Two investigations into the conduct of WIPO chief Gurry were set in motion last year after the Registerexclusively published an internal report on misconduct by Mr Gurry – the Pooley Report. This accused Gurry of improperly collecting DNA samples from staff without their knowledge in order to find out who had made internal complaints against him. It also accused Gurry of illegal exports of computer equipment to North Korea, and highlighted Gurry’s apparent over-riding of internal procurement procedures to award an IT contract to a company run by an acquaintance of his. At the time, Mr Gurry stated that the allegations were “without foundation”.
An initial investigation into the matters raised in the Pooley Report was undertaken by KPMG following the report’s publication by the Register. This concluded that a further and more detailed investigation was required. Such an investigation was begun – but the Register understands that it was closed down last November.
WIPO staff members want to know why this has happened. They also want to know why Gurry has paid out a significant sum of money to an ex-WIPO staff member named in the Pooley report. The staff council letter to WIPO’s supervising council of national ambassadors to the UN says:
A person (whose identity we will presently protect by calling him Mr X) was a temporary employee in WIPO internal audit; was involved in the tainted investigation of the Brown Report [the original probe into Mr Gurry’s secret collection of staff DNA in 2012-13]; critically, [he] appears in the Pooley Report … Mr X left WIPO in 2013 …
Mr X received in March 2015 a payment from WIPO for services rendered for over CHF 12,000. This sum was sourced to the budget of the Director General [Mr Gurry].
Category: Ignorant or unreasonable
Blocking pirate sites doesn’t weaken pirates say Euroboffins
In June 2011, authorities in Germany, Spain, France and the Netherlands raided premises suspected of having something to do with kino.to, a site that offered links to a Megaupload-style file lockers containing unlicensed copies of movies, music and TV shows.
Not long after the raids, the site shut up shop. Folks associated with the site were later jailed.
But according to a new research paper, Online Copyright Enforcement, Consumer Behavior, and Market Structure, closing the site had little effect on copyright breaches. Indeed, it may have spawned a new generation of stronger piracy services.
The paper was penned by Luis Aguiar of the European Union’s Institute for Prospective Technological Studies, Jörg Claussen of the Copenhagen Business School and Christian Peukert from the University of Zürich. The three got their hands on Nielsen NetView data that “… monitors the online activity of a representative sample of Internet users by recording all of their URL visits together with visit duration, while guaranteeing them that the data will be kept anonymous.” With that data in hand, the authors set about identifying pirate sites and found that in their January to June 2011 sample kino.to topped their chart of 15 sites of interest with about 6,000 visits per week.
Those visits stopped once kino.to’s service ceased, but a new kinoX.to site that claimed to be kino.to’s the official heir quickly picked up traffic. So did other sites offering similar services.
“Put together, our data clearly shows that the shutdown massively altered the German market for unlicensed video streaming, making it less concentrated and more competitive,” the authors write. Users also started visiting more piracy sites, up to around 1.4 a week from the 1.15 when kino.to was online.
The study does find that former kino.to users did start to spend more time visiting sites selling licensed content, but argues “If we were to take the costs of the intervention into account (raid, criminal prosecution, etc.), our results would suggest that the shutdown of kino.to has not had a positive effect on overall welfare.”
“Finally,” the authors conclude, “the shutdown of kino.to resulted in a much more fragmented structure of the market for unlicensed movie streaming. This potentially makes future law enforcement interventions either more costly – as there would not be a single dominant platform to shutdown anymore – or less effective if only a single website is targeted by the intervention.”
