Google search in court

In the story below, I am troubled by two things:

- the assumption that a diversity of items being available proves that each of them are rarer to come by (here a yellow hat). How a Google search can help assessing this baffles me. Statistics of sale would be more relevant. Education of judges in how to use Google and how Google gathers its information?

- why indeed a judge can 'google' but not juries?

Judges Allowed To Use Google To 'Confirm Intuition' In Cases (TechDirt, 23 March 2010)

"Supreme Court Says No Cameras In The Courtroom" (TechDirt 14 January 2010)

Impartiality of judges

I found it a bit extreme to forbid the use of facebook. It is even hypocrite when one knows that judges and practitionners know each other quite well in real life, especially in the US and the UK where solicitors and barristers later become judges. The essential matter should be to ensure that facebook is not used to communicate on the case involving all sides.

"Florida Says Judges Can't Even Be Facebook Friends With Lawyers" (TechDirt, 11 December 2009)

Update on Hadopi 2 (Senate)

Juriscom.net - droit des technologies de l'information
Sandrine Rouja, Une deuxième loi "création et internet" pour juillet, versant pénal (25 June 2009)

Le Sénat adopte le projet de loi HADOPI 2 (Juriscom. 9 July 2009)
for the details (in French) on the French Senate website: http://www.senat.fr/dossierleg/pjl08-498.html

The bill has now been approved by Senate. Two main measures: one against the person pirating with the already existing 3 years prison and 300.000 euros fine, but with the additional sentence of forbidden access to the internet; the second measure is against the person who would not have secured her/his connexion once warned that his/her IP address was used for pirating, under the basis of "characterised negligence". The latter offence would be a misdemeanour.
The procedure remains that of the "ordonnance penale" thus an expeditive procedure used for mass offences (contentieux de masse) like driving offences. On that see Masnik's view from the US:

New French Three Strikes Law: Judges Will Get Five Minutes To Rule

On the general debate on intellectual property and whether the rules should be changed, a.k.a. created products should be available for free, Pierre-Yves Gautier, French Professor at Paris-Assas, was interviewed on 1st July 2009 in the (left-wing) newspaper Liberation. He notes the sociological phenomenom of illegal downloading and criticises the idea that intellectual property is not equivalent to property or is a sub-class of property not worthy of protection, and that their owners/inventors should beg to make a living out of it.

La propriété intellectuelle, un sous-droit (1st July 2009)

I feel it is a very simplified view of the matter, given that the people really opposing piracy are mostly linked with Hollywood and that artists like the Monthy Pythons chose a different route. For my own work, as an academic, I don't like the fact that my articles are not freely available once I published them. Frankly the publisher nowadays does not do much: I am the one typing the article, reviewing all references and proof-reading at least twice (publisher only once). The peer-review is done free of charge for the publisher who rarely pays the reviewers. And the cost of printing is becoming inexistent as most journals are available online or only online. yes there is all the coordination stuff; by experience, I know how time-consuming it can be. But worst of all if the argument of IP is that creators should get their share of the money, well: I am not paid a single bit of a penny to publish. Arguably, as an academic I am paid by the University which employs me, but I am certainly not paid per article, and publishing is just one out of three jobs I am supposed to fulfill. So why should my work not be freely available?

Update on Hadopi 2

Hadopi 2 jugée inconstitutionnelle, le gouvernement s'enferre - Journal du Net > e-Business (30 June 2009)

Interesting impact assessment of the new proposal conducted by the newspaper La Tribune. If 50 000 cases per year are to be treated, 109 posts would have to be created of which 26 for judges. In 80% of cases, the judge will use the abbreviated procedure of "ordonnance penale". The remainder will go to the equivalent of the Crown Court (Tribunal correctionnel)

Swedish piracy case and judge's impartiality

Justice must be seen as well as be done. A traditional ECHR principle stemming out of a English common law culture of impartiality which Sweden may well have forgotten in this case. A real shame when one thinks of the controversy around the justifications of piracy.

Swedish Appeals Court Denies Pirate Bay Retrial -- Says No Bias By Judge(TechDirt, 25 June 2009)

Hadopi, right to access a court of first instance and piracy policy

Before it was even adopted by Parliament, the French bill that promoted the three strikes policy in its attempt to fight piracy was doomed.

The EU Parliament condemned it (See TechDirt, 6 May 2009) EU Says No To Three Strikes On Accusation Only; Requires Court Order

and even the UK TalkTalk ISP (TechDirt, June 9, 2009) director considered it was silly to forbid, "pirats will always win" UK ISP Boss: 'The Pirates Will Always Win'

Without surprise, the bill, passed by an empty Assembly, was declared unconstitutional by the Constitutional Council and thus in effect can only become a Statute if the unconstitutional provisions are withdrawn.

