03/12/09

© Manifesto on the rights of Internet users

Posted in Internet, Politics, The real world | 1 Comment » Tweet This Post

A group of journalists, bloggers, professionals and creators want to express their firm opposition to the inclusion in a Draft Law of some changes to Spanish laws restricting the freedoms of expression, information and access to culture on the Internet. They also declare that:

1. Copyright should not be placed above citizens’ fundamental rights to privacy, security, presumption of innocence, effective judicial protection and freedom of expression.
2. Suspension of fundamental rights is and must remain an exclusive competence of judges. This blueprint, contrary to the provisions of Article 20.5 of the Spanish Constitution, places in the hands of the executive the power to keep Spanish citizens from accessing certain websites.
3. The proposed laws would create legal uncertainty across Spanish IT companies, damaging one of the few areas of development and future of our economy, hindering the creation of startups, introducing barriers to competition and slowing down its international projection.
4. The proposed laws threaten creativity and hinder cultural development. The Internet and new technologies have democratized the creation and publication of all types of content, which no longer depends on an old small industry but on multiple and different sources.
5. Authors, like all workers, are entitled to live out of their creative ideas, business models and activities linked to their creations. Trying to hold an obsolete industry with legislative changes is neither fair nor realistic. If their business model was based on controlling copies of any creation and this is not possible any more on the Internet, they should look for a new business model.
6. We believe that cultural industries need modern, effective, credible and affordable alternatives to survive. They also need to adapt to new social practices.
7. The Internet should be free and not have any interference from groups that seek to perpetuate obsolete business models and stop the free flow of human knowledge.
8. We ask the Government to guarantee net neutrality in Spain, as it will act as a framework in which a sustainable economy may develop.
9. We propose a real reform of intellectual property rights in order to ensure a society of knowledge, promote the public domain and limit abuses from copyright organizations.
10. In a democracy, laws and their amendments should only be adopted after a timely public debate and consultation with all involved parties. Legislative changes affecting fundamental rights can only be made in a Constitutional law.

Note: This manifesto is the work of several authors, and the property of everyone. Copy it, publish it, pass it on as you will.

15/04/09

© Peer to peer and libraries are not that different

Posted in Internet, Politics | 4 Comments » Tweet This Post

I’m reading about the ongoing Pirate Bay trial, the recent appointment of González-Sinde as the new Spanish minister of culture (and her particular views about p2p) and the bill against p2p rejected by the French parliament.

What do they all have in common? P2p? Piracy? File sharing? Not really. At the heart of the debates lays the ignorance of governments about the digital medium and their stubbornness in dealing with it as if it were the physical world.

Is in the physical world, where everybody agrees that culture exchange is necessary for the common progress, that no one seems to have any problem at all with information sharing.

For that matter institutions have been providing us with information exchange networks called libraries.

In such a network anyone can borrow information, be books, DVDs or CDs, and no one is considered a thief for sharing them with members of his immediate network.

Are goverments who build libraries and create networks around them liable of piracy? Or, on the other hand, this is something necessary to give equal opportunities to everybody granting people access to culture?

Dear governments, copyright institutions, judges and other XIX century nostalgics, here’s a tip that should help you understand digital information: think of libraries. Bigger, larger and ultra-efficient libraries

When you deal with information exchange online think of the internet as the biggest library mankind has created, an analogy that has been around since the first days of the web and not too difficult to understand.

And if you’re happy with people borrowing from libraries I don’t see why shouldn’t you be even happier with people doing the same in a larger library and in a much more efficient way.

09/03/07

Is your website available to 1.300 million Chinese?

Posted in Blogosphere, Politics | 1 Comment » Tweet This Post

This is the result of checking the availability of my website to the ever growing population of China. The Great Firewall of China is a website that keeps track of the many websites censored by the Chinese government and will tell you if yours is banned or not over there.

Mine is available from China but I’m not sure if this is good or bad.

See how ganyet.com is seen in China (it shows without images).

Via Kosmar who is lucky enough to get his website banned in China.