The Free Internet Act (thackday@googlegroups.com)
Cecilia Tanaka (Google Docs)
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THE FREE
INTERNET ACT
If you are not contributing, commenting or viewing, do NOT hinder us.
Version 1 - 28th February 2012
Free Edit
Do not remove unless you are Downing_Street_Cat or the person that posted it. (Exception, the post has already been resolved.)
Public bulletin
Downing_Street_Cat Note:
Whoever thought it was a good idea to capitalise ‘data’, ‘upload’...etc. Should learn that IT IS NOT RUDDY NEEDED.
24/02/12 - Just another note: I have removed the child porn bit as if we can’t get it right then it WILL be used against us.
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BeniwaAnon Qs:
24/02/12 - Should this be treated as an Act, Bill, Treaty, Agreement or even Protocol?
24/02/12 - Suggestion for definitions: P2P, Bittorrent, Magnet.
Update: on 2-28, FIA was reverted to Feb. 24th.
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Anonymous:
Should we include specifically that data on any social websites (Facebook, Twitter, etc.) will not be monitored/deleted (or used in court) in very clear wording?
People need to make copies of this in case it “disappears” from Google Docs.
There needs to be a separate article describing the basic Internet rights of an individual or citizen.
Gregbenner1:
is this document going to treat the Internet as a stand alone body, with its own laws and regulations, or is it going to rely on laws from the uploaders/downloaders’ country?[a]
Table of Contents
Title II – The Freedom of Internet Act
Article III. Restrictions on the Internet
Article V. Judicial Proceedings
Article VI. Appropriate Punishments
Article VII. Rights of the user
Article VIII. Liability and Settlement of Copyright Infringement Claim
**Law and Tech support being requested for Definitions**
Title I – Definitions
Administrator – Any person who has:
1) The authority, permission, or right; and
2) The capability, including[b] legitimate access[c] to alter the hardware and/or software of an information system or service provider.
Unless:
(1) that person’s authority, permission, right, or access are no greater than the majority of other users of the information system or service
or
(2) the greater authority, permission, right and access are functions of the information system or service.
[d]Anonymous – Without reference to an true identity. Entirely without identification, or possibly pseudonymous if that pseudonym is not linkable to an Identity.
Anonymous Network - A network of computers whose sole purpose is to anonymize the traffic passing through it in order to hide the identity of a user. Including but not limited to; TOR, Darknet, Virtual Private Networks or Proxies.
Bandwidth - The breadth of data that can be successfully transported in a given period of time by means of network hardware without the occurrence of data loss; measured in bits per second.
Information System – Any system which may contain one or more of a person or persons, hardware, software and related[e] infrastructure, that allow users, service providers or other information systems to receive, remove, process, store and distribute data.
Censorship – The restriction, method of restriction or acts that restrict the distribution, filter the content or modify any data whatsoever in an attempt to restrict the information from reaching others who are eligible for its reception as per laws in place and the creators ideas and understanding of the propagation of data.
Child/Children – Any person under the age of majority for their country of residence, if not defined the universal franchise standard of 18 years of age shall be accepted.
Content – A work, a piece of information or data.
Creator – A person, group, or entity who creates or produces content or derives or modifies content from another creator or creators, as in but not limited to studios, artists, writers or programmers.
Data – A digital representation of information, including but not limited to video, audio or text, which may be readable by or transmissible between either a human or a machine or other information system such as a network of computers.
Download – The act of retrieving, transferring or copying data from an external or remote information system to a local storage medium or device including but not limited to mobile phones or other handsets, personal computers or other personal information systems.
Downloader – A user that has initiated successfull[f]y downloaded of data. (?)
Educational use – The copying and distribution of data to a clearly defined group of people for the sole purpose of teaching, whereas[g] none of the participants have a commercial interests in the use of data.
Electronic Communication – The method of transferring data between multiple information systems by means of electronic method to which information system has access and right of use.
Fair Use – The copying or distribution of any data under copyright in a manner that is for non-profit use, non-commercial use, transformative use (such as parodies and derived creations inspired or based on original content), referential use (such as citation, commentary, or criticism), non-distributive educational use, or as a personal backup of data that has been legally obtained.
File – A self contained piece of data including but not limited to an image, segment of audio or video, text or other work, typically stored on a hard drive, disk or other storage medium or information system, which may be copied, distributed, uploaded, downloaded or otherwise transmitted or received over a network or physically via a physical storage medium.
