China is not the only country engaging in Internet filtering and censorship. Be very wary, it could happen in your own backyard!
From a Free Access to Information and Freedom of Expression (FAIFE) listserv I belong to:
Music Industry Pressures EU Politicians for Filtered Internet
The music and film industry continues to pursue its idea of a politically
“corrected” Internet - one that they imagine could protect their old
business models without requiring any extra costs on their part. This time,
the fix is Internet-wide filtering. In a memo to European policy-makers, the
International Federation of Phonographic Industries (IFPI) has called upon
ISPs in Europe to filter the content sent across their networks, block
protocols used by their customers, and cut off access to persistently
infringing sites from the Net.
Disturbingly, European politicians seem open to the idea of ISPs policing
and interfering with their customers’ communications on behalf of rightsholders.
Last month, the European Parliament’s Committee on Industry, Research and
Energy (ITRE) tabled an amendment to a Parliamentary report that changed a
request to “rethink the critical issue of intellectual property”, into a call for “internet
service providers to apply filtering measures to prevent copyright infringements”.
EFF sent a letter pointing out that some of the groups hardest hit by
blanket Internet filtering measures would be artists and teachers. But
building filtering and censorship tools is not just bad for creators and
education; it’s bad for all of society. Any country that has a centralized
system in place to pry into its citizen’s private communications creates a
very disturbing precedent and a dangerously powerful tool, vulnerable to
misuse. Perhaps the music industry’s European lobbyists have lost sight of
the serious collateral damage their proposals would cause, but European
citizens and their elected policymakers should not.
For the full IFPI memo requesting filtering from ISPs:
http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/effeurope/ifpi_filtering_memo.pdf
For EFF Europe’s letter addressing calls for ISPs to filter for copyright
infringement:
http://www.eff.org/files/filenode/effeurope/CULT-filtering-letter.pdf
For this post:
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2007/12/music-industry-europe-filter-pressure
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