Tag Archive for: Party

French Political Party Voting For Mandatory Copyright Filters Is Furious That Its YouTube Channel Deleted By Filter

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It’s been a long tradition here on Techdirt to show examples of politicians and political parties pushing for stricter, more draconian, copyright laws are often found violating those same laws. But the French Rassemblemant National (National Rally Point) party is taking this to new levels — whining about the enforcement of internet filters, just as it’s about to vote in favor of making such filters mandatory. Leaving aside that Rassemblemant National, which is the party headed by Marine Le Pen, is highly controversial, and was formerly known as Front National, it is still an extremely popular political party in France. And, boy, is it ever pissed off that YouTube took down its YouTube channel over automatically generated copyright strikes. Le Pen is particularly angry that YouTube’s automatic filters were unable to recognize that they were just quoting other works:

Marine Le Pen was quoted as saying, “This measure is completely false; we can easily assert a right of quotation [to illustrate why the material was well within the law to broadcast]”.

Yes, but that’s the nature of automated filters. They cannot tell what is “fair use” or what kinds of use are acceptable for commentary or criticism. They can just tell “was this work used?” and if so “take it down.”

Given all that, and the fact that Le Pen complained that this was “arbitrary, political and unilateral,” you have to think that her party is against the EU Copyright Directive proposal, which includes Article 13, which would make such algorithmic filters mandatory. Except… no. Within the EU Parliament, Rassemblemant National is in a coalition with a bunch of other anti-EU parties known as Europe of Nations and Freedoms or ENF. And how does ENF feel about Article 13? MEP Julia Reda has a handy dandy chart showing that ENF is very much in favor of Article 13 (and the Article 11 link tax).

So… we have a major political party in the EU, whose own YouTube channel has been shut down thanks to automated copyright filters in the form of YouTube’s ContentID. And that party is complaining that ContentID, which is the most expensive and the most sophisticated of all the copyright filters out there, was unable to recognize that they were legally “quoting” another work… and their response is to order every other internet platform to install their own filters. Really?

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Botnet Party on GPON Routers

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  1. Botnet Party on GPON Routers  BleepingComputer

    2. Full coverage

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China Outlaws Telling The Truth About Communist Party ‘Heroes And Martyrs’

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China’s participation in the world market tends to portray the country as far more open than it actually is. China’s does have some love for capitalism. Democracy, not so much. There’s not much participation in the marketplace of ideas, thanks to continuous, ever-increasing censorship measures.

Nothing’s going to change in the near future. The sitting president was just rewarded with the title appendage “for life,” thanks to a bought-in (and possibly bought) parliament stripping away term limits earlier this year. Chinese citizens have been rewarded for their enforced loyalty with a government-controlled internet experience and a scoring system that grants/strips perks based on a perverse “morality” algorithm.

Those who forget the past are condemned to repeat it, as the adage goes. The Chinese government is ensuring Cultural Revolution reruns by forcing the nation to forget inconvenient facts. A new law now makes it illegal to speak ill of the long-dead.

China’s Communist Party has always understood the importance of policing its history.

On Friday, it tightened the screws further with a new law banning the slander of “heroes and martyrs” — figures drawn from wartime propaganda said to have given their lives in defense of the Communist Party or the nation.

Chinese schoolchildren are taught about the heroic deeds of figures who fought against the Japanese during World War II, or who gave their lives for the Communist Party in the civil war with the Nationalists. Memorials to some of the most famous dot the country.

Now, it will be illegal to suggest that those tales might not be wholly factual.

The rewriting of China’s history will require the involvement of everyone in the country. Beyond a long list of instructions for compulsory celebrations/commemorations at the local government level, there’s also plenty of censorship and compelled speech to be had. Here’s how the media will be used to burnish the reputation of “heroes” and “martyrs.” (All translations via China Law Translate)

Article 18: The departments of culture, press, radio and television, film, Internet information, and so forth, shall encourage and support the production and promotion of excellent literary and artistic works, and radio or television programs, and publications and with the subject of publicizing or carrying forward, the spirit of heroes and martyrs.

Article 19: Radio stations, television stations, newspaper and periodical publishing units, and Internet information service providers shall widely publicize the deeds and spirit of heroes and martyrs by playing or publishing works on the theme of heroes and martyrs, public service advertisements, and special columns.

And here’s what’s forbidden:

The names, likenesses, reputation, and honor of heroes and martyrs are protected by law. The names, likenesses,reputations and honor of heroes and martyrs must not be insulted, defamed, or violated through other means by any person, either in public places, online, or through radio, television, film or publications. The names and likenesses of heroes and martyrs must not be used, or covertly used, by any organization or individual for trademarks or commercial advertisements, damaging the reputation and honor of heroes and martyrs.

And this is all tied together with a “see something, say something” program that mandates any attempted slurs of Communist martyrs must be reported to the government immediately and all efforts made to banish it from television screens, newspapers, and the web.

Even historical research must comply with the new law. If historians discover facts that conflict with the official narratives, the facts must go.

Yue Zhongming, a member of the standing committee, said at a news conference that although the law is not intended to restrict academic freedom, it does not give permission to harm the honor of the nation’s heroes.

“We often say there is no banned area of academic research, while there is a bottom line of law,” he said.

China’s history will be nothing more than propaganda. The rest of the world should call it what it is: self-serving bullshit, backed by men with guns doing the bidding of government with no moral compass.

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Swedish Pirate Party Declares War On Copyright Trolls

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We’ve discussed the various “Pirate Parties” that have sprung up around European political systems over the past few years. While the name taken by these political movements is probably unfortunate, having political interests centered around the many, many problems within copyright law and enforcement is undoubtedly good and necessary. Sadly, those parties have too often been ineffectual, often ties co-opted by standing political powers in a way that dilutes their purposes. In Sweden in particular, the past few years have seen all the worst kinds of copyright problems sprout up as though somebody had sprinkled fertilizer over the land. As this was happening, Sweden’s Pirate Party had remained comparatively silent, particularly on the matter of what can only be described as a copyright troll invasion.

Well, that is set to change, with the Swedish Pirate Party finally waking up to the threat of trollish extortion letters being sent to thousands of Swedish citizens and announcing plans to fight back.

The Pirate Party describes the copyright trolling efforts as extortion. It stresses that the evidence copyright holders rely on is far from solid, something they believe the courts should take into account.

“It is a scandal that the Swedish judicial system facilitates the mafia-like methods of copyright trolls,” says Pirate Party leader Magnus Andersson. “To condone the sending of extortion letters without reasonable ground for suspicion of criminal activity is not acceptable. We demand the Justice Minister to do something about the situation with these copyright trolls!”

Petitioning the Swedish government is not the only avenue available to fight back, however. In addition to calls for reinterpretations of Swedish law that would disallow the more controversial tactics used by copyright trolls, the Pirate Party could also simply petition the EU to have that same Swedish law repealed entirely. In addition to all of that, the Pirate Party is also lending support to Banhoff, the Swedish ISP that has made a name for itself in fighting the efforts of copyright trolls viciously, even going so far as to send trolling operations its own form of settlement letters.

Regardless, it’s good to see Sweden’s Pirate Party finally waking up and fulfilling its stated mission of advocating for the public on copyright matters.

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