File Sharing – The upload of data or the action of making data available for the purpose of allowing other parties to download and/or redistribute that data.
Illegal Content [h]– Content that is explicitly forbidden by applicable law.
Internet[i] - A global system of interconnected networks and nodes that use the standard Internet protocol suite (e.g., TCP/IP) [j]to transmit and share information or data.
Internet Service Provider (ISP) – Any organization or person that provides access to the Internet as a service.
Intellectual Property - A common reference to the three state-granted intellectual monopolies Copyright, Patent or Trademark. Such monopolies may be held by legal or natural perso[k]ns.
Internet Protocol - The set of rules which Internet connected devices use to send data to each other.
Link – Any data on a website or that contains[l] the location and a connection to other websites.
MAC ID / MAC Address - Acronym for Media Access Control ID/Address. A unique twelve character address assigned to a network interface or device. Though addresses are uniquely assigned (typically at time of manufacture), new or different addresses can be assigned through software. Valid addresses are encoded in a base 16 numbering system, and may contain both letters and numbers ranging from zero through nine and the letters A through F. They are often written with colons or hyphens used as pair separators (See examples). Example addresses: 00:00:00:00:00:00 or FF-FF-FF-FF-FF-FF.
Media – Digital and non-digital methods of retaining various amounts of information or data. (eg. compact disks, flash drives, or even vinyl records)
[m]P2P -
Private Data[n] – Either of the following:
1) Data that positively identifies a user or any of a user’s property,
2) Data that might cause harm to a user if it were to become public data,
Exception: Data that the user in 1) or 2) has explicitly agreed to make public data is not private data.
Public Data – Any data legally accessible to a user.
Transmission – The process of sending and/or receiving data via propagating a point-to-point or point-to-multi-point signal.
Upload – The act of sending, transferring or copying data from a local storage medium or device including but not limited to mobile phones or other handsets, personal computers or other personal information systems to an external or remote information system.
Uploader – A user that has completed or contributed to an upload to an online storage, site or service, or to another user.
User – An individual that is utilizing or interacts with a service, tool, program, or information system; eg. an uploader or a downloader.
[o]
Title II – The Free Internet Act[p]
Article I. Censorship[q]
A) No Federal or State Governments shall pass any law, nor ratify any treaty, which imposes or administers any kind of censorship on the Internet, except in the situations detailed in Section C.
B) Censorship may only be enforced after illegal material has been found, and no steps can be taken to[r] monitor data being uploaded. Censorship is to be limited to the illegal content and no steps shall be taken to censor legal content uploaded by the party.
C) Censorship is only allowed if content is found to be illegal content in accordance with this act.
[s]
1) All false information in an attempt to misguide, scam, cause damage, trap users financially, or mutilate collateral are considered illegal content .[t][u][v][s]
Article II. Culpability[t][u]
A) Only the creator or uploader of data is responsible for whether that data is legal to upload, possess or make available to other users or information services.
1) A creator or uploader of illegal data is subject to judicial proceedings as laid out in Article V.[w]
2) Punishment may be acted on with the procedures from Article VI or punishment determined by his/her country of current residence.
B) If the content under considerations is a work that was partially or fully derived from another content under copyright, it is required that the derived[x] should,
- contain a minimum of 40% of the original content,
- be wholly comprised of sections of the original,
- not be a subtitled parody video,
to be illegal content.
[x]1) If the data is similar in look, feel, presentation or idea but of different origin and is a original work other than for the similarity, it is not culpable. (Trademarks, registered names...etc are exempted from this.)
2) If the new products are released as a series of parts then combined content poster, fan art etc are not culpable. The content is to be considered to evaluate culpability.[y]
3) An imitation, parody or data derived from real world presence of a copyrighted content as in but not limited to the name, photograph of a
[The above clause was added to prevent people from abusing copyright other than for fair use by inserting a small fraction of extra content or by dividing the content, this additionally protects users from copyright when creating derived content or in any other likely case.][z][aa][ab]
C) Any website includient is only subject to process in accordance with Article IV.[ac]
D) Internet Service Providers shall not be liable for damages caused by any illegal upload or download initiated by a user of their service.
1) ISPs shall not monitor the content of data being uploaded or downloaded by their users, except as allowed in Article V.
2) ISPs shall not filter, restrict or distort any data being uploaded or downloaded in any way that is based upon the content of that Data.
3) ISPs shall not be required to alter their service in any way due to the illegal actions of a user of their service.