SOPA, anyone? Entertainment Lobby Uses Hearing on Domain Names to Revive Awful Censorship Idea
For many years, major U.S. entertainment companies have been trying to gain the power to make websites disappear from the Internet at their say-so. The Internet blacklist bills SOPA and PIPA were part of that strategy, along with the Department of Homeland Security’s project of seizing websites that someone accused of copyright infringement. Hollywood’s quest for more censorship power was on display again today at a House of Representatives committee hearing that was supposed to be discussing reforms at ICANN, the nonprofit organization that oversees the Internet’s domain name system. Amidst a discussion of new top-level domain names (such as “.sucks”), a lawyer representing the Motion Picture Association of America (MPAA), the Recording Industry Association of America (RIAA), and other groups told the House Judiciary Committee’s Internet subcommittee that ICANN should force the companies that register domain names to suspend domains based on accusations of copyright infringement.
If this sounds familiar, that’s probably because it’s exactly the sort of system that the disastrous SOPA bill would have created—one where entire websites can be forced to go dark, without a day in court, because some material on the site is accused of infringing a copyright. We wrote about this strategy in March, when it appeared in the US Trade Representative’s “Notorious Markets List,” also at Hollywood’s request.
This new strategy to obtain censorship power is based on vague language in the agreements that ICANN made with the companies selling names in new top-level domains like .website, .ninja, and .biz. The agreements say that domain name registrars “shall take reasonable and prompt steps to investigate and respond appropriately to any reports of abuse.” The agreements don’t mention copyright, or require domain registrars to disable a domain without a court order. But that didn’t stop Steve Metalitz, the lawyer for a coalition that includes MPAA and RIAA, from arguing that “reports of abuse that are submitted to registrars by right-holders” should lead to “investigation” and “redress.” Of course, a registrar like Tucows or Namecheap has no control over the contents of websites—they simply register domain names. From a technical standpoint, the only “redress” a registrar can offer to a copyright holder such as a movie studio is to suspend a site’s domain name, making the entire site inaccessible to most visitors.
Greatest Threat to Free Speech Comes Not From Terrorism, But From Those Claiming to Fight It
We learned recently from Paris that the Western world is deeply and passionately committed to free expression and ready to march and fight against attempts to suppress it. That’s a really good thing, since there are all sorts of severe suppression efforts underway in the West — perpetrated not by The Terrorists but by the Western politicians claiming to fight them.
One of the most alarming examples comes, not at all surprisingly, from the U.K. government, which is currently agitating for new counterterrorism powers, “including plans for extremism disruption orders designed to restrict those trying to radicalize young people.” Here are the powers which the British Freedom Fighters and Democracy Protectors are seeking:
They would include a ban on broadcasting and a requirement to submit to the police in advance any proposed publication on the web and social media or in print. The bill will also contain plans for banning orders for extremist organisations which seek to undermine democracy or use hate speech in public places, but it will fall short of banning on the grounds of provoking hatred.
It will also contain new powers to close premises including mosques where extremists seek to influence others. The powers of the Charity Commission to root out charities that misappropriate funds towards extremism and terrorism will also be strengthened.
In essence, advocating any ideas or working for any political outcomes regarded by British politicians as “extremist” will not only be a crime, but can be physically banned in advance. Basking in his election victory, Prime Minister David Cameron unleashed this Orwellian decree to explain why new Thought Police powers are needed: “For too long, we have been a passively tolerant society, saying to our citizens ‘as long as you obey the law, we will leave you alone.’” It’s not enough for British subjects merely to “obey the law”; they must refrain from believing in or expressing ideas which Her Majesty’s Government dislikes.
Florida Judge: infringement of 47 XArt’s “works“ warrants only $6,000 in damages
today Judge Sheri Chappell awarded a $6,000 default judgement (plus $1,657.00 in fees and costs) for 47 “works” in Malibu Media v. Danford (FLMD 14-cv-00511). She reasonably ignored the overblown claim of multiple infringements, thus patching a loophole Keith Lipscomb has been abusing for years. In addition, the judge questioned the “lost revenue” hype copyright trolls are so accustomed to pulling out of thin air
Looks Like CIA’s ‘Torture Revealed Osama’s Courier’ Story Now Even More False Than Previously Believed
For quite some time now, there have been serious questions about how how the US was able to track down Osama bin Laden’s “hiding place” to send in special forces to kill him. The story many people have heard was that the CIA was able to identify the “courier” who was used to help bin Laden communicate with the outside world, and then used that info to figure out where he was. And, a big part of that story — especially as immortalized in the movie Zero Dark Thirty — was that the CIA’s torture program was instrumental in revealing that information. However, even before the big Senate Intelligence Committee study on the torture program was released, it was revealed that the torture program had nothing to do with identifying the courier, known as Abu Ahmed al-Kuwaiti.