"French Constitutional Council Guts 'Three Strikes' As Unconstitutional" (TechDirt, 10 June 2009)

Legally, the decision is particularly enlightening when it comes to the grounds of unconstitutionality. The Council found several flaws, all in line with what I have been writing about in this blog:

- violation of freedom of speech and communication because the sanction was not decided by a court, but by an administrative agency; I keep saying that a court/ the judiciary has to decide on withdrawing illegal content as much as who committed any other illegal behaviour

• "16. Considérant que les pouvoirs de sanction institués par les dispositions critiquées habilitent la commission de protection des droits, qui n'est pas une juridiction, à restreindre ou à empêcher l'accès à internet de titulaires d'abonnement ainsi que des personnes qu'ils en font bénéficier ; que la compétence reconnue à cette autorité administrative n'est pas limitée à une catégorie particulière de personnes mais s'étend à la totalité de la population ; que ses pouvoirs peuvent conduire à restreindre l'exercice, par toute personne, de son droit de s'exprimer et de communiquer librement, notamment depuis son domicile ; que, dans ces conditions, eu égard à la nature de la liberté garantie par l'article 11 de la Déclaration de 1789, le législateur ne pouvait, quelles que soient les garanties encadrant le prononcé des sanctions, confier de tels pouvoirs à une autorité administrative dans le but de protéger les droits des titulaires du droit d'auteur et de droits voisins ;"

- violation of presumption of innocence by reversing the burden of proof to the accused; it is what I always found disturbing in those cases where the RIAA in the US bring lawsuits/charges before the Court and it is most of the time for the defendant to find proof s/he did not commit the action.

• "18. Considérant, en l'espèce, qu'il résulte des dispositions déférées que la réalisation d'un acte de contrefaçon à partir de l'adresse internet de l'abonné constitue, selon les termes du deuxième alinéa de l'article L. 331-21, " la matérialité des manquements à l'obligation définie à l'article L. 336-3 " ; que seul le titulaire du contrat d'abonnement d'accès à internet peut faire l'objet des sanctions instituées par le dispositif déféré ; que, pour s'exonérer de ces sanctions, il lui incombe, en vertu de l'article L. 331-38, de produire les éléments de nature à établir que l'atteinte portée au droit d'auteur ou aux droits voisins procède de la fraude d'un tiers ; qu'ainsi, en opérant un renversement de la charge de la preuve, l'article L. 331-38 institue, en méconnaissance des exigences résultant de l'article 9 de la Déclaration de 1789, une présomption de culpabilité à l'encontre du titulaire de l'accès à internet, pouvant conduire à prononcer contre lui des sanctions privatives ou restrictives de droit ;"

- violation of privacy if the private institutions collecting data about illegal downloading use this data for other purposes; we know by experience that it is well possible, so I wonder how the Constitutional Council thought his "reserve of interpretation" will be complied with and which mecanisms will be used to ensure compliance.

• 27. Considérant que la lutte contre les pratiques de contrefaçon sur internet répond à l'objectif de sauvegarde de la propriété intellectuelle et de la création culturelle ; que, toutefois, l'autorisation donnée à des personnes privées de collecter les données permettant indirectement d'identifier les titulaires de l'accès à des services de communication au public en ligne conduit à la mise en oeuvre, par ces personnes privées, d'un traitement de données à caractère personnel relatives à des infractions ; qu'une telle autorisation ne saurait, sans porter une atteinte disproportionnée au droit au respect de la vie privée, avoir d'autres finalités que de permettre aux titulaires du droit d'auteur et de droits voisins d'exercer les recours juridictionnels dont dispose toute personne physique ou morale s'agissant des infractions dont elle a été victime ;

Censure du Conseil constitutionnel : pas d'happy end pour l'HADOPI (Juriscom. 10 June 2009)

"French court curbs internet piracy legislation" (ZDnet.co.uk, 11 June 2009)

David El Sayegh (Snep)"Couper l'accès Internet comme on envoie les contraventions établies par les radars" (JDN, 11 June 2009)

Social networks: world and power

With always/often talk of Facebook, but this is not the only one on the web. Others in non English languages are actually attracting more customers, in China obviously, but also Brazil, Russia, Netherlands etc...
"Ces réseaux sociaux qui résistent à Facebook Sonico.com au Brésil" (JDN, 2 June 2009)
I wonder if their business models are better than those of Facebook. Note though that the Russian internet business man just 'bought' Facebook ...

"Judge 'Friends' Lawyer During Case, Influenced By Defendant's Website" (TechDirt 2 June 2009) or how a judge disqualified himself by contacting one party's lawyer with the new technologies during the trial!!! One wonders about the judge's sense of duty.

On collection of data/communication of data to the public:

Self-explanatory
"If You Rob A Bank, Perhaps You Shouldn't Brag About It On MySpace" (TechDirt 2 June 2009)

Not criminal as such, but interesting about the degree of non privacy (to be expected really):
"Analyzing Labor Data Via Facebook Status" (TechDirt, 2 June 2009) or how the words hired/fired on posting were used to analyse the trend in financial crisis management....

Takedown notices - recurring issue

THis is a recurring theme: private enforcement of the law instead of courts deciding if it is worth taking down, even temporarily. Maybe time to think about allocating courts to those matters?
Facebook Using DMCA Notices To Takedown Private Videos? (30th October 2008)

Investigations - some hope?

"University Gets Time To Notify Students Before Handing Over Info To The RIAA" (10 October 2008)

ISPs liabitiliy: the take-down notice procedure

A suit arising from claimed take-down notices sent to e-bay http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20071209/205715.shtml (13 December 2007) probably US based but interesting nonetheless...