Category: Internet Freedoms

Article 13 of the EU Copyright Directive: A license to gag freedom of expression globally?

Posted on by Tech Law Forum @ NALSAR

The following post has been authored by Bhavik Shukla, a fifth year student at National Law Institute University (NLIU) Bhopal. He is deeply interested in Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) law and Technology law. In this post, he examines the potential chilling effect of the EU Copyright Directive.

Freedom of speech and expression is the bellwether of the European Union (“EU”) Member States; so much so that its censorship will be the death of the most coveted human right. Europe possesses the strongest and the most institutionally developed structure of freedom of expression through the European Convention on Human Rights (“ECHR”). In 1976, the ECHR had observed in Handyside v. United Kingdom that a “democratic society” could not exist without pluralism, tolerance and broadmindedness. However, the recently adopted EU Copyright Directive in the Digital Single Market (“Copyright Directive”) seeks to alter this fundamental postulate of the European society by introducing Article 13 to the fore. Through this post, I intend to deal with the contentious aspect of Article 13 of the Copyright Directive, limited merely to its chilling impact on the freedom of expression. Subsequently, I shall elaborate on how the Copyright Directive possesses the ability to affect censorship globally.

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Mackinnon’s “Consent of The Networked” Deconstruction (Part II)

Posted on by Prateek Surisetti

SERIES INTRODUCTION

Rebecca MacKinnon’s “Consent of the Networked: The Worldwide Struggle for Internet Freedom” is an interesting read on free speech, on the internet, in the context of a world where corporations are challenging the sovereignty of governments. Having read the book, I will be familiarizing readers with some of the themes and ideas discussed in MacKinnon’s work.

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Continued Use of Section 66A of the Information Technology Act 2000

Posted on by Tanvi Apte

The “Existence” of a Non-Existent Law and the Broader Issues it Raises

The Information Technology Act 2000 (hereinafter referred to as the “IT Act”), India’s nodal law on regulation of information technology, was significantly amended in 2008 in order to plug certain loopholes in the original Act as well as accommodate further technological development within its legal framework. Among other things, this 2008 amendment to the Act introduced Section 66A, which essentially made sharing of “grossly offensive”, “insulting” or “menacing” information (Read: criticism of political parties) through electronic media a criminal offence.

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The Dark Web : To Regulate Or Not Regulate, That Is The Question.

Posted on by Shweta Rao

[Ed Note : In an interesting read, Shweta Rao of NALSAR University of Law brings us upto speed on the debate regarding regulation of the mysterious “dark web” and provides us with a possible way to proceed as far as this hidden part of the web is concerned. ]

Human Traffickers, Whistleblowers, Pedophiles, Journalists and Lonely-Hearts Chat-room participants all find a home on the Dark Web, the underbelly of the World Wide Web that is inaccessible to the ordinary netizen.  The Dark Web is a small fraction of the Deep Web, a term it is often confused with, but the distinction between the two is important.

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Kill the Kill Switch

Posted on by Vishal Rakhecha

India is at the third position in a list with some of the most ‘democratic’ countries like Syria, Saudi Arabia, etc. Internet shutdowns can have some serious free speech and free association implications, which is why it is necessary to have clear and precise regulations to ensure that this power is not used arbitrarily and unreasonably.

The internet has grown from being just a communication medium to becoming a marketplace, an entertainment source, a news centre, and much more. At any given moment, there are thousands of gigabytes of information travelling across the planet. But all of this comes to a standstill when the internet shuts down. An internet shutdown is a government-enforced blanket restriction on the use of internet in a region for a particular period of time. The reasons vary from a law and order situation to a dignitary visiting the place. There is a requirement for an analysis into whether such shutdowns can be justified, even on the direst of grounds.

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Consent to Cookie: Analysis of European ePrivacy Regulations

Posted on by Vishal Rakhecha

This article is an analysis of the newly passed ‘Regulation on Privacy and Electronic Communications’ passed by the European Union.

A huge part of our daily life now revolves around the usage of websites and communication mediums like Facebook, WhatsApp, Skype, etc. The suddenness with which these services have become popular left law-making authorities with little opportunity to give directions to these companies and regulate their actions. For the large part these services worked on the basis of self-regulation and on the terms and conditions which consumers accepted. These services gave people access to their machinery for free, in return for personal data about the consumer. This information is later sold to advertisers who later on send ‘personalised’ advertisements to the consumer on the basis of the information received.

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