However, as you may have heard over the weekend, Seymour Hersh published a somewhat epic story, arguing that almost everything about the bin Laden killing was a lie, and a bunch of stories — including everything about al-Kuwaiti — were made up after the fact. Hersh’s story is well worth reading (as are some of the criticisms of it that question some of the details). But one key aspect of the report is that finding a courier had absolutely nothing to do with finding bin Laden. Instead, it was a so-called “walk in” — a Pakistani intelligence official who knew that Pakistan already had captured bin Laden — who reached out to the US, seeking the $25 million reward for information leading to bin Laden’s whereabouts.
In other words, even the Senate’s torture report gets the story wrong completely. In the Senate report, the identifying of al-Kuwaiti came from traditional interrogation, rather than the torture part. The CIA’s response was basically that it was the torture part (the bad cop) that enabled the information to come out separately (good cop). But Hersh’s report says the whole courier story is made up whole cloth. While some have questioned the details of Hersh’s report, there’s now independent verification from other sources to NBC that bin Laden was actually found via a “walk-in,” rather than the courier (warning: stupid NBC autoplay video at that link).
In Hersh’s version, the plan had been to kill bin Laden, and later (perhaps weeks later) come up with a story saying bin Laden had been killed by a drone strike. A few things went wrong — including one of the US helicopters famously crashing, and there was enough buzz that the US rushed to publicly announce the killing, including Obama’s famous speech that, apparently, created havoc since it messed up a bunch of previously agreed to things about how the killing would be presented, and was done without first clearing it with the intelligence community. This resulted in the CIA being rushed in to concoct some cover stories, and some CIA officials quickly realized that this would be a fantastic way to pretend that torture had been useful
You Can’t Read the TPP, But These Huge Corporations Can
The Senate today is holding a key procedural vote that would allow the Trans-Pacific Partnership to be “fast-tracked.”
So who can read the text of the TPP? Not you, it’s classified. Even members of Congress can only look at it one section at a time in the Capitol’s basement, without most of their staff or the ability to keep notes.
But there’s an exception: if you’re part of one of 28 U.S. government-appointed trade advisory committees providing advice to the U.S. negotiators. The committees with the most access to what’s going on in the negotiations are 16 “Industry Trade Advisory Committees,” whose members include AT&T, General Electric, Apple, Dow Chemical, Nike, Walmart and the American Petroleum Institute.
The TPP is an international trade agreement currently being negotiated between the US and 11 other countries, including Japan, Australia, Chile, Singapore and Malaysia. Among other things, it could could strengthen copyright laws, limit efforts at food safety reform and allow domestic policies to be contested by corporations in an international court. Its impact is expected to be sweeping, yet venues for public input hardly exist.
Industry Trade Advisory Committees, or ITACs, are cousins to Federal Advisory Committees like the National Petroleum Council that I wrote about recently. However, ITACs are functionally exempt from many of the transparency rules that generally govern Federal Advisory Committees, and their communications are largely shielded from FOIA in order to protect “third party commercial and/or financial information from disclosure.” And even if for some reason they wanted to tell someone what they’re doing, members must sign non-disclosure agreements so they can’t “compromise” government negotiating goals. Finally, they also escape requirements to balance their industry members with representatives from public interest groups.
The result is that the Energy and Energy Services committee includes the National Mining Association and America’s Natural Gas Alliance but only one representative from a company dedicated to less-polluting wind and solar energy.