E) No user shall be held liable for the upload of data unless it can be proven that the User has certain knowledge that the data was not legal to upload in the country or countries where the upload was initiated and/or completed.[ad]
1) A user is liable for the illegal upload of data if they upload illegal content, and is subject to the judicial proceedings found in Article IV.
2) A user shall bear no liability for the download of data that was made available by an illegal act of upload. It must be assumed that a user does not have certain knowledge that the data in question was uploaded illegally.[ae][af]
3) A user may bear liability for failure to report to an authority the download of any public data that would in no case be legal to upload as public data. Such data includes but may not be limited to child pornography or obvious private data.[ag]
F) No User shall be held liable for the upload of any copyrighted material that the user can reasonably assume falls under the definition of Fair Use of copyrighted data.
Article III. Restrictions on the Internet
A) No federal[ah] union, sovereign state, transnational entity or organisation may pass unilateral[ai] restrictions[aj] on the[ak] Internet.[al][am]
B) Bandwidth-throttling shall not be used as a means of Penalty for any alleged illegal activity. (It was here before, it is judge to debate again)
Article IV. Content Removal
A) Removal of illegal content from any service or information system must follow the guidelines found in this article.[an]
B) Notice must be given to an administrator of the information system and to the uploader of the content within 30 days in advance of any deletion of data from any information system or service, or within 24 hours of the transfer of the data in question from publicly accessible storage to privately accessible storage.[ao]
1) Verified electronic means of communication as in a email [ap]signed with a digital signature (or pin #?) can be used for issuing the notice.
2) Only the data in question may be so deleted or transferred. Related data including but not limited to data that describes the content or location of the Data in question, any of the uploader’s private data, or any data that is part of the function of an information system or service provider shall not be required to be removed.
3) Within the allowed 30 days, the uploader of the data in question may respond to the information system administrator[aq] with a request to stop or reverse the removal of the data in question. If the user verifies their identity and additionally offers a reasonable assertion of fair use or other reasonable defense to the claim that the data in question is illegal, the service provider may at their discretion forward such identity and claim to the complainant and reverse the removal without liability until a judicial authority has determined whether the claim is valid.
C) Information systems and administrators must provide notice to the uploader regarding any removal when and why data will be removed under this article, and who has ordered such a removal.
D) Orders to remove data based on willful false claims or by entities that do not represent or prossess the rights to object to the Upload of the content in question will be considered acts of censoring, and defamation of the character of the uploader in the form of wrongful accusation of criminal activity.
1) Willful false claims of copyright infringement shall be treated and tried as equivalent to copyright infringement, and will only be diminishable on the sole condition of proof provided and accepted by a ruling court that supports the defendant’s reason for claiming infringement. No law or act shall diminish the liability wrongful claims of infringement shall carry as set forth by this act.
Article V. Judicial Proceedings
[ar]A) Anyone undergoing judicial proceedings based on this document must be judged in the nation’s courts wherein the alleged offense activities.
1) If an individual resided in more than one country when committing violation(s) of this document, they must be judged in the country in which they committed the offense.
2) The individual in question may demand extradition to his country of residence or citizenship, where he must then be tried for the listed offences. The court proceeding shall judge the offense as if the offence had been committed in his country of residence or citizenship during the event of the crime.
3) No person is to be extradited, deported or forced to leave, or forcibly taken from a country for the need of legal proceedings. Any legal proceeding must be conducted in the country of which the offense was committed.
B) [as]Before judicial action can begin, substantial evidence of culpability must be provided.
1) Data that identifies locations or devices, including but not limited to Internet Protocol addresses or MAC IDs are not proof[at] of the identity of a user and can not therefore be used to positively identify a user.
2) Collection of any personal information or private data of any individual other than that which can be used as evidence is prohibited. Any Data absorbed during the search for evidence must be returned to its owner within 15 business days. Any copies of data not used as evidence must be permanently deleted and removed from any kind of storage.
3) Any hardware withheld should be returned if the person is cleared of charge or if he completes his sentence as required by the legal proceedings. If damage occurs to evidence, the withholding officer[au] incurs all expenses on seized property.
4) Accessing, copying, transmitting or storing any data that belong to the convicted person other than that can be used as evidence is prohibited and the offender is liable for it.
Article VI. Appropriate Punishments
A) In case of copyright infringement a settlement will be considered in monetary form as defined in Article VIII.
1) The Uploader of infringed Data shall have no other financial liability other than the one defined in Article VIII for settlement[av].
