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As the functions of Artificial Intelligence (AI) have increased the level of potential damages to individuals by processing and transferring personal data for the results supporting businesses, the regulations aiming to protect privacy of individuals in term of the collection and processing of personal data was enforced in many countries. In this regard, the organizations and companies tend to face both technical and financial difficulties from legal compliance. However, it is essential to know that the risk of shortfall in privacy and such burden of legal compliance can be changed to advantage among the companies using AI in the business perception.  

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The larger the organizations are, the more damages of data breaches take place due to the massive amount of personal data on their hands. Although GDPR has been imposed to protect personal data of people through measures and penalty, yet there are still limitations upon its concepts and enforcement. It is controversial whether the smart cities operated by the cooperative harmonization between users’ data and technological system need more strict restrictions or any strategy to prevent threats arising from data breaches and cyber world and how those should be to be suitable to this digital revolution.

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The dissatisfaction of website users towards the annoying cookies automatically appearing on the website has increased as many of them are likely to provide no choice except “accept” the data tracked by the websites. However, these dark patterns in cookies banners making users choose “accept” are not what legitimate cookie consents under GDPR should be. It is very helpful to acknowledge various of tricks of dark patterns used by the websites to be aware of not being one of the victims!

Image by https://popupsmart.com/blog/best-gdpr-plugins-for-wordpress 

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Second-Hand Software Licence: A lack of legal protection for software licensor?

Since the sale of used software licence was legally permitted by the decision of the Court of Justice of the European Union (the “Court”) (UsedSoft GmbH v Oracle International Corp, C-128/11), consumers have markedly benefited from this alternative of buying second-hand software at the cheaper price. On the contrary, many software licensors are questioning whether this ruling deteriorated the right of copyright owners as the competing price between brand-new software and used software which, owing to its nature, are similar in the qualification can cause a sharp decrease in their income.

Is the fact that the Court considered the licensing of software, which is an intangible copy and made available via direct download on the website, to be the same concept with the sale of tangible intellectual property, i.e. books, can be assumed that the Court neglect the protection of rights owner by allowing consumers’ right superseded the software licensor counterpart? Let go through the Court’s landmark decision to perceive what extent the resale of software licence will be legitimate under the Software Directive (2009/24/EC).

In principle, the copyright holders exhaust its distribution right over that copyrighted work after the first sale thereof as the copyright holders have already gained profit from their work. Thus, the purchaser of the copyrighted work is eligible to resell it as the lawful owner. This exhaustion of right upon the first sale applies to the licensing of software via the direct downloading on website providing that software is licensed for (i) perpetual licence with; (ii) one-off payment. In this regard, the purchaser of second-hand software will be a lawful owner from this eligible software resale even if there is a non-transferrable restriction imposed by software licensor.

In addition, the Court posed that resale of software licence will be eligible only if it is not a partial re-licensing and the licensee makes such software unusable for their own usage after the resale. This means that there is only one person using the software at a time which unlikely to affect the software licensor as the lump sum fee paid thereto already included the use of software for unlimited time.

The second-hand software market does not only bring about benefit to consumers as a cost saving option, but also possibly prompt a growth in turnover of software licensed of the licensors since people may tend to make their decision easily to license software if they know that they can resell it thereafter. Moreover, the ability to resell the used software promotes value of software, especially both unused software and shelfware. Not to mention that the second-hand software market can accelerate the development of software for the competitive software market.

In light of the above-mentioned positive impacts, could this landmark decision demonstrate the intention to maintain balance between the right of software licensors and the right of consumers in order to eventually be advantageous for public interest as a whole?    

 Image by https://monophy.com/gifs/sternundberg-shopping-clothes-second-hand-LMPRVKk8uGup8Pdj6E 

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Cryptocurrency: Its real value for becoming a future of currency

According to the expectation that digital currency, especially cryptocurrency will eventually become new form of money in the upcoming future, there is a sharp increase in the number of people investing in cryptocurrencies aiming to make profit out of the speculation. Considering the upsides of cryptocurrency, it is understandable why people are tempted in participating in the cryptocurrencies’ community, regardless of the risks arising therefrom.

