Group items tagged

Hosted by the Sydney Law School, is a seminar to discuss the very modern challenges of private international law jurisdiction in cyberspace. Very apt for this week's topic of Borders. When: 6pm-7.30pm, Tuesday 4 May 2010 (registration and refreshments from 5.30pm) Where: Sydney Law School, New Law School Building, Eastern Avenue, Camperdown Campus Registration: $77 incl GST (full-time student concession $44 incl GST)

Law School talk on legal challenges of the interwebs tomorrow: The Sydney Law School will tomorrow host a seminar to discuss the very modern challenges of private international law jurisdiction in cyberspace. "Trade and commerce have become increasingly international - we no longer live in a world where merchants typically do business with others located in the same country. Businesses are just as likely to look to potential partners overseas, and will frequently conclude their transaction over the internet… without ever meeting or speaking to each other," says Associate Professor Chester Brown.

In the US a coalition consisting of Google, Microsoft, Ebay, AT&T, and Intel is fighting for a change of the Electronics Communications Privacy Act (ECPA) that was enacted in 1986. The coalition stresses the fact that the Internet has changed tremendously since then and the law therefore needs to be adapted. It protects files in the homes of people but law enforcement entities do not need judicial warrant to view files stored with ISPs, in the cloud or get GPS data from mobile phones.\nDefinitely a case worth fighting for - and an opportunity for Google & Co. to get good press. What about the law that allows checking and copying peoples' computer harddrives at airports though?

This article discusses the rhetorical question of how the Internet culture of youths, does not have laws that adequately serve or protect. Some laws are too concrete, while others are non existent. Laws need to be redefined, as the Internet culture does not necessarily dictate the same types of culture and attitudes we experience in person. The laws at present, provide loopholes, that either are not justified persecutions, or are simply to harsh, and or simply allow the offender to walk away.

The Federal Government introduces anti-harassment laws for online harrasment. It points out, interestingly, that whilst a 16 year old has protection under current laws 15 year olds don't. It will be interesting to see how this works in practice.

Here is the wikipedia synthesis about the French law Hadopi. After a lot of reboudings and disagreements, the law which tends to bring a better control and regulation on the Internet has been adopted last october. If you are interesting, you can also find some further information on this blog: http://connectedresearch.wordpress.com/2009/10/26/france-approves-hadopi-2-law-on-illegal-downloading/

And as you can see, the effects expected are not immediate... http://connectedresearch.wordpress.com/2010/03/29/hadopi-leads-to-increased-illegal-downloading/

The use of technology as a form of communication has brought about social and ethical issues around bullying and harassment. In the US many states are starting to instigate laws to deal with cases of bullying (eg Megans Law)  There needs to be more education around the etiquette of digital communication and the repercussions when abuse is transmitted.

Digital Due Process is the name of a new coalition composed among other companies by Google, Microsoft and AT&T advocationg for a new legislation to strenght online privacy laws to prevent government access to private digital information in the US

Article about a family from L.A. whose 18-year old daughter had a car accident. Pictures of her dead body were leaked by the California Highway Patrol and soon spread on the Internet. The family went to court to claim privacy. The article describes how the trial "reshaped the boundaries of privacy law in the Internet age".

Australian defamation law and how it applies to the Internet

Australian censorship laws reach a new level.

I'm not certain how this fits into the RC internet filtering, but by requiring artists to lodge a $500 application for expert appraisal to certify an image 'art' as opposed to any old image that is subject to child pornography laws, you implicity RC everything else.

South Korean government still thinks that the benefits of censorship are worth the opprobrium. They block dusscusion sites, arrest bloggers for rediculous reasons; for instance, they publish controversial opinions or propagating falsehood online. Since many popular foreign websites such as Google and Youtube decided to require its users to undergo identity verification, Korean internet users have nowhere to have the freedom of speech on the web planet.

The UK Government are proposing to introduce a Digital Economy Bill.  The owners of copyright material will be able to pursue individuals who are sharing their content and take legal recourse.  Persistent offenders can eventually be blocked by their ISP. "Persistent" offenders will have received 50 notices before the Government can request that the ISP block their access to the internet. Sites that host material / content that breaches the bill will be issued with a series of take down notices. This impacts all sites - not just those whose servers are based in the UK.  If the site does not comply with the take down notice it will be possible for the site to be blocked within the UK. 

There is a call for specific cyber bullying laws to be introduced on Australia.  A recent case that led to the suicide of a 17 year old boy led to the sentencing of a man to a community service order. The Government has agreed that more needs to be done to empower and protect victims.

Police crowdsource to find perpetrators of the Oakleigh riot, asking the public to send in mobile phone footage, and also sourcing from internet, cctv, and news crews. Changing nature of public surveillance and law enforcement.

Online censorship is growing in scale, scope, and sophistication around the world," said John Palfrey, Executive Director of the Berkman Center for Internet and Society and Clinical Professor of Law at Harvard Law School. South Korea's filtering efforts are very narrow in scope, but heavily censor one topic, North Korea;

This is 5 years of global survey on political, social and national security filtering conducted May 18, 2007

Nick Xenophone wants a new law introduced that  could see people being jailed for up to 5 years if they lie about their age to children.  The idea has come about after the murder of Carly Ryan in 2007. 

A group of teenagers in the US have been charged after months of bullying led to victim committing suicide. The district they live in has since passed a law requiring anti-bullying to form part of the curriculum.  

This is a blog that deals with everything to do with games. This post talks about Australian classification laws applying to international games companies when they choose to allow Refused Classification games into Australia. The question of borders comes to mind when reading this somewhat long and unedited post, but it certainly gets us thinking about the scope of Australia's antiquated classification laws...

Australian government is planning to accedeto the concil of Europe's Convention on Cybercrim, to further govern online content. several opinons appeared, one is saying that "age-appropriate" filtering is more effective than compelling ISPs to provide access to stored electronic communications for foreign law enforcement pruposes.

One of the Acts under which the exact laws are outlined in regards to telecommunications providers and their responsibility towards the consumer and state. Dry and very 'Legal' but useful.