Article VII. Rights of the user[aw][ax]
A) Every user has a right to appear as anonymous and/or under pseudonym.
1) No data collected by an Information System under claim that it is collected to help the user to use the service (for example mobile numbers to aid password recovery) may be demanded, used or shared in a way that may lead to the user losing their anonymity.
2) Information systems have to explicitly specify the data that they may use and share to help in identifying the user, the IP address is excepted from this and is bound by condition in Article V [B.1].
B) Everything the user does with his/her computer is considered private. This privacy may only be breached while the set criteria of section C is fulfilled.
C) A user’s privacy can only be breached while
1) User is suspected of illegal acts in the user’s residing country.
2) Adequate evidence, as defined in Article V Section B has been obtained
3) The international authority as defined in Article VII should be informed, and authorization collected in advance if at all a breach if privacy is to be initiated.
D) The use of anonymizing networks (Proxies) is protected.[ay]
1) The service providers or users in general of these services are not required to provide any information that may lead to the identification of an anonymous user.
2) Monitoring of traffic in, out of inside of[az] an anonymizing network is prohibited
E) No discrimination or suspicion may be based on the methods employed by a user to ensure their security and privacy on the Internet.[ba][bb]
F) Encrypted data is considered private. No user may be forced to release the password to encrypted data even if their privacy has been breached.
Article VIII. Liability and Settlement of Copyright Infringement Claim[bc]
A) The liability of a copyright infringement will be strictly limited to the damage it caused as described here.
1) All calculations related to this are to be carried out in a consumer, retail, individual level pricing upon which the production cost, marketing cost will not influence.[bd][be]
2) The maximum liability of the user who has committed infringement can be 200% of the calculated damage.
B) The user may only be held liable for the data that he/she directly uploaded or modified. The user may not be held responsible for any data he/she accessed or downloaded.
C) The damages and its extent are to be calculated by considering the number of receivers of the shared file.[bf]
1) If the data was shared with a single individual the retail price of that data as marketed by the creator is to be considered as damage and maximum liability cap is applicable.
2) For number of receivers is between 2 and 75, the multiple of the marketed value of product for personal use will be considered as damage, maximum liability cap is applicable.
3) For numbers greater than 75 but less than 1000 the amount payable by a distributor for as many copies will apply as the damage. A maximum liability cap of 150% is applicable.[bg]
4) For anything greater than 999(?) receivers a nominal charge for mass distribution may be collected with a liability cap of 150%.
D) All fair use and educational use activities will be considered as non‐damage causing and liability free.
Article IX. (This may or not be the final article)[bh]
A) This act may not be interpreted as implying for any collection of people or any individual to perform an act with the intent to maim or destroy the rights and freedoms set forth herein.
B) Any intent to harm a physical location or resource through the co-option of the Internet may be recorded and openly distributed for public knowledge and resolution.
C) The right to access the Internet shall not be denied by any federal or state government.
[bi]
[bj]
[bk]
[bl]
[bm]
[bn]
[bo]
[bp]
[bq]
[br]
[bs]
[a]BeniwaAnon:
I would have to say the latter, although personally i believe we should have our own section of "Fair Use" clause in here that specifically targets online use. The chances of this bill being passed as we would write it is low, but lawmakers could use this as a reference when writing smarter laws. Well... those are just my thoughts at least.
[b]cmpsalvestrini:
the capability, defined as the technical and aptitudinal skills
[c]arthur.doohan:
'capability' means anyone who knows how to alter...this is too broad
iamben:
how about: 'The permissions and credentials'
arthur.doohan:
sorry, I should have been more clear...both 'versions' mean/include anyone who knows 'how to' administer as well just those who have access...also does this definition intend to include those who are not authorised...and will there be a distinction between those who 'administer' in a positive way and those who do damage..
[f]Iborgel:
Does it matter if it succeeds?
BeniwaAnon:
Not entirely, even incomplete data might hold valuable information depending on what your downloading. Unfortunately the previously awesome definition and needs to be updated.
[g]supersam.littley:
should this not be "where"?
arthur.doohan:
If the 'teacher' is being paid to teach and the teaching requires the use of a particular dataset...then surely there is 'commercial benefit'....
khzmusik:
"Whereas" is the wrong word, it should indeed be "where." Also, "commercial interest" should be rewritten; every private college is "commercial."
