Google's court opponent speaks
OUT-LAW Radio, 19/10/2006
Will the government's new rules neuter the Freedom of
Information Act? And who will be the next target for Google's
Belgian nemesis? Find out in this week's podcast.
A text transcription follows.
This transcript is for anyone with a hearing impairment or who
for any other reason cannot listen to the MP3 audio file.
The following is the text spoken by OUT-LAW journalist Matthew
Magee.
Hello and welcome to OUT-LAW Radio, the weekly Podcast that
keeps you up to date on all the twists and turns in the world of
technology law.
Every week we bring you the latest news and in depth features
that help you to make sense of the ever-changing laws that govern
technology today.
My name is Matthew Magee, and coming up on this week's show we
look at changes to the freedom of information law that could leave
many people in the dark and we talk to the Belgian woman who is
taking Google and now Microsoft to the courts over a newspaper
copyright.
But first, the news
- Spamhaus fights its first US court case;
- record industry launches new law suits, but not in the UK;
and
- Sportingbet sells US business for one dollar.
Anti spam organisation Spamhaus will recognise an Illinois
court's authority when it fights a $11.7 million order against it.
Previously the London based not-for-profit had argued that the
court has no jurisdiction over it.
Email marketing company E360Insight sued Spamhaus because it was
put on the 'blocklist' which Spamhaus operates in order to identify
spammers and keep their messages out of inboxes. A judge ordered an
$11.7m default judgment against the company and the court requested
that internet address body ICANN suspend the domain spamhaus.org.
Spamhaus is now appealing the ruling.
A recording industry lobby group has launched 8,000 new cases
alleging illegal file sharing all over the world – except in
Britain. The UK lobby group says that it is focusing on its
negotiations with internet service providers.
The International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI)
has begun the thousands of new cases in locations as far apart as
Argentina, Iceland and Singapore. Action is being taken for the
first time in Brazil, Mexico and Poland.
British internet gambling company Sportingbet has sold its US
business for a dollar. The company claims that in selling the
business it has avoided $27 million worth of costs as the US
prepares to outlaw internet gambling.
An anti-online gambling bill thought unlikely to pass through
Congress was attached to an unrelated ports bill and passed by the
Senate. It will become law when signed by the US President.
Jazette Enterprises Ltd has bought the US business. It has paid
a dollar and took on liabilities of $13.2m as well as
responsibility for the company's 500 US staff.
That was this week's OUT-LAW News
Freedom of information legislation has transformed the political
landscape, giving pressure groups, journalists and even other
politicians a vital window into the workings of power.
A parliamentary committee reported after a year of FOI at work
that it had been a great success, with some administrative hiccups.
The people who owned public information, said that committee's
chairman Alan Beith, finally had access to it.
Well this week the government produced its response to the
committee and it makes pretty uncomfortable reading for FOI
advocates. Access to that information might not last much longer
for some people.
The Government department in charge of FOI has proposed a set of
controversial changes to the way information is charged for.
Currently public bodies can charge £25 an hour for locating,
retrieving and extracting requested information up to a cost of
£600. At that point it can either charge the requester the rest of
the fee or refuse the request outright.
Now the Government wants to include more activities on a
chargeable basis, explains Chris Pounder, a Data Protection
Specialist at Pinsent Masons, the law firm behind OUT-LAW .
CP: Its £25 per hour at the moment for the chargeable
activities. Now that you can add on is the time spent considering
the request, looking at what you redact and consulting with people.
Now consideration and time and consultation attributes of complex
requests so this would impact on the more complex or controversial
requests.
MM: Maurice Frankel is the Director of the Campaign for Freedom
of Information
MF: It would knock out a significant volume of the more
important requests in terms of public debated issues so it would
have a pretty drastic effect on the legislation.
MM: As well as including new activity as chargeable time new
plans will add up all requests belonging to one organisation in any
60 working day period. Maurice Frankel again.
MF: Major newspapers are going to be rationed in terms of one or
two requests quarter to a government department like the Home
Office which has all kinds of important responsibilities and we are
going to get much less information that is of public interest that
is needed to hold public authorities to account.
MM: The effects of this will be dramatic. To some it looks as
though the Government is specifically creating rules to avoid
awkward questions from the media.
Alan Beith is the Liberal Democrat MP who chaired this summer's
commons committee on FOI.
AB: I am particularly concerned that responsible media use of
the Freedom of Information Act is the target for this. They
occasionally sight cases of abuse some of which are by individuals
rather than media organisations, some of which can be dealt with by
existing powers and none of which should ride this sort of
draconian measure.