Cryptocurrency is a non-fiat cryptographic electronic payment system providing a peer-to-peer entirely distributed currency that does not require the middleman, i.e. central bank, to issue or operate (A Guadamuz, and C Marsden, (2015) Blockchains and Bitcoin: regulatory responses to cryptocurrencies. First Monday, 20 (12)). In this regard, anyone can be an owner of cryptocurrency, regardless of their qualifications or real identifications. In addition, the users can transfer their cryptocurrency directly to other users including cross border payment with shorter amount of time and less transaction fee comparing to the conventional transfer means of the financial bodies.

Most importantly, cryptocurrency’s trading markedly become popular among investors, especially those in the new generation due to its challenged features containing high return within short period of time. This high demand of investing cryptocurrencies brought about the substantial rise in the value of cryptocurrencies, yet simultaneously the wide fluctuation therein. Then, the question stemming from this highly volatile investment should be what the real value of cryptocurrency is.

The form of money in this current trend is fiat-money, i.e. banknotes, is declared legal tender. Fiat-money is issued by the national central bank in align with the amount of foreign exchange reserves of each nation. Thus, its value is determined and backed by the credit of government. Government is eligible to manage the monetary policy to circumvent the high volatility of its value for the benefit of the citizens.

Although cryptocurrency can be functioned as a medium of exchange for buying things, cryptocurrency has not yet considered as money in many countries. This means that value of cryptocurrency neither is valuable itself comparing to gold, nor backed by government. Cryptocurrency as a digital currency, in principle can be worthless, unless government and business operators widely accept it as a medium of exchange for buying things.

However, the value of cryptocurrency is likely to be unpredictable as its value tends to depend on demand for it originating from social trend attached to influencers, i.e. billionaires and famous people instead of status of world economy or price of gold and oil. To illustrate, the guardian news website revealed on 1 November 2021 that the value of squid game cryptocurrency lost all its value after jumping more than 310,000% in value because Twitter flagged the cryptocurrency’s account and temporarily restrict it owing to the suspicious activity (https://www.theguardian.com/technology/2021/nov/01/squid-game-cryptocurrency-scam-fears-investors).

Notwithstanding cryptocurrency is unlikely to totally replace the current form of money in forthcoming future, the further development of cryptocurrency will somehow play the major role in this digital revolution era.

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New Hero, Arcom, of the online world will be introduced to protect rights of creators from any harmful threat in the upcoming year! The termination of Hadopi, anti-piracy agency will bring about excitement to see how its powerful power of Arcom will effectively cope with piracy, fake news, hate speech and infringement for this digital era.

Source: https://the-tech-tin.com/2021/10/goodbye-hadopi-france-will-launch-new-arcom-anti-piracy-agency-in-2022/

Goodbye Hadopi: France Will Launch New ‘Arcom’ Anti-Piracy Agency in 2022

Goodbye Hadopi: France Will Launch New ‘Arcom’ Anti-Piracy Agency in 2022

For more than a decade the Hadopi (High Authority for the Distribution of Works and the Protection of Rights on the Internet) anti-piracy agency was France’s official response to the threat of peer-to-peer file-sharing. The anti-piracy body pioneered the so-called “graduated response” system back in 2010, with Hadopi tracking down copyright infringers using mainly BitTorrent networks and then…

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When copyright infringement occurred upon online platform, it is really helpful to know to what extent the intermediary is possibly liable therefor. Does the existing regulation regarding intermediary liability treat relevant stakeholders fairly in this context? Let take a look!

Image by https://globalnetworkinitiative.org/policy-issues/intermediary-liability-content-regulation/ 

Source:https://nisteip.tumblr.com/post/666611760216850432/article-13-and-the-end-of-intermediaries 

Article 13 and the End of Intermediaries’ Liability As We Know It

For two decades, online platforms enjoyed immunity from illegal content uploaded by their users in the EU. But in 2016, in the frame of the Digital Single Market agenda, the Commission published a proposal for a new directive that would hold online intermediaries responsible for copyright infringing content. This change of policy provoked the ‘Article 13’ concerns which overwhelmed the internet world.

What is intermediary liability E-Commerce Directive provides that Information Society Services Providers (ISSPs) are not liable for mere transmission, caching and hosting illegal content, on condition that they expeditiously restrict illegal content when asked so. Furthermore, no general monitoring obligation can be imposed to them. This limited liability system allowed online industries to boom.