[h]snapflashpop:
Odd definition. To which nation's laws does this pertain, all of them? Like the earlier definitions on Child Porn and Children, does the Act use local definitions of legality? Or is the internet a distinct entity that isn't bound to any nation and should therefore have it's own laws? If so does the definition here cover everything suitably?
supersam.littley:
The idea is that the internet is a distinct entity, unbound to a specific countries laws.
khzmusik:
I would use "unlawful" rather than "illegal," since "illegal" implies a CRIMINAL act, as opposed to one that is merely actionable in a civil court. Also, "imposing cruel..." etc. should be re-written, because even the slightest criticism could be considered "cruel, inhuman, defaming, or degrading treatment" to someone or other.
David.BA.Cohen:
"Content that is imposing cruel, inhuman, defaming, or degrading treatment on an individual or party" is a very vague statement. Does this apply to simple hate speech or does it have a wider context? For example does this apply to anything regarding human rights issues such as genocide or the history of hatred of one group (i.e. antisemitism and the language used for that)?
GregBenner1:
this is way too vague, it needs to either completely include all forms of illegal content, as well as separate it from what is legal, or leave it up to the country of origin/prosecutor.
[i]aldarsior:
The Internet is a definite article proper noun. It doesn't take several forms, it is the whole interconnected network of the networks computers sit on.
GregBenner1:
would this include private and semi-private networks such as a LAN disconnected from the internet, or corporate intranet systems?
jdrinkwater:
Not really Greg, as those are just networks. (intranets mostly)
jdrinkwater:
Is this change ok?
[j]Iborgel:
This level of specificity prevents this document from applying to future networks which might be constructed differently. We may want to change it. Unless we mean this to only apply to our specific Internet, not something like "a large network of computers."
[k]Anonymous:
intellectual work is the very opposite of property, please do not use this term, it was invented to unite things that have nothing in common, e.g. patent laws, trade marks, state granted monopoly laws(copyright) and so on.
khzmusik:
Do away with the term "intellectual property" altogether. For one thing, definitions should AVOID ambiguity, so you shouldn't have more than one. For another thing, "intellectual property" is misleading, as it is not "property" in the traditional sense. "Statutory monopoly" would be the correct term.
marwoodsmith:
Fair point about Intellectual Property. I had included this to explicitly differentiate Intellectual Property and Internet Protocol.
http://www.reddit.com/r/fiadiscussion/comments/q5fbp/definitions_of_the_document/c3uva5z
BeniwaAnon:
This needs to be reupdated. I had lost the beautiful wording on it.
[l]Smarty187Productions:
Isn't data technically a plural noun?
tybeet:
"data" could be replaced with "information" - any information that contains the location of other information.
It might even be more accurate to say that a link is "Any information that exclusively contains the location of other information"
Smarty187Productions:
Agreed. Adding exclusively would be a good idea. One question would be if that could be interpreted as meaning also a description of how to get some piece of information (but not just something that you click and it takes you there), and whether that should be included in the definition.
marwoodsmith:
In the case of a dynamic web page, for example, a link may contain both the location of a file on the internet as well as extra information, for example an Amazon affiliate program link. Such a link may point to a page on amazon.com but may also contain embedded information about the identity of the affiliate or an item identity for use by the linked page.
With this in mind, what do we mean by "location" in the text? Does a link therefore exclusively contain a location? May a link also contain added information?
antiufo:
What about magnet links? They do not contain the location of the data.
Smarty187Productions:
That's true. They do hold a way of accessing data, and should probably be included in this definition, or mentioned somewhere else. Magnet links are quite relevant to this document, considering that they are very important in some illegal file sharing systems, which are clearly dealt with in this document.
GregBenner1:
would a written statement be considered a link? for example: "just search for amazon to get there."
[m]bru.news:
Since "anonymous" and "user" are defined, we should also have "member": a user who is registered (real name or pseudonymous) with a stable identity and whose all contributions to a site are recorded, searchable and openly accessible.
[n]GregBenner1:
what about data that the uploader has requested/made an attempt to make private. ex: if someone accesses a written document i made, it may not reveal any private data, and it would not cause me any harm if it was read, however i still might want it to be private.
in addition, the word user should be changed, it should be only the person who created/uploaded the data, that is used to decide if data is private or not. User is defined as an creator OR viewer in this document.
[p]iamben:
Anything that has been defined above needs to be written with the first letter of the each word of the phrase capitalized. "File Sharing"... not "file sharing."
iamben:
Illegal material needs to be defined, or just expand the Illegal Content definition above
[q]Anonymous:
How will censorship take place?
David.BA.Cohen:
Which department of government would regulate the censorship? Or would it be dealt with depending on the content?
