Copyright Law as the tool of choice for censorship and reputation management Shreya Tewari on January 17, 2022 The purpose of copyright law is to induce and reward authors for their original work by extending property rights to the copyright holder and qualifying its reproduction. The two-fold rights this gives them includes primarily an economic right to derive financial reward for reproduction of their work, along with an ancillary moral right to prevent distorted reproductions of their work. Of late, however, there has been a shift in the use of copyright laws by copyright holders. Instead of fulfilment of economic objectives with the interest to protect original work, copyright holders weaponize copyright law as a tool to fulfil of non-economic objectives to vindicate non-copyright interests.
Researching with the Lumen Database: Q&A Sessions for Interested Researchers Lumen Team on January 14, 2022 For those members of the Lumen community working in academia, journalism, legislation, or public policy who are interested in learning more about how they might be able to use Lumen to support their research, the Lumen team will be hosting a series of virtual chats about the Lumen Database and the unique opportunities for research that it can provide.
Rohingya refugees file $150 billion lawsuit against Facebook for alleged content moderation malpractices Shreya Tewari on December 9, 2021 On December 6, 2021, a refugee who fled Myanmar when she was sixteen, filed a class action lawsuit against Facebook in California’s Superior Court for alleged incitement to violence and facilitation of genocide in Myanmar (formerly Burma). The suit was on behalf of herself and all Rohingya who fled Myanmar on or after June 1, 2012, and who now reside in the USA as refugees or asylum seekers. A similar coordinated action is due in the United Kingdom representing Rohingya refugees in UK and Bangladesh, and a letter of notice to this effect was submitted to Facebook’s London office on the same day. The case comes two years after Facebook, in a statement, officially admitted that it hadn’t done enough to prevent its platform from “being used to foment division and incite offline violence in Myanmar.”
Use of Facial Recognition Technologies on a steep rise in India Shreya Tewari on December 9, 2021 In November 2021, Amnesty International, along with the Internet Freedom Foundation and Article 19, drew attention to Hyderabad, a city in the Indian state of Telangana, which has established a ‘Command and Control Centre’ – a hundred and seven million dollar project that is meant to support the processing of over six hundred thousand surveillance cameras in Hyderabad at once. This, combined with Hyderabad police’s existing facial recognition software for identifying individuals will enable the police to track individuals across the city in real time.
Making Transparency Easy: Lumen Is Pleased To Announce a New Feature for Notice Submitters Lumen Team on December 1, 2021 The Lumen team created an easy-to-use “add-on” web form for submitting takedown notices, in the form of JavaScript code that can be added to any existing OSP’s website. Once installed, the form allows an OSP to intake and store takedown requests as structured data, simultaneously sharing copies of requests received with the Lumen database.Sharing data with Lumen becomes an automatic result of receiving a notice!
The EU Copyright Directive’s Neighboring Rights for Press Publishers: A work in progress Shreya Tewari on November 23, 2021 Italy and Spain are latest in the line of European countries to adopt the European Union’s Directive on Copyright. The EU finalized the Directive on Copyright in the Digital Single Market in 2019 with the objective of ensuring “fairer remuneration for creators and rightsholders, press publishers and journalists, in particular when their works are (re)used online.” The Copyright Directive has been the subject of much debate, with Article 17’s requirement of prior authorization for uploading copyright protected content responsible for the bulk of the controversy. However, another section of the Copyright Directive that has garnered substantial attention is Article 15, which creates “neighboring rights” for press publishers for the online use of their publications. According to the World Intellectual property Organization (WIPO), ‘neighboring rights’ or ‘related rights’ are ancillary to copyright, and essentially enable press publishers to exclusively authorize or prohibit the use, reproduction, indexing or aggregation of their content, while ensuring that the legal and financial interests of persons and entities that have contributed to making the work available to the public (such as the original author) remain protected.
Lumen Researcher Interview Series: Turkish NGO EngelliWeb Lumen Team on November 16, 2021 Lumen speaks with the team at the Turkish NGO EngelliWeb about their work and their Lumen research
Lumen Researcher Interview Series: Professor Eugene Volokh, UCLA Law School the Lumen Team on October 21, 2021 the Lumen team interviews Professor Eugene Volokh about his research within Lumen on US Court orders, some of which Professor Volokh has founf to be falsified, altered or created under spurious premises. Part of Lumen's Researcher Interview Series
OnlyFans' ban and subsequent reversal exacerbates debate over Section 230 reform Anna Callahan on September 15, 2021 On August 19th, paid subscription website OnlyFans triggered a firestorm when it announced plans to ban all pornography from its platform – only to backtrack days later.
Apple’s proposed new child safety features and the problems with privacy tradeoffs Shreya Tewari on September 8, 2021 On September 3, 2021, Apple paused the implementation of two highly controversial new child safety features that would both algorithmically and manually surveil the devices of Apple users for Child Sexual Abuse Material (CSAM). Resultantly, Apple received backlash centred around the privacy and security concerns that would arise because of its backdoor decryption policy