July 9, 2012 (UN Affirms Internet Freedom as a Basic Right)
BENTON'S COMMUNICATIONS-RELATED HEADLINES for MONDAY, JULY 9, 2012
This week’s agenda http://benton.org/calendar/2012-07-08--P1W/
INTERNET/BROADBAND
United Nations Affirms Internet Freedom as a Basic Right
'Internet freedom' becomes hot cause for politicians across political spectrum
Commerce Department Awards Contract for Management of Key Internet Functions to ICANN - press release
Inside Verizon’s attack on network neutrality - analysis
Free Press drops network neutrality suit
Companies see spike in cyberattacks on critical infrastructure systems
Google Sued For Misappropriating Trade Secrets [links to web]
Pentagon Digs In on Cyberwar Front [links to web]
OWNERSHIP
At Sun Valley Confab, New Humility for Web Stars [links to web]
Facebook, Yahoo Kiss and Make Up [links to web]
EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS
Executive Order -- Assignment of National Security and Emergency Preparedness Communications Functions - public notice
FCC examining storm damage to area phone networks after 911 calls failed
ELECTIONS AND MEDIA
Eight in 10 Swing-State Voters Have Seen Campaign Ads - research [links to web]
ESPN Grabs Political Football [links to web]
TELEVISION
Top TV Stations in Top 50 Markets Must Send FCC Political Files By Early August
NAB Files Motion to Block FCC Political Ad Rule
Lawmakers cheer NFL change to blackout rule
Netflix just became cable’s biggest TV network
Fastest growing segment of piracy? Live TV
Converting TV Laughs Into Dollars [links to web]
HEALTH
Teen's Petition Leads to 'Seventeen' Body Image Pledge
Social Media Passionate and Divided Over Court’s Health Care Ruling
PRIVACY
Searls: 'We do not need Do Not Track legislation'
More Than Five Percent of Free Mobile Apps Include Adware [links to web]
JOURNALISM
3 other papers besides Chicago Tribune identify false bylines in Journatic stories
The Fissures Are Growing for Papers - analysis
GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
More Demands on Cell Carriers in Surveillance
POLICYMAKERS
Ex-Commerce Secretary Won't Be Charged In Hit-Run
NEWS FROM ABROAD
European Parliament rejects ACTA - press release
EU Court of Justice rules selling 'used' licenses for downloaded software is legal
MORE ONLINE
If Thoreau were to move to Walden today, would he bring the Internet? Maybe. - op-ed [links to web]
Life’s Too Short for So Much E-Mail - analysis [links to web]
INTERNET/BROADBAND
INTERNET FREEDOM A BASIC RIGHT
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Somini Sengupta]
Will Internet companies help or hinder government authorities that try to restrict their citizens from using the Web freely? And will their customers, investors or shareholders care enough to do something about it? That debate was freshly stirred on July 5 as the United Nations Human Rights Council passed a landmark resolution supporting freedom of expression on the Internet. Even China, which filters online content through a firewall, backed the resolution. It affirmed that “the same rights that people have offline must also be protected online, in particular freedom of expression, which is applicable regardless of frontiers and through any media of one’s choice.” The ball, in some ways, is now in the court of the technology companies that produce the tools that countries use to monitor and circumscribe their citizens on the Internet. China’s firewall uses technology from Cisco, for instance. American law-enforcement agencies routinely seek information from Internet companies; Twitter is among a handful of companies that insists on informing users when their data is sought, as it did with supporters of WikiLeaks and the Occupy Wall Street movement.
benton.org/node/128586 | New York Times
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INTERNET FREEDOM IS HOT CAUSE
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Brendan Sasso]
Some groups may be hoping to use their Internet freedom declarations to attract to their causes some of the millions of people who participated in the protests against the Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA). But converting the enthusiasm for Internet freedom into specific policy goals may prove difficult because of how differently people understand what “freedom” means. Conservatives, for example, decry network neutrality as a government takeover of the Internet, but liberals say the regulations are necessary to protect the openness of the Internet from manipulation by Internet service providers. Rep. Ron Paul (R-TX) and his son, freshman Sen. Rand Paul (R-KY), declared their support for an Internet freedom manifesto from the Campaign for Liberty. The manifesto backed by Ron and Rand Paul accuses liberals of distorting the concept of liberty. “Internet collectivists are clever,” the document reads. “They are masters at hijacking the language of freedom and liberty to disingenuously push for more centralized control. 'Openness' means government control of privately owned infrastructure. 'Net neutrality' means government acting as arbiter and enforcer of what it deems to be 'neutral'.”
