Internet content filtering

In a week following widespread Internet protests against proposed legislation in the U.S., there is an effort going on internationally to protest the potential effects of ACTA. The OTW is concerned about this treaty which has potentially large implications but about which there has been very little information. "In October 2007, the United States, the European Community, Switzerland, and Japan simultaneously announced that they would negotiate a new intellectual property enforcement treaty the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement or ACTA. Australia, the Republic of Korea, New Zealand, Mexico, Jordan, Morocco, Singapore, the United Arab Emirates, and Canada have joined the negotiations."

"The main problem with this treaty is that all the negociations are done secretly. Leaked documents show that one of the major goals of the treaty is to force signatory countries into implementing anti file-sharing policies under the form of three-strikes schemes and net filtering practices."

Tell your MEPs and government representatives you want more transparency before this is voted on. Here are some places where you can take action:

• Help sign the Written Declaration about ACTA
• Direct.Gov's UK petition
• Whitehouse.Gov's US petition
• E-petition (Deutsch)
• Suggested guidelines for contacting representatives

Here's a roundup of recent good and bad news from the United Kingdom that could impact fans:

• Discussions about blocking websites that are considered to infringe on copyright have been shelved by the U.K. government. However, the idea has been postponed rather than abandoned, since the decision to shelve turned largely on the details of the plan rather than the general intent. Similar efforts may spring up again in the near future. This article from the BBC News discusses fan fiction, specifically, as an example of the "remix culture" that must be recognized and accommodated in any new copyright revisions.
• The U.K. has been focusing on updating copyright laws for the digital age. This overview of an in-depth report on the state of copyright in the U.K. suggests that the revamp may be a good thing for the economy, but it stops short of endorsing "fair use" exemptions similar to those in the U.S. One idea proposed in the report was a central clearinghouse for all copyrighted works. It remains to be seen how such an institution might affect fanworks.
• If you're interested in hearing discussions on how copyright can better serve artists and the general public, the Global Congress on Intellectual Property and Publication is taking registrations until 23 August for its webcast.

If you would like to add information to Fanlore entries on copyright, the site is open to participation from all fans and would welcome your contributions.

We want your suggestions! If you know of an essay, video, article, event, or link you think we should know about, comment on the most recent Links Roundup — on transformativeworks.org, LJ, or DW — or give @OTW_News a shoutout on Twitter. Links are welcome in all languages!

Submitting a link doesn't guarantee that it will be included in a roundup post, and inclusion of a link doesn't mean that it is endorsed by the OTW.

The OTW has been working with Australian fans and lawyers - including founding board member Cathy Cupitt - to submit comments protesting Australia's attempts to censor the Internet. Under the plan, Australia's two largest ISPs, Telstra and Optus (along with two smaller ISPs, itExtreme and Webshield) would create a secret list of blacklisted sites without any review or accountability.

As Cupitt notes in her comment, fan sites can be "particularly vulnerable to inappropriate filtering, classification, and censorship." Cupitt's comment also notes that fanfiction, for example, represents "a reinvigorated and growing art scene, bringing new ideas to explorations of important topics such as ability, gender and race," and that the kind of discourse and interaction that happens on fan sites is valuable. Legal academic Kim Weatherall also discusses the special risks filtering poses to fans and to sites hosting user-submitted content in her comment. The commission is posting comments publicly here.

I'm Helka, a member of OTW's International Outreach (IO) committee. In an effort to bring more international news to our members, the OTW has asked IO to work with the Communications team. The following story was written by IO member Tanaqui.

A scheme for mandatory ISP-level censorship in Australia looks unlikely to succeed, despite the Labor government promoting the proposal having retained power in Australia's recent parliamentary elections. The filter, proposed by Labor before the elections, would have likely prevented Australians from accessing most R-18+ content, including fanworks hosted outside Australia on archives such as an Archive of Our Own (AO3).

Electronic Frontiers Australia (EFA), which campaigns to protect and promote the civil liberties of computer users, launched a campaign against the filter, the unfortunately-named It's Time to Tell Mum (which came under fire for sexist content). However, the EFA now believes that this filter legislation would not be passed in the House of Representatives, let alone make it through a hostile Senate because the new government could not muster enough support for the filter among the Greens and independents who make up its partners.

Here’s a roundup of stories that might be of interest to fans: we've got stories from A (Afghanistan) to Z (the Zombie Beatles!) beneath the cut!