Social file sharing services in 3... 2... 1...
Social networks can't be forced to filter content, rules top EU court
Social network operators cannot be forced to filter out content such as copyrighted music, the European Union's highest court ruled today. Such a system would fail to adequately protect the personal data of social networking users, said the EU Court of Justice (ECJ). "The owner of an online social network cannot be obliged to …
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Thursday 16th February 2012 14:04 GMT Anonymous Coward
Social file sharing was already here
Social file sharing has been going strong for some time now e.g. VKontakte is very popular amongst people from FSU. My wife can watch almost any Russian film, TV show or sports event - it's just as well we have real flat rate Internet (our usage last month was over 150G).
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Thursday 16th February 2012 13:17 GMT Spanners
Just wait
"open to abuse"
I expect to hear a corporate claim that FaceBook is not a Social network.. It will also be attempted on everything else you can think of - Twitter, Google+, MySpace etc.
In the event that fails, we can expect some anti social network legislation to be pushed by those amoral suit wearing crooks.
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This post has been deleted by its author
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This post has been deleted by its author
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Thursday 16th February 2012 13:54 GMT (AMPC) Anonymous and mostly paranoid coward
Re: Plus 1..... some sanity at last ?
I have now read the court's judgement and it seems the ECJ has made one decent case law judgement and re-established one principle: that global scanning/analysis/filtering of people's data is bad, an invasion of privacy and violates current European data protection law.
In my opinion, that is a good opinion. And this is how the system is supposed to work, Pass good laws and if necessary enforce them in court.
The plaintiff tried to force Netlog to assign a global filter (no saying how that was supposed to work) so that Netlog users could not link to the plaintiff's billable content. Fair enough beef, but anyone in their right mind should realize this is a pretty futile approach and will never work.
It is up to the plaintiff to protect access to their content with their own technology/methods. Requiring people who might link to it (i.e. the whole world, from the looks of it) will not work. If users were posting passwords to the plaintiff's server, etc. then those users would undoubtedly have violated some T and Cs and can therefore be legally bitch slapped. Otherwise, no.
We might just have the beginnings of a sensible legal argument against future SOPA/ACTA/PIPA take-over lobbying.
In the same way that free speech does not allow you to shout "Fire" in a crowded theater, the existence of copyright infringing material does not give you the right to slash and burn all internet user's rights to privacy and/or freedom of expression.... m'lud. Surprisingly lucid decision, really. The ECJ judges are obviously paying attention..
WIth more judgements like this one, copyright trollers and their legal hit.squads may now need to find less intrusive, Big Brotherish catch-all legislation to fulfill their demands. Or maybe just live with existing legislation? Novel thought.
Let's hope so.
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Thursday 16th February 2012 14:04 GMT (AMPC) Anonymous and mostly paranoid coward
Re: Semaj....You are Doing it Wrong
Naughty....naughty.... we should be happy they consulted some experts (unlike in America where experts are not allowed into the meetings).
And for the record, I DO like a dose of irony and sarcasm as much as the next commentard, but I DO find this story surprisingly good news. Such sensible juducial behavior is worthy of a little applause
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