Strive to Fit

[shayeeef-blog]

Can we be forgotten after using the cloud service?

Last week we played a card game to play different roles from end users to designers exploring needs and responsibilities of them. One thing I found interesting was the right to be forgotten. As the power of Internet increasingly expanded, especially with the wider application of the cloud computing, I would like to take the right to be forgotten as a representative figure to evaluate how much we can control the data uploaded online.

In this discussion, the right to be forgotten is quite similar to the right to erasure, which means how can individual deletes his personal information when he or she determines to do so. The effect of such action sees in the Key Changes  from the EU GDPR.ORG. In the Key Changes, three uses may be prohibited by the data service provider -- ”...erase his/her personal data, cease further dissemination of the data, and potentially have third parties halt processing of the data”.

The question is that can the data controller really erase users’ personal information as users’ requests. The rule of free Internet service is allowing Internet Service Providers to collect users’ personal information and use those information in a commercial way. There is no real “free service” on the Internet. Social medias like Facebook, Twitter and others not only collect personal data for themselves, they also make profits by allowing other ISPs to use the data. It might be true that the biggest obstacle to the right of be forgotten of users is the Internet itself rather than technological measures.(from Lazzeri)

Article 17(2) of GDPR pointing out, the controller’s responsibility is not limited to erase user’s information on their platforms,  notices or technical measures must be taken to the third parties who are processing the information. This kind of “complete” erasure may cause the ISPs to make some tricks to avoid the request of fully erasure, for instance, writing an article to limit the scope of erasure when the user wants to “delete all personal data” in the user’s agreement.

Besides that, cloud computing takes the storage of data to a higher level -- the controller may be uncertain as traditional data storage. One example here is the 

blockchain technology. 

(picture from Blockgeeks: https://goo.gl/images/S9Kj1X)

In such an open and decentralized way, what technical can effectively erase personal data? This leaves a space for further discussion and future technologies.

[shayeeef-blog]

Should we have any expectation of privacy in public spaces?

Some time ago I was going through my social media feeds when something caught my eye. A person I barely knew posted a selfie with himself an

[shayeeef-blog]

Are they always listening?

Few months ago, I saw a video talking about a creepy thing: Google is listening to user’s speaking when using google.

Video:  Is Google always listening: Live Test 

This video was from a blogger, Mitchollow, on YouTube. He uploaded it on April 12, 2018 and got nearly 9 millions hits now. In the video, the blogger compared the website pages when using Google Chrome to the same website but after talking about dog toys  while the browser was closed, showing that the side advertisement on the website pages were replaced from irrelevant content to dog toys. 

(pitcure from Bravo Net Solution: https://goo.gl/images/L23mvJ)

Actually, targeted advertisement is not something new to users nowadays. The video was an example of it. ISPs (Internet Service Providers) have been tracking users online to target users more precisely, then increasingly revenue from ads. To prevent potential legal risks of violating privacy, ISPs launch a series of preference settings and user’s terms and conditions to ask for individual’s consent to use his personal information and online tracking. If we think on the side of ISPs, it makes sense to make profits someway when providing free products, and this is why users agree to see ads. The real question is that users have no way to control how exactly their information are used because only ISPs have access to decide. In a user’s perspective, one day he may be extremely uncomfortable when seeing ads contained his released information that he is unwilling to share, and has no ideas why it happens or how to protect himself.

The video “Is Google always listening” was not a perfect test because the blogger uploaded another video with few conditions changed three days later. In the latter one, the test result to the question was NO. Despite those controversy about what was the perfect test, these two video revealed the mass public concerns regarding personal data. The unbalance power between ISPs and users has to be re-addressed by laws. Thus, EU, for instance, passed the important GDPR (General Data Protection Regulation) to empower EU users’ privacy protection.

However, just like we discussed on the class, how much do we trust laggard legal system can really properly limit ISPs power to use personal data? Besides that, do we really can enforce ISPs to restrict themselves by not using their products? There are people believe privacy released and unjustified use of personal data are not their problems because it never happens to them, so this concern about extreme power of ISPs might me harmless to them. Moreover, there is no options or better options if we stop using current products which may be with unfair user’s agreement. 

[shayeeef-blog]

YouTube Content ID

One interesting thing I found on class this week was YouTube Content ID. It is a advanced move against copyright infringement arisen 9 years ago on the most powerful video platform. This helps copyright holders to rely less on traditional notice-then-take-down protection which may be time-consuming and less profitable. 

The Content ID uses the mass data to find if the video upload now would match any video uploaded before. This matching process is like scanning user’s content before being published. Therefore, how this tool works will be important.

Here is the information of Match Tool from YouTube:

https://support.google.com/youtube/answer/7648743?hl=en-GB&ref_topic=2778544

I do think this can protect copyright in some level, but there are certain concerns about how effective it could be. 

Firstly, you may find that this copyright match tool can only be applied to a small number of videos (including audios). Though YouTube has become one of the most popular online video sharing platform, there are still plenty of video platforms attracted various users and their original contents. It means contents hasn’t been uploaded on YouTube before by authors (or right holders) themselves could be considered as originals if anyone unloads them. This Content ID can only match “finger prints” already existed. For those original works don’t exist in YouTube’s database, they could be infringed and not protected by this system. Meanwhile, this database is very limited. Without significant number of “sample finger prints”, how many infringed contents could be profiled as “infringement”?