MM: Maurice Frankel says that the rule change creates a paradox
for a Freedom of Information Law: the more interesting the
information, the less likely it is to be made public;
AB: Officials can just say about any request that they are not
very keen on, we think we'll out this one up to ministers and that
will immediately add £200, £250, £300 to the likely costs of
dealing with a request and make it much more likely that its going
to be refused without any further consideration and that will make
it much harder to get information which ministers are worried
about. I mean that is the simple equation is the information that
minsters are worried will, merely because they are worried about
it, become more difficult to obtain.
MM: In fact, Chris Pounder has crunched the numbers produced in
the government's report, which was itself produced by Frontier
Economics. He found that one in seven requests comes from what the
Government calls serial requestors. The Government says that
journalists tend to be serial requestors, and that one in ten
requests is from a journalist. Pounder's figures show that one in
nine requests is sent to a minister. It begins to seem as though
journalists submitting complex requests which are likely to be seen
by a minister will have their access to information severely
curtailed.
CP: Journalists requests are likely to be (a) detailed and (b)
complex for governments to deal with because they are very likely
to deal with in a sense current affairs.
MM: The Department of Constitutional Affairs is responsible for
the new plans. They provided a statement to OUT-LAW radio in
which they said:
The changes being considered are not to avoid difficult
questions. They are aimed at giving public authorities the ability
to deal with burdensome requests or requestors who create a
disproportionate burden on a public authority because of the volume
of requests they make. Its about getting a balance between
the provision of services and the provision of information.
MM: As soon as a request breaks the £600 barrier it can be
refused, even if the requestor is prepared to pay the extra costs.
I asked the Department of Constitutional Affairs why an
organisation could not meet the costs and be guaranteed access to
information.
The department said that :
This has never been the case and there are no plans to
change.
The proposal must go through Parliament, where labour have a
sizeable majority. MP Alan Beith says that the proposals could
still meet serious opposition.
AB: They have already left a little bit of space by indicating
that they will see what the reaction is to these proposals. I think
it will be an adverse reaction and I hope it's an adverse reaction
that's made loudly and clearly enough for the Government to realise
that they ought not to pursuing this. I think there are Labour back
benchers who feel very strongly about it and I think some of them
will be very unhappy about this.
MM: Maurice Frankel says that opposition might come from the
general population, and that attempts to stop the plans are
vital.
MF: I think that people are getting used seeing stories reported
in the press as a result of the Freedom of Information Act and they
are not going to see very many of those in the future if these
changes take place. Those stores are important and significant and
tell us about things that are going wrong that we didn't know
before hand.
MM: Margaret Boribon shocked the world just weeks ago when she
took search giant Google to court in Belgium and won. Boribon
represents Copiepresse, a coalition of newspaper publishers who
object to the fact that Google news uses newspaper stories without
permission.
This week it emerged that Boribon has another target:
Microsoft's MSN. Already, she says she has found the company more
responsive than Google was.
MB: What we ask for one we ask for the other; the same argument,
the same measures, they have done the same infringement so taking
content without authorisation, so we ask the same: withdraw the
content and come to a table to negotiate a fair deal. We will talk
with all concerned and we agree to start negations.
MM: Website operators can stay out of sites like Google by using
a simple piece of programming, but Boribon wants her members to
appear on Google, but to receive a share of ad revenue, despite the
fact that for search engines to cut a deal with every content
creator would be almost impossible.
MB: We are open to discussion, the fact is we want every search
engine or aggregator that uses our content to respect it and to ask
for agreement and to pay a fair price. The law is the law, we are
producing protected works and the law in Europe says clearly that
to use that content you have to ask for permission. They take the
content and if you don't agree you have to tell them and then they
will do their best effort to withdraw the contents. That's the way
they want them to do that work but that's not the legal
framework.
MM: Boribon is confident of cutting a deal with MSN, so
confident that she plans to go after other companies. Yahoo may be
next.
MB: MSN has long tradition of attention to copyright for their
computer programmes and so they know what copyright is, maybe more
than Google.
MM: Are you planning discussions with other people: are you
going to be talking to Yahoo for example?
MB: Yes but you know we are a very small team and I only have 24
hours in a day so I do my best but we think that the main point is
to have a clear situation as the main one and then the others will
follow.
MM: Margaret Boribon there.
That's all we have time for this week. Thanks for listening.
Why not get in touch with OUT-LAW Radio? Do you have a legal
problem you would like us to discuss on air? Do you know of a
technology law story? We'd love to hear from you on Radio@OUT-LAW.com.
Make sure you tune in next week; for now, goodbye
OUT-LAW Radio was produced and presented by Matthew
Magee for international law firm Pinsent Masons