benton.org/node/128584 | Hill, The
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ICANN RENEWED
[SOURCE: National Telecommunications and Information Administration, AUTHOR: Press release]
The National Telecommunications and Information Administration awarded the Internet Assigned Numbers Authority (IANA) functions contract to the Internet Corporation for Assigned Names and Numbers (ICANN). The IANA functions are key technical services critical to the continued operations of the Internet's underlying address book, the Domain Name System (DNS).
Last year, in anticipation of the contract's expiration, NTIA consulted with Internet stakeholders, both domestic and international, on how best to enhance the performance of these services. Based on input from the global community, NTIA added new requirements. Those include a clear separation between the policy development associated with the IANA services, and implementation by the IANA functions contractor; a robust company-wide conflict of interest policy; a heightened respect for local national law; and a series of consultation and reporting requirements to increase transparency and accountability. The process used over the last year, and the resulting new contract requirements, are tailored to ensure respect for the relevant global multistakeholder policy processes. This is consistent with NTIA's belief that the multistakeholder model is the most effective way to address Internet issues, and further internationalizes the IANA functions.
The IANA Functions include: (1) the coordination of the assignment of technical Internet protocol parameters; (2) the administration of certain responsibilities associated with the Internet DNS root zone management; (3) the allocation of Internet numbering resources; and (4) other services related to the management of the ARPA and INT top-level domains (TLDs). The current IANA contract expires on September 30, 2012. The period of performance for the contract announced today is October 1, 2012 - September 30, 2015, with two separate two-year option periods for a total contract period of seven years.
benton.org/node/128344 | National Telecommunications and Information Administration | Bloomberg | The Hill
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INSIDE VERIZON’S NETWORK NEUTRALITY ATTACK
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Stacey Higginbotham]
[Commentary] Verizon is taking aim at network neutrality regulations enacted by the Federal Communications Commission with an outsized legal appeal. The company’s 116-page tome filed on the evening of July 2 has a glossary, 53 pages of legal argument, inflammatory prose on regulating the Internet and even a claim that the FCC is trampling the First Amendment rights of ISPs. It’s all a bit much but Verizon may prevail. That’s because, underneath all the bluster, Verizon has a strong core argument that the FCC overstepped its bounds in enacting these net neutrality rules. The FCC, you see, can regulate the physical pipes over which packets travel on the network pretty stringently, but less so the actual service or content those packets are meant to deliver. Consider that the FCC can regulate roads but not the mail delivery using those roads. The question of the FCC’s authority to regulate broadband is the biggest issue and likely the one on which the case will hinge. This same court has already rejected the FCC’s authority to regulate broadband in the 2010 Comcast case, and it may again. The FCC’s response to the suit is due in September, so we’ll have to wait until then to see the agency’s response and until December or January 2013 for the case to be heard before the court. The hope is we’ll have a ruling in spring of 2013.
benton.org/node/128328 | GigaOm
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FREE PRESS DROPS SUIT
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Brendan Sasso]
Free Press dropped its lawsuit over the Federal Communications Commission's network neutrality rules. The group had argued that the FCC’s rules did not go far enough, and the goal of its lawsuit was to force the FCC to expand the scope of the regulations. The Free Press suit alleged that the rules arbitrarily provided less protection for wireless Internet access, such as through smartphones, than traditional wired Internet access. "We felt that there were better ways to accomplish our goals of promoting Internet freedom, and decided to direct our resources elsewhere in the continued campaign to preserve the open Internet," said Matt Wood, Free Press policy director.