Secondly, how we can say two contents are matched? There is no clear standard from YouTube.

[shayeeef-blog]

BREAKING: CJEU says that site like The Pirate Bay makes acts of communication to the public

The IPKat blog reports on copyright, patent, trade mark, info-tech and privacy/confidentiality issues from a mainly UK and European perspect

Pirate Bay provides an index to its users rather than works protected by copyright law contributing an infringement as an act of communication to the public.

I think this kind of indexing sites may be considered as infringers of copyright as they provide an access to works that anyone could reach or copy works (or torrent files) without any permission from right holders. It helps, and even encourages, others to use the protected works, therefore the website is infringed on the ground of communication to the public.

[shayeeef-blog]

Resoluciones de ALAI – Aladda

This week, we talked about some current copyright issues in cyberspace.

One of the most up-to-date issue is ‘meme’. I love memes and the remixed culture. I do see or feel there are intellectual creations from some really good memes (or stickers). Sometime people creat their own styles or stories by using one or few same elements or original works (include but not limited to words, pictures, short videos), which may be a highly different work. The use of original word is essential but not a substantial part for the new work. That’s a new challenge for copyright protection.

Another issue may be more academic - ‘deep linking’. It’s not a simple links-provides action. It means users can directly see the context in the website they are viewing rather than click a link to open the original website. For instance, there may be a website collecting mass media information everyday to provide a ‘collection media’ to their users, where no original links of information collected from other medias are provided, so users can directly read ‘collected information’. In the collection, this website edits all contexts to make it more readable. The deep link creates a new way to spread information in cyberspace. It may infringe the right of communication to the public of right holders.

Attached link is a resolution of hyperlinking under Berne Convention, WCT and InforSoc Directive.

[mostlysignssomeportents]

Copyfraud: making the case for actual copyright enforcement

Jason Mazzone’s Copyfraud and Other Abuses of Intellectual Property Law isn’t just another book about how the expansion of copyright and trademark law has harmed innovation, free speech and creativity. Instead, Mazzone – the youngest faculty member in Brooklyn law school’s history to hold an endowed chair – argues that the real problem is that copyright law isn’t enforced enough. Mazzone persuasively argues that the room that copyright makes for public expression and innovation – through fair use and other defenses – offer exactly the kind of safety valve that copyright’s monopoly on expression demands.

However, as Mazzone points out, there is virtually no penalty for unjustly claiming that these public freedoms don’t exist. The entertainment industry can slather its products in dire warnings that ignore fair use and make misleading threats for users who lend, re-use or sample the media they buy. They can demand licenses for minimal uses, for works in the public domain, and for fair uses. They can assert absurd trademark claims. They can threaten baseless lawsuits by the bushel-load – and all without any risk to them.

Mazzone’s point is that without a robust set of regulations and punishments for companies that claim to own what rightfully belongs to the public, this will only expand. After all, falsely claiming that your public domain sheet music can’t be copied by a choir means that you get to sell a lot of copies of your sheet music – absent a penalty for such a fraudulent claim, who would abstain from it?

Mazzone writes with the clarity of Lessig, Samuelson and Boyle – the gold standards for public, lay-friendly copyright writing – and uses infamous cases to make his point, from the scam that cost George Clinton his copyrights to the fraudulent claims made by Mattel against artists who make fun of Barbie. He unpicks the intricate tangle of state and federal law, precedent and norms, and sets out a series of problems and then proposes a set of sane, implementable solutions that could be turned into law today.

By offering simple solutions to these problems, Mazzone shows that the theft of the public domain isn’t due to the impossibility of getting the law right. Rather, it is a combination of depraved indifference by lawmakers and unchecked greed by corporations. Reading Mazzone gives you the idea that the technical question of solving copyright is actually rather simple – though finding the political will may prove much harder.

Copyfraud and Other Abuses of Intellectual Property Law

[shayeeef-blog]

Prof Lessig believe that law chock the creativity, especially the copyright. The video was taken 9 years ago but still clearly pointing out the spirit of balance for intellectual property law. We created the absolute right for IPR (intellectual property rights) owners which prohibits other people to use ( i.e. copy in copyright) their ‘property’. But it is created because we want to encourage more people to create, therefore, benefiting the public better.

However, IP laws sets barriers for future creaters. During the Information Age, technologies bring more challenges to IPR protection and creativity compared to 9 years ago. Prof Lessig once wrote ‘how big media uses technology and the law to lock down culture and control cerativity’ to talk about the IP in cyberspace.

[shayeeef-blog]

I found an interesting report from WIPO:  Role of Intellectual Property in Innovation and New Product Development. 

See the report here.

I thought inventions under IP was basically the same thing as innovations, but it seems like innovations are more connected with commercialization. From the legal perspective, especially IPRs, inventions will be evaluated if they are new, novel and have invention steps. Inventions don’t have to be products as long as they are capable of industrial applications. Innovations are not required to reach a high level of novelty or brand new, where simply certain progresses applied in the manufacture process are satisfied.