wi-Fi network. The city of Berlin thinks that the amount of damages requested in such cases is inappropriately high and may endanger the financial existence of citizens or owners of small firms.
A new legal initiative will be put before the Bundesrat (the assembly of German states, comparable to the US Senate), asking it to consider how to limit WLAN owners' liability. If the initiative is approved, the Bundesrat will ask the German federal government to pass a law bolstering the protection for Wi-Fi network owners." 'via Blog this'

RoboCops - or why copyright and libel put-back procedures are needed...

ORG Zine | RoboCops: "Granted that it's not unreasonable that there should be some mechanism to enable people to complain about material that infringes their copyrights or is libellous, what doesn't get sufficient attention is that there should also be a means of redress for those who are unjustly accused. Even without this week's incidents we have enough evidence - thanks to the detailed collection of details showing how DMCA notices have been used and abused in the years since the law's passage being continuously complied at Chilling Effects - to be able to see the damage that overbroad, knee-jerk deletion can do. It's clear that balance needs to be restored. Users should be notified promptly when the content they have posted is removed; there should be a fast turnaround means of redress; and there clearly needs to be a mechanism by which users can say, "This content has been cleared for use"." 'via Blog this'