benton.org/node/128338 | Hill, The
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SPIKE IN CYBERATTACKS
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Jennifer Martinez]
Companies that operate critical infrastructure systems have reported a sharp rise in cybersecurity incidents over a three-year period, according to a new report from an arm of the Department of Homeland Security. Companies reported 198 cyber incidents in 2011, up from 41 incidents in 2010 and just nine in 2009, the report said. The rise in reported incidents comes as the Senate is gridlocked on legislation that would require operators of critical infrastructure to meet new cybersecurity standards. The report could provide fodder for lawmakers looking to move Sen. Joe Lieberman’s (I-CT) cybersecurity bill to the floor. The bill has been waiting for floor time since it was introduced in February, but Senate Majority Leader Harry Reid (D-NV) has repeatedly said he plans to act on the measure this year. The bulk of the cybersecurity incidents in 2011 were reported by companies in the water sector, accounting for about 41 percent of the incidents submitted to the department’s cyber emergency response team for industrial control systems, known as ICS-CERT. Companies in the energy sector accounted for 33 percent and 44 percent of the reported incidents in 2009 and 2010, respectively.
benton.org/node/128339 | Hill, The
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EMERGENCY COMMUNICATIONS
NATIONAL SECURITY AND EMERGENCY PREPAREDNESS
[SOURCE: The White House, AUTHOR: President Barack Obama]
The Federal Government must have the ability to communicate at all times and under all circumstances to carry out its most critical and time sensitive missions. Survivable, resilient, enduring, and effective communications, both domestic and international, are essential to enable the executive branch to communicate within itself and with: the legislative and judicial branches; State, local, territorial, and tribal governments; private sector entities; and the public, allies, and other nations. Such communications must be possible under all circumstances to ensure national security, effectively manage emergencies, and improve national resilience. The views of all levels of government, the private and nonprofit sectors, and the public must inform the development of national security and emergency preparedness (NS/EP) communications policies, programs, and capabilities. All agencies, to the extent consistent with law, shall: (a) determine the scope of their NS/EP communications requirements, and provide information regarding such requirements to the Executive Committee;
(b) prepare policies, plans, and procedures concerning communications facilities, services, or equipment under their management or operational control to maximize their capability to respond to the NS/EP needs of the Federal Government;
(c) propose initiatives, where possible, that may benefit multiple agencies or other Federal entities;
(d) administer programs that support broad NS/EP communications goals and policies;
(e) submit reports annually, or as otherwise requested, to the Executive Committee, regarding agency NS/EP communications activities;
(f) devise internal acquisition strategies in support of the centralized acquisition approach provided by the General Services Administration pursuant to section 5.4 of this order; and
(g) provide the Secretary of Homeland Security with timely reporting on NS/EP communications status to inform the common operating picture required under 6 U.S.C. 321(d).
benton.org/node/128574 | White House, The | National Journal
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FCC LOOKING AT STORM DAMAGE AND RECOVERY
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Brendan Sasso]
The Federal Communications Commission is looking into the damage that the massive storm that swept from the Midwest into the Northeast on June 29 caused to wireless and landline phone networks in the mid-Atlantic. As of the morning of July 2, 16 percent of cell towers in West Virginia were still disabled. Nearly 11 percent of Maryland's towers were down, as well as 9 percent in Virginia and 3 percent in Washington, D.C., according to the FCC. Widespread power outages also caused problems for many 911 call centers in the region. Lauren Kravetz, a spokeswoman for the FCC's Public Safety and Homeland Security Bureau, said the commission is still investigating the problems with emergency calls, but that 911 operators might have been unable to identify a caller's number and location. She said it is unclear how many people were unable to make an emergency call at all.
benton.org/node/128341 | Hill, The
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TELEVISION
POLITICAL FILES RULES
[SOURCE: Broadcasting&Cable, AUTHOR: John Eggerton]
The top four television stations in the top 50 markets will have to start sending their political files to the Federal Communications Commission for online posting starting the first week of August. The Office of Management and Budget's approval of the paperwork collection requirements of the rules was published in the Federal Register July 3 and the rules take effect 30 days after that. Stations do not have to send any archival material, just new political and buys, who is buying them, and their price. OMB approved the rules on June 21, though they had through June 30 to vet the comments.
