Designing a Coherent Framework for the Regulation of Internet Content
Against the backdrop of transforming patterns of content production, dissemination and use, as well as the changed governance landscape in the Internet age, this paper seeks to emphasize the point that media can no longer be taken as a self-contained policy domain reserved for the nation state. It raises awareness of the necessity for a broader understanding of the relevant societal and governance processes and sketches the new challenge to ensure a coherent regulatory framework for Internet content. In this sense, the paper seeks to address the question of appropriate forms of regulating Internet content and pleads for a recalibrated action in the domain of global media law and policy, in particular with regard to network neutrality and Internet filtering.
Global Trends in Online Copyright Enforcement: A Non-Neutral Role for Network Intermediaries?
This article examines a worldwide shift in laws, policies, and practices pertaining to intermediaries’ role in online copyright enforcement. We use a comparative methodology to expose an emerging trend in jurisdictions, including Australia, Belgium, Canada, China, the European Union, France, Germany, Japan, New Zealand, Singapore, South Korea, the United Kingdom, and the United States. Previously, the worldwide standard approach to issues of Internet service provider liability was to require carriers and hosts to behave passively until becoming aware of copyright-infringing activities on their networks, at which time a reaction typically involving the takedown of allegedly infringing content was required. Very recent events in several jurisdictions demonstrate a new trend away from a passive-reactive approach toward an active-preventative approach instead. Government policies, voluntary practices, legislative enactments, and judicial rulings are all contributing to this shift in the rules applicable to online intermediaries. One reason for the shift is increased pressure from rights holders on legislators and policymakers to make intermediaries play a greater role in online copyright enforcement. Another less obvious reason is that intermediaries’ and rights-holders’ interests are aligning. While rights holders are concerned about copyright enforcement and intermediaries are concerned about network management, the result is a mutual interest in content filtering or traffic shaping. The danger highlighted by this article is that policymakers might inadvertently craft inappropriate legal and regulatory responses by failing to appreciate the divergent motivations behind, and implications following, this trend. To help avoid those pitfalls, this article exposes a new global trend in the area of online copyright enforcement, and it suggests increased coordination among policymakers and affected stakeholders as an appropriate response.
Analysis: The Agenda 2007 Proposals: Evolution or Revolution?
On 10 February 2004 the Commission published its proposal for the financial perspective 2007-2013. A week later it adopted the third report on economic and social cohesion. These two documents form the basis of the so-called ‘Agenda 2007 reforms’. They will be the greatest challenge for the enlarged EU after the intergovernmental conference, since they will determine the financial basis for EU policy-making until the middle of the next decade. The Agenda 2007 proposals certainly hint at courageous reforms, because they place a previously unheard-of emphasis on performance and quality. Under the proposals, structural operations should generate value for money, and the funds should focus on projects which generate added value at a European level. Overall the Commission’s proposals point in the right direction, because they balance, on the one hand, solidarity for the new Member States and weak regions in the old Member States with, on the other hand, investments in future tasks. Moreover, they constitute a paradigm shift. For the first time, the Common Agricultural Policy will not be the dominant expenditure category. Now it is up to the Member States to examine the proposals politically and find a compromise between sometimes very divergent interests. It is to be hoped that, during the debate over expenditure limits and division of funds, national interests do not outweigh European interests.