The last few months have seen debates over net neutrality and how to deal with copyright infringement coalesce to take over the headlines. In the UK, the success of their case against Newzbin2 has led BPI to ask BT to block The Pirate Bay, while in the United States, two bills are being pushed through Congress to allow the blocking of web sites in order to decrease illegal file sharing.
The Stop Online Piracy Act (SOPA) and its Senate corollary, the Protect IP Act (PIPA), which have been called America’s answer to the Great Firewall of China, would potentially allow for the blocking of web sites as well as force financial institutions and payment providers to stop working with banned sites. The acts could also hold ISPs, search engines and websites liable for infringing content regardless of their knowledge of it, doing away with the notion of “safe harbors” created by the Digital Millennium Copyright Act, which absolve network and website operators of liability if they remove illegal content as soon as they are made aware of it.
While the bills initially seemed to carry wide-ranging support, at least in Congress, prominent politicians and even a pro-copyright lobby have recently voiced concern.
In stark contrast to this is the European Union, which has inspired cautious optimism in progressive media policy circles of late.
In early November, the European Parliament passed a motion for a resolution on net neutrality and the open internet, which was recently backed by a vote. A fact-finding report by BEREC, the European Union’s telecommunications regulator, is expected by the end of the year.
Prominent voices have also called for common sense in the copyright debate. Speaking at the Forum d’Avignon last week, the European Commissioner for the Digital Agenda Neelie Kroes said, “In times of change, we need creativity, out-of-the-box thinking: creative art to overcome this difficult period and creative business models to monetise the art. And for this we need flexibility in the system, not the straitjacket of a single model.”
While arguing that artists need to be put back at the center of the debate, she suggested, “it’s not all about copyright. It is certainly important, but we need to stop obsessing about that.”
Ms. Kroes’ point is that while attempts to stem copyright infringement should continue, it should not be done at the expense of the innovative capacity of the internet in its current form, a point similarly raised by the LSE’s Bart Cammaerts.
These discordant perspectives on technology policy may yet come to loggerheads. The US has a tendency to spread its views on copyright through the leverage of trade policy. The annual Special 301 report published by the Office of the US Trade Representative lists countries whose copyright policies do not adhere to US standards and may lead to trade related retaliation through the WTO. SOPA and PIPA could potentially bring stricter copyright laws to the EU as well.
Very interesting overview of the US/European situation on this issue, Nate! Congratulations for the research made.
I would just like to add few thoughts on the European perspective and a question that I asked myslef.
The procedure taken at the EU level is a non-legislative one. The EP motion for resolution was the reaction for the European Commission communication (http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=COM:2011:0222:FIN:EN:PDF) on the net neutrality published in April 2011. It “asks the Commission to assess the need for additional guidance on net neutrality (…)” which basically means monitoring and maybe a future Commission recommendation. Having in mind the difficultly of internet governance at any level and adding up the fact that it is not clear, legally speaking, to which extent the EU can go into strong legal actions (creation of regulations and directives) in this matter, if not under the umbrella of for example single market where it has the competence to do so, the CAUTIOUSNESS of the optimism that you suggest in this respect seems to be a very adecuate attitude.
It looks, however, that the EC starts using yet another instrument where it does have a strong competence that might have an influence over the net neutrality: the competition law.
Few days ago it has initiated a formal antitrust investigation procedure on Google. This could potentially have an impact by giving the sign that there is a consumer minded watchdog over how the search engine arrives to provide its users with results. The suspicion is that it might not follow exclusively the search algoritm but be influenced by commercial relations between Google and companies that are shown higher in the search engine results although they don’t appear as commercial adds. The other suspicion is that Google might favour its own services in the same way.
Can the fact that the search results are biased be understood within the net neutrality issue though?
Hey Dorota,
Google has settled on a somewhat murky stance on net neutrality. In the US, they were a staunch supporter across the board, until August 2010, when they partnered with Verizon to recommend dropping net neutrality provisions for wireless internet access. Naturally, that made some people very angry.
However, they do still advocate for an “open” and “free” Internet. In their submission of recommendations to the communications review here in the UK they don’t actually mention net neutrality, but they use a few of the key words and phrases:
“…the government must aim to sustain innovation by maintaining open standards and protecting the free flow of information. The ability to innovate without permission is paramount for continued technological change and innovation…”
It will be interesting to see what the antitrust investigation reveals, if anything. Whatever the result, it’s hard to argue that “search neutrality” should not be included in definitions of net neutrality, as it hinges on the same core issue, that everyone is on a level playing field and has the same opportunity for success. If Google is favoring certain content and services in search results, including their own, without making that clear to users up front, they may have to drop more terms than just net neutrality from future policy proposals.