[r]David.BA.Cohen:
"No steps can be taken to monitor date being uploaded." Does this allow the government to spy on the user's computer?
GregBenner1:
while i agree with the no steps taken to monitor part, it needs to be better defined, who cannot monitor data for what? does this just pertain to governments, or to every user? and is monitoring of data still legal for other reasons?
[s]darkdiscover:
how is censorship defined? Deleting Content? Setting up Stop Signs?
Anonymous:
Is that a little better worded?
pa.rei:
In my opinion, censorship is whenever content was forced to be invisible without any agreement by the owner/hoster (?).
Anonymous:
may want to comment up on the definition.
emstark:
Is this a treaty or a bill?
Anonymous:
starting to look like a bit of both
lachlan.picking:
I notice this, "no steps may be taken to monitor the data being uploaded", and I ask what the community thinks of an exception under court order (warrant) with such order being possible under conditions that we would define in this document?
emstark:
If this is really the Freedom of Internet Act, then it should be a bill and not a treaty. It can be translated into other languages and jurisdictions in accordance with local law.
Anonymous:
well this is suppose to be treated as an international agreement. a bill does sound better though.
emstark:
Here's an example of a treaty: http://www.wipo.int/treaties/en/ip/berne/trtdocs_wo001.html
Anonymous:
Why is this limited to Federal and State governments?
Anonymous:
Can we try to select less content for comments?
[u]michael.j.drucker:
This is pretty weak. It's dancing around the issue of intent and the use of the word false creates too many potential loopholes. One can easily deceive without express falsehoods through omission and/or implication.
may i suggest "2) All content that causes any involved users to:
i) unknowingly and/or unwillingly engage in a transaction or transmission that is damaging or derogatory in nature,
ii) engage in any transaction or transmission that has not been sufficiently communicated with all parties involved, AND
iii) Causes unwarranted and unjust damage, monetary or otherwise substantial in nature, to any person or persons.
and transaction can be defined as "the transfer of ownership of money, goods, or services between persons."
joey:
Who determines what content constitutes a scam, or misguides? This section needs a due process clause.
aaron:
Title 1 should contain definitions for slander, libel, and fraud, referencing US statures. These should be the exceptions, and they should follow the existing laws for such. No need to create a legal class of behavior for phishing or defamation; they already exist under the law.
GregBenner1:
yes, but what if those laws change? i think this needs to be independent of any countries laws or regulations.
[v]Anonymous:
Article I C2 can be used by any regime in power to cencor anything they want by claiming political opposision as "information stored to misguide"
David.BA.Cohen:
I agree. There needs to more detail on this. Also how would this be in regards to a site such as wikileaks? The government is claiming that the information on there can and will cause damage.
GregBenner1:
i personally think it should be removed all together. information should not be censored because it could "cause damage" or "misguide" it should be limited to removal of illegal content as defined at the start.
topperfalkon:
I've suggested a replacement below.
David.BA.Cohen:
What does "mutilate collateral" entail?
[w]fabio.krauss.s:
how do we consider P2P networks? every peer is an uploader? or only the first one?
Anonymous:
How about only deliberate uploads?
GregBenner1:
i agree with this, the uploader should be each person that it can be proven was intentionally uploading that data. the burden of proof should fall on the accuser.
topperfalkon:
I still think that's too broad. People can unintentionally seed finished uploads if they fail to immediately clear the torrent. Some networks also enforce seed/leech parity which wouldn't work with this proposal.
GregBenner1:
what if we allow the gov't to request removal of all illegal data, but only able to prosecute those that originally uploaded it or did so with a clear intent.
in other words, add a clause stating that if a user is un-intentionally uploading data, the governing power can send them a sort of "cease and desist" letter that if they do not comply, they will be able to be prosecuted. however anyone that knowingly purpousfully uploaded data can be prosecuted without a chance to remove the information.
[x]topperfalkon:
This should clarify work for commercial gain is culpable. Non-commercial works are exempt. This sentence isn't very clear in what it intend either and realistically needs a full rewrite.
[ab]GregBenner1:
who does the burden of proof fall on for this? also remove the fan art example, its not necessary
[ac]GregBenner1:
this conflicts with A 2
BeniwaAnon:
how so?