The Information and Communications Technologies, Services, and Electronic Commerce committee includes representatives from Verizon and AT&T Services Inc. (a subsidiary of AT&T), which domestically are still pushing hard against new net neutrality rules that stop internet providers from creating more expensive online fast-lanes.
And the Intellectual Property Rights committee includes the Recording Industry Association of America, the Pharmaceutical Research and Manufacturers of America, Apple, Johnson and Johnson and Yahoo, rather than groups like the Electronic Frontier Foundation, which shares the industry’s expertise in intellectual property policy but has an agenda less aligned with business.
DEA Takes $16,000 From Train Passenger Because It Can
After scraping together enough money to produce a music video in Hollywood, 22-year-old Joseph Rivers set out last month on a train trip from Michigan to Los Angeles, hoping it was the start of something big.
Rivers changed trains at the Amtrak station in Albuquerque, New Mexico, on April 15, with bags containing his clothes, other possessions and an envelope filled with the $16,000 in cash he had raised with the help of his family, the Albuquerque Journal reports. Agents with the Drug Enforcement Administration got on after him and began looking for people who might be trafficking drugs.
Rivers said the agents questioned passengers at random, asking for their destination and reason for travel. When one of the agents got to Rivers, who was the only black person in his car, according to witnesses, the agent took the interrogation further, asking to search his bags. Rivers complied. The agent found the cash — still in a bank envelope — and decided to seize it on suspicion that it may be tied to narcotics. River pleaded with the agents, explaining his situation and even putting his mother on the phone to verify the story.
No luck.
Court To Homeland Security: Wait, No, You Can’t Just Take Anyone’s Laptop At The Border To Bring Somewhere To Search
The government — via the DHS and CBP — has long insisted it should be able to search whatever, whenever, within X number of miles of the border for national security reasons. The DOJ has routinely argued on its behalf, delivering non sequiturs like “Not searching your laptop doesn’t protect your civil liberties” with a straight face.
The security/liberty tradeoff has routinely suffered from the government’s insistence that its Fourth Amendment-skirting efforts are in the public’s best interest, even if the public isn’t nearly as interested in seeing the drawers of their personal computing equipment emptied onto the floor every time they stray too close to the “Constitution-Free Zone.”
The courts have generally upheld the government’s arguments, with a few exceptions. The Eastern District of New York basically said that if you don’t want your stuff looked through for no reason, don’t put so much stuff in your stuff — especially sensitive stuff. The presiding judge, Edward Korman, went so far as to compare the US to countries with severe civil rights issues, like Syria and Lebanon, and declared the US the “winner,” seemingly because citizens enjoy more rights once they move further inland.
Congressmen Blame Drugs, Gay Marriage, Welfare, and Immigrants for Unrest in Baltimore
Protesters in Baltimore say they have been driven into the streets by years of police abuse and a lack of economic opportunities.
But some lawmakers have other ideas for what’s causing the unrest in Baltimore:
— Rep. Mo Brooks, R-Ala., appeared on Birmingham talk radio on April 28 to denounce illegal immigration and politicans who have leaned towards more lenient drug laws as “factors culminating in what we saw in Baltimore.”
— Rep. Bill Flores, R-Tex., went on a podcast program to discuss the Supreme Court case over gay marriage on April 29. Flores tied the lack of marriages “between a man and a woman” with “what is going on in Baltimore.”
— Rep. Mike Kelly, R-Pa., called into on the Sam Malone Show on May 1 to discuss the “anarchy” in Baltimore. The host argued, “if there’s no one telling you about love of America and your neighbors, what do you expect” To which Kelly replied, “I’m with you.” The congressman continued, to those who say families in Baltimore “did not have a chance,” Kelly said, “give me a break,” before going on to blame the unrest in Baltimore on welfare programs.
While the protests engulfed the city of Baltimore, Congress worked diligently on other matters last week. Legislators, including Rep. Brooks, voted on legislation to boost taxpayer spending on fighter jets and missile systems well beyond what Pentagon planners had requested.