benton.org/node/128337 | Broadcasting&Cable
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NAB MOTION
[SOURCE: National Journal, AUTHOR: Juliana Gruenwald]
The National Association of Broadcasters filed a motion on July 3 in federal court to stop a Federal Communications Commission rule requiring television stations to post information online about political ad spending. The FCC said earlier on Tuesday that the rule, which it adopted in April, will go into effect Aug. 2. In response, the NAB filed a stay with the U.S. District Court for the District of Columbia to keep the rule from going into effect.
benton.org/node/128356 | National Journal
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NFL BLACKOUT RULE
[SOURCE: The Hill, AUTHOR: Jennifer Martinez]
A trio of lawmakers has come out cheering for the National Football League’s recent decision to change its TV blackout rule. Sens. Sherrod Brown (D-OH), Richard Blumenthal (D-CT) and Rep. Brian Higgins (D-NY) have touted the league owners’ recent decision to let teams decide whether local TV broadcasters can air games if the stadium is at least 85 percent full. The original NFL rule had required broadcasters to black out the games if the local team did not sell out the stadium. Sen Brown said that the decision ensured “that all [Cincinnati] Bengals fans can root for the home team — not just those who can afford tickets.” The Ohio senator has previously said that the recovering economy and high unemployment rate has caused more fans to stay home than go to games. Sen Blumenthal called the new policy “a step in the right direction.”
benton.org/node/128342 | Hill, The
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NETFLIX VIEWERSHIP
[SOURCE: GigaOm, AUTHOR: Janko Roettgers]
Netflix subscribers watched more than one billion hours of video in June, according to the company’s CEO Reed Hastings. That means that U.S. subscribers watched around 80 minutes of Netflix per day last month, which makes the service more popular than any traditional U.S. cable network, estimated BTIG analyst Richard Greenfield.
benton.org/node/128333 | GigaOm
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LIVE TV PIRACY
[SOURCE: paidContent.org, AUTHOR: Laura Hazard Owen]
A new Google study entitled “The six business models for copyright infringement,” just released with the UK’s PRS (Performing Right Society) for Music, finds that live TV is the fastest-growing segment of copyright infringement. Global pageviews of live TV sites were up 61 percent for the year ending May 2012. Live TV sites link to illegal streams of network and paid TV. The study looked at 51 live TV sites — it doesn’t mention any of them by name, but a couple of popular ones are Sidereel.com and TVDuck.com, which feature a mixture of legal and illegal content — and found that a third of them are based in the United States. Two-thirds of the sites are funded by advertisers, and “compared to the other segments Live TV Gateway has very high levels of direct access and referrals from social networks.” Live TV sites are more likely than the other business models to have mobile sites and social network presence “in the form of a social networking ‘action’ icon, for example Facebook ‘like’ buttons, Twitter ‘tweet’ button or similar.”
benton.org/node/128327 | paidContent.org
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HEALTH
BODY IMAGE PLEDGE
[SOURCE: AdWeek, AUTHOR: Emma Bazilian]
Two months ago, 14-year-old Julia Bluhm of Waterville, ME decided that she was tired of listening to her ballet classmates complain about their bodies, which weren’t always as rail-thin or clear-skinned as those of the retouched models in their favorite magazines. So Bluhm, a member of SPARK (an organization that aims to end the sexualization of girls in media), started a petition on Change.org to ask Seventeen magazine to print one unaltered photo spread a month. And after collecting nearly 85,000 signatures, staging a demonstration outside of Seventeen’s New York offices, launching a Twitter campaign, and meeting with editor in chief Ann Shoket, the teen magazine finally listened. In the August issue of Seventeen, Shoket wrote an editor’s letter addressing the concerns of Bluhm and her supporters. “Recently I’ve heard from some girls who were concerned that we’d strayed from our promise to show real girls as they really are… Like all magazines, we retouch images -- removing wrinkles in fabric, stray hair, a few zits, random bra straps -- but we never alter the way the girls on our pages really look,” wrote Shoket. “While we work hard behind the scenes to make sure we’re being authentic, your notes made me realize that it was time for us to be more public about our commitment.” So as an extension of its ongoing Body Peace Project, Seventeen is launching the Body Peace Treaty, which includes pledges to “never change girls’ body or face shapes… always feature real girls and models who are healthy,” and “be totally up-front about what goes into our photo shoots.”