GregBenner1:
because a 2 states that punishment may also be decided by his/her country
[ad]GregBenner1:
is this act going to try to define the internet as its own, distinct entity free from any one state or country, or will the laws and regulations from the country of origin of the data be used? this needs to be defined and stay consistent throughout the entire document.
also DO NOT USE AND/OR unless what you are using it for is a synonym. it needs to be defined if it should be the country where it was initiated or completed or if it is where the majority of the data originated. it cannot be both!
topperfalkon:
replacing that with 'carried out' would involve all parties from initiation to completion (which is the logical interpretation). If that's not suitable, go with the initiator, as it's the only one that makes sense.
David.BA.Cohen:
How can it be proven that the User has certain knowledge it is not legal to upload?
[ae]davin.j.anderson:
Doesn't this mean it would be legal to d/l kiddie porn?
Ben.Ells:
It does appear to mean that. I think the point is to protect people who unwittingly access illegal data? Not sure how we'd be able to show one way or the other, though
youngcertain:
That case is caught by clause 3).
khzmusik:
I say do away with 3) altogether. Possibly rephrase 2) such that the "burden of proof" of knowledge lies with the accuser, and favors the users.
topperfalkon:
In fairness, how easy is it to distinguish between a person aged 16 and a child aged 15? If the downloader is unaware of what they are downloading and its legality they shouldn't be held accountable for it.
[ag]ibm2431:
Clause II.E.3 is completely absurd. It would force all users to immediately report any "obvious" illegal content or private data they stumble across on the internet or be liable for its download (ie: when their browser fetches it). Imagine if citizens in the real world were liable for failing to report a theft or vandalism they happened to see.
Anonymous:
How about only after intentionally downloading and if you can be proven that you knew that it was illegal?
topperfalkon:
This clause isn't clear at all to me. I think it would benefit from a rewrite.
David.BA.Cohen:
I agree. I keep thinking of sites as Wikileaks and how their content would apply to this regarding their content.
[aj]David.BA.Cohen:
Does this apply to schools and how various websites are blocked? For example I know that in the district I am in you cannot access a website if it allows you to check your email. For example say you have a Yahoo account. You cannot access Yahoo at all. Considering Yahoo has a news page that can be considered violation of the 1st Amendment. This needs to be elaborated.
[ak]Anonymous:
Supranational and transnational entities/Oranizations should be included here imo.
topperfalkon:
better?
[al]Anonymous:
Anyone feels like rewording it better?
pa.rei:
"Every federal union or sovereign state has to consider both the users and the content industries"?
boathouse2112:
"Every federal union or sovereign state has to consider both the users and content industries while passing laws"?
Anonymous:
sexy pisses bitches and alcohol. and snuff.
GregBenner1:
this needs to clearly define what is a restriction, and which kinds of restrictions can and cannot be imposed. for example: does a phone company have the right to restrict data usage based on pricing? what about US export laws on encryption? can all encompassing restrictions be passed?
[am]David.BA.Cohen:
We should have a clause regarding how much in rights we have on photos we upload to social networking sites. I think that there needs to be a change where you keep full control of your content and the website you have it on cannot exploit your uploads for their own use without your express approval. Also all photos we upload should be considered automatically under our (user)'s copyright unless the user states otherwise.
[an]GregBenner1:
should make this "forced removal"
[ao]michael.j.drucker:
perhaps this should be restricted to instances in which the content in question presents a clear and present danger.
GregBenner1:
no, i think that this is a great way to deal with these problems, "move" the data to a secure center and give the uploader a chance to either take it down all-together or defend its legality and re-upload it.
however in the case of child pornography and other OBVIOUS illegal material, it should be locked/moved asap and the uploader notified of the action taken, given full access to that data, and told clear instructions on how to defend themselves legally
[aq]elatiagrimshaw:
Now this is sound legislation!
[ar]ibm2431:
I propose a section C roughly as follows: "The known possibility for IP address and MAC ID spoofing shall be a defense. A prosecutor or plaintiff must overcome this defense before any evidence that relies on an IP address or a MAC ID can be entered."
[as]michael.j.drucker:
Maybe I missed it, but is it specified that one who uploads content legally in one nation is not to be held responsible for users that download said content illegally in a different jurisdiction?
BeniwaAnon:
yes. only the uploader is responsible for the content within his own nation. the downloaders will not.
[at]ryanstrat:
Change to "ID's. However, these are not proof"
[au]Anonymous:
Potentially, liability should fall upon not the individual officer, but the department or service that they work within.
Anonymous:
This is true. It is unheard of to place such liability on any officer of the law. To be personally liable for actions taken in your job, whilst under the command of other is ludicrous.