What would article 13 mean for online businesses All versions of the new directive discussed during the legislative process, intended to introduce an exemption to the above regime by requiring ISSPs to secure the rights holders’ permission before making copyrighted user-uploaded content available to the public. In other words, online platforms would have to conclude licensing agreements and probably apply upload filters to stay compliant.

Brief explanation of Article 13:

Reactions The news hit the cyberspace like a bomb. Open letters from the civil society and very important figures on the internet markets and academia (including the co-founder of Wikipedia, Jimmy Wales), addressing EU leaders, severely opposed to the reform. From Silicon Valley lobbyists to simple users, everyone was talking about the end of the internet as we knew it.

Youtube’s reaction was the strongest; not only did they raise the “#SaveYourInternet” campaign with pop-ups and videos, but also the CEO, Susan Wojcicki, made two blogposts on 22 Oct 2018 and 12 Nov 2018 claiming, inter alia, that “This legislation poses a threat to both your livelihood and your ability to share your voice with the world” and that “creator economy is under threat”.  Creators also responded with numerous videos such as the following one from PewDiePie (one the most successful youtubers worldwide):

The Final Text On 17 April 2019, the final version of EU “Directive on copyright and related rights in the Digital Single Market” was adopted and the text of article 17 (former article 13) indicates some compromise. The scope was narrowed to “online content-sharing service providers” and content uploaded for special purposes (e.g. parody and quotation) was exempted. Moreover, a liability-mitigation mechanism was introduced under which platforms shall not be held liable if they make ‘best efforts’ to obtain a license and to restrict unauthorised content. [The Commission has published relevant guidance]

Detailed explanation of article 17:

What is left from this case, is a reform of the EU’s intermediaries’ liability regime that may be in (almost) no stakeholder’s interest. Copyright holders will earn remuneration from a smaller audience and users’ ability to produce and consume content will be reduced. Finally, unequal burden will be put on platforms; the big ones will cope using their expensive Content ID technologies, while the smaller will struggle harder than ever to claim market share.

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Copyright strikes: Protecting or Destroying Rights Owner?

Image by https://clickds.co.uk/news/google-ads-three-strikes-youre-out 

Recently, news posed on BBC website that, the YouTubers got over £ 4,000 bill from the media company claiming on copyright infringement arising from their reaction videos seems to gain huge public attention among social media users, especially YouTubers who rely their earnings on the YouTube channel. They are likely to be on the watch for such circumstance as they may not want to risk in the same position.

Looking more closely to this case, the media company, holding a website providing licensing service of videos owned by its customers, charged the YouTubers over £ 4,000 with the allegation of infringing copyright upon posting its clients’ videos on the reaction videos of their YouTube channel without authorization of the videos’ creators. The Youtubers claimed that they had to pay such bill without choice, otherwise the four reports of copyright infringement will be submitted to YouTube causing the termination of their channel according to “three strikes rule” of Google’s policy. In the copyright law perspective, it definitely would not be fair for the copyright owners if YouTubers can republish their original copyrighted work for free to make considerable profit out of the abundant number of their subscribers and followers thereupon.

Notwithstanding, the consequence of three strike rule leaves YouTubers no choice but to pay for their bills to keep their channel available even though the claims have not yet been adjudged by the court. If their videos can possibly be considered as “fair use”, a legal exception of copyright infringement, would a bill issued by copyright owners or media companies be illegal or lead to unfair exploitation of YouTubers?

In this current trend, it is difficult to deny that video reactions of YouTubers, especially about movie review tremendously impact consumers in the entertainment industry. The more YouTubers mention about the copyrighted work, the more people tend to consume such work which will eventually make much more profit to the copyright owners comparing to the amount of licensing fee. Not to mention that the outcome to copyright owners arising from the YouTubers’ independent reaction is more effective than that of advertising agency which always exaggerate and costly. Moreover, the reviews of YouTubers also promote the consumer right, i.e. the right to be informed and the right to choose, without any obligations from a licensing agreement. All these pros and cons towards this phenomenon should be considered closely for the most effective protection of all relevant stakeholders.

Is it high time that the explicit guideline demonstrating to what extent the YouTubers can do to fall under the principle of “fair use” should be imposed to avoid interference on the entertainment market by using law disproportionately and simultaneously protect the right of copyright owners for the benefit of economic and social system as a whole?

Video by https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ko4f_X-QFrM