benton.org/node/128335 | AdWeek
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SOCIAL MEDIA PASSIONATE AND DIVIDED OVER COURT’S HEALTH CARE RULING
[SOURCE: Project for Excellence in Journalism, AUTHOR: Mark Jurkowitz]
From “Crushing New Taxes” to “a step in the right direction,” social media leapt into action following the Supreme Court ruling last Thursday which let the Affordable Care Act stand – including the controversial element requiring all individuals to obtain health insurance by 2014. The response was passionate, and at first heavily tilted toward those in favor of the ruling, according to a special report by the Pew Research Center’s Project for Excellence in Journalism. But by the end of the weekend, the tenor of the conversation had changed as those in opposition became more vocal. This sentiment matches closely the divided public opinion over the health care ruling. Each of the three platforms studied—Twitter, Facebook and blogs—came down in somewhat different places. On Twitter, where the conversation was by far the heaviest of the three platforms (some 2.1 million statements in all), users were evenly split between those who favored the ruling and those who opposed it (18% of the conversation voiced support for the ruling while 17% voiced opposition). On Facebook, dissenters slightly edged out those in favor (29% opposed and 25% in favor). And in blogs, opposition to the ruling outweighed support by nearly two-to-one (29% opposed versus 15% in favor). These are some the findings of PEJ’s study of 2,133,392 statements on Twitter, 82,770 on Facebook and 20,459 on blogs from the time the ruling was announced, 10:15 a.m. Thursday June 28, through Sunday, July 1.
benton.org/node/128332 | Project for Excellence in Journalism
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PRIVACY
DO NOT TRACK
[SOURCE: NetworkWorld, AUTHOR: Colin Neagle]
Imagine stopping at an information kiosk during a long road trip to use the rest room and check some maps, then later finding GPS tracking devices unwittingly attached to your car that have monitored everywhere you've traveled since you left that information kiosk. That's how Doc Searls, a fellow at the Center for Information Technology & Society and the author of the Intention Economy, describes browsing the Internet. A good example is Dictionary.com. The online dictionary often appears at the top of search engine results when users are looking for a quick definition. Once they've visited the actual site to get that definition, they're targeted by 234 tracking mechanisms. The only difference between these two examples is that, when online, most people never see that GPS tracking device. "You don't expect someone to stick something to your car and track where you're going, and yet that's normative now, because there's a kind of no-harm, no-foul orientation to that," Searls says. "It's not that we in any genuine sense think that's OK. It's that 99.99% of people have no idea what's going on because it's out of sight, out of mind."
benton.org/node/128330 | NetworkWorld
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JOURNALISM
FALSE BYLINES IN JOURNATIC
[SOURCE: Chicago Tribune, AUTHOR: Robert Channick]
Three more newspapers said that hyperlocal content provider Journatic used false bylines on a number of stories they have published, both in print and online. The San Francisco Chronicle, Houston Chronicle and Chicago Sun-Times joined the Chicago Tribune in identifying the use of aliases in stories produced by Journatic, an ethics breach prompting growing concern as more newspapers outsource content. "We've produced lots of stories in lots of places and we've since decided we're going to go in and look at every byline we've ever done," Journatic co-founder and CEO Brian Timpone said. Journatic's use of false bylines came to light during a national radio broadcast during the weekend. "This American Life," which is produced by Chicago public radio station WBEZ-FM, included a segment on aliases in several Journatic-produced stories that ran this year on TribLocal websites, prompting an investigation by the Tribune. That review is under way and expected to wrap up within the next week, according to executives.
benton.org/node/128353 | Chicago Tribune
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NEWSPAPERS
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Davis Carr]
[Commentary] The newspaper industry, by all appearances, is starting to come apart. Between operational fiascos and flailing attempts to slash costs on the fly, it’s clear that the print newspaper business, which has been fretting over a looming crisis for the last 15 years, is struggling to stay afloat. There are smart people trying to innovate, and tons of great journalism is published daily, but the financial distress is more visible by the week. “Most newspapers are in a place right now that they are going to have to make big cuts somewhere, and big seams are bound to show up at some point,” said Rick Edmonds, a media business analyst at the Poynter Institute. Some of the bigger cracks can’t be papered over by financial engineering. Hedge funds, which thought they had bought in at the bottom, are scrambling for exits that don’t exist. Many newspaper companies are hugely overburdened with debt from ill-timed purchases. And though it is far less discussed, newspapers are being clobbered by paltry returns on underfunded pension plans.