[av]David.BA.Cohen:
There needs to be a part on jail time, how long it can be, is parole an option and what kind of prison can one be sent to if convicted. Possibly mention that the sentence cannot be longer or anywhere near that of a major felony such as murder and rape.
[aw]loewen.nathan:
Could this article be expanded to cover the use of encrypted storage, and under what conditions the user must reveal encrypted files?
[ax]FongAndrew:
Rights of the user should also include a right of action against the government if violated.
For example, suppose DHS takes down a website. Who gets to sue DHS to have the site put back up? EFF? The owner of the site? Anyone?
Should also mention what remedies are available -- if DHS takes down my site and I successfully sue, will the government have to compensate me in $$$ for the time it was down?
[ay]habeck13:
Anonymizing networks has already been defined, to include Tor, Darknet, etc. Amend the definition, and then reference it here.
[az]Smarty187Productions:
Was this supposed to be "traffic in, out, or inside of"? It doesn't really make sense this way.
[ba]Anonymous:
Right to encrypted storage and communications?
gindil1:
I wonder if there needs to be a right to break encryptions?
pa.rei:
I think you mustn't be forced to reveal a password!
Anonymous:
Falls under breaching user´s privacy and therefore regulated by article VII.
dyper017
habeck13:
What about countries that put limits on the sophistication of citizens' encryption?
[bc]aaron:
Whole section is really sloppy.
First, it accounts for number of total downloads. It doesn't specify who the downloading party is, and the relevance. This can be abused by the copyright owner. Example:
1) Uploader uploads foo.mp3 to his web site and makes it publicly available.
2) Copyright owner finds foo.mp3 at Uploader's website.
3) Copyright owner can't prove anyone downloads it except for himself.
4) Copyright owner writes a script that downloads the MP3 5 million times.
5) Copyright owner slams uploader for $5million, based on the $1 price on iTunes.
aaron:
Second, this perpetuation that 1 download = 1 lost sale at MSRP is preposterous. Beyond, say, 20 proven infringing downloads, it should be based on a percentage of the downloads = lost sales. For instance, the first 20 are 1:1, from 20-100 are 1 out of every 4, beyond 100, 1 out of every 20. And the price should be based on median purchase price.
[bd]nigelp:
Tortuously worded, re-word?
tim.mensch:
Liability is to be calculated strictly on the actual consumer value of Content infringed.
nigelp:
tim.mensch - much better. :)
On 25/02/2012 19:24, tim.mensch (Google Docs) wrote:
> tim.mensch replied to a comment on [Free Edit][25-02-12] The Free
> Internet Act
> nigelp
>
> *nigelp*
> All calculations related to this are to be carried out in a consumer,
> retail, individual level pricing upon which the production cost,
> marketing cost will not influence.
>
> Tortuously worded, re-word?
>
> tim.mensch
>
> *tim.mensch*
>
> Liability is to be calculated strictly on the actual consumer value of
> Content infringed.
>
> You received this email because you are mentioned in this
> thread.Change
> what Google Docs sends you.Mute
> updates from this comment.You can reply to this email to reply to the
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[be]mindrzej:
does this mean that download is equal to lost sale of the content?
[bf]nigelp:
How is this calculation to be done physically? Also it's 'its' not 'it's'.
spaceindaver0:
Also, there are two ands in there...
Smarty187Productions:
Is "and its extent" even necessary? Why not just "The damages are to be calculated...."?
[bg]Troydude6:
There needs to be something here about out of print works.
[bh]FongAndrew:
It's customary for the final bit of an act to include things like a severance clause -- e.g. if any part of this bill is unconstitutional, only throw out the unconstitutional bit, not the entire thing.
[bj]okungnyo:
This wouldn't be possible without Google Docs. Seriously what would we do without Google? xD
[bk]Anonymous:
whats the link to the new site?
[bl]Anonymous:
anus
[bm]jdrinkwater:
Needs a purge of US specific notions if it is indeed an Internet Act…
[bn]BeniwaAnon:
Editing seems to be slow, and it seems like a good spot to save (in case of reversion) as of this point, this is now "v1 - 28th February 2012"
[bo]ilikegirlsdaily:
Glad to see http://SexyfuckBook.com was mentioned. great site!
[bp]pa.rei:
How about a new term that the owner of a website has to write explicitely that he dowsn't want others to use his pictures etc.?
[bq]Anonymous:
LOL this is stupid.
[br]Johnrogers24:
Put something about format shifting in there for example
[bs]tomkel01:
good job
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