benton.org/node/128583 | New York Times
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GOVERNMENT & COMMUNICATIONS
CELL PHONE SURVEILLANCE
[SOURCE: New York Times, AUTHOR: Eric Lichtblau]
In the first public accounting of its kind, cellphone carriers reported that they responded to a startling 1.3 million demands for subscriber information last year from law enforcement agencies seeking text messages, caller locations and other information in the course of investigations. The cellphone carriers’ reports, which come in response to a Congressional inquiry, document an explosion in cellphone surveillance in the last five years, with the companies turning over records thousands of times a day in response to police emergencies, court orders, law enforcement subpoenas and other requests. The reports also reveal a sometimes uneasy partnership with law enforcement agencies, with the carriers frequently rejecting demands that they considered legally questionable or unjustified. At least one carrier even referred some inappropriate requests to the F.B.I. The information represents the first time data have been collected nationally on the frequency of cell surveillance by law enforcement.
benton.org/node/128587 | New York Times | WSJ
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POLICYMAKERS
BRYSON NOT CHARGES
[SOURCE: Associated Press, AUTHOR: ]
Prosecutors declined to file criminal charges against former U.S. Commerce Secretary John Bryson, saying a seizure caused a bizarre series of traffic collisions that led to his resignation. Bryson's Lexus struck a car on June 9 that was stopped for a train in San Gabriel. He spoke briefly with the three occupants then hit the car again as he departed, police said. Bryson then rammed another vehicle in a neighboring city a few minutes later. He was found unconscious in his vehicle. The Commerce Department said at the time that Sec Bryson had a "limited recall of the events" and had not suffered any previous seizures. Bryson, 68, was cited by police for felony hit-and run, and tests revealed he didn't have any alcohol or drugs in his system. Low amounts of Ambien were found in his bloodstream, but investigators couldn't determine if the sleep aid was a factor in the collisions. "Both treating doctors agree that suspect was suffering from confusion following a seizure and crashed as a result," court documents say. "Based on doctors' opinions there is insufficient evidence to show knowing failure to provide personal information for hit-and-run."
benton.org/node/128351 | Associated Press
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NEWS FROM ABROAD
EU REJECTS ACTA
[SOURCE: European Parliament, AUTHOR: Press release]
The Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA), was rejected by the European Parliament on July 4, and hence cannot become law in the European Union. This was the first time that Parliament exercised its Lisbon Treaty power to reject an international trade agreement. 478 MEPs voted against ACTA, 39 in favor, and 165 abstained. While debating whether to give its consent to ACTA, Parliament experienced unprecedented direct lobbying by thousands of EU citizens who called on it to reject ACTA, in street demonstrations, e-mails to MEPs and calls to their offices. Parliament also received a petition, signed by 2.8 million citizens worldwide, urging it to reject the agreement. ACTA was negotiated by the EU and its member states, the US, Australia, Canada, Japan, Mexico, Morocco, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea and Switzerland to improve the enforcement of anti-counterfeiting law internationally. Wednesday's vote means that neither the EU nor its individual member states can join the agreement.
benton.org/node/128358 | European Parliament | ars technica | GigaOm
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USED LICENSES OK’ED IN EU
[SOURCE: The Verge, AUTHOR: Adi Robertson]
The European Union Court of Justice has upheld the right to sell "used" copies of downloaded software. Oracle had brought a suit against UsedSoft, which resells old Oracle software licenses, arguing that it was essentially facilitating piracy by helping to transfer a license between users. Unlike physical copies of software or things like CDs, which are easier to argue for as discrete items, a digital download is not a tangible product. Nonetheless, a preliminary ruling found that Oracle's exclusive right to sell even digital software is "exhausted" after the first sale, leaving users free to sell the license to someone else. It also overruled the terms of service many companies use: "even if the license agreement prohibits a further transfer," the court ruled, "the rightsholder can no longer oppose the resale of that copy." Patches or other changes that are installed after the original download are also counted as part of the original sale.
benton.org/node/128325 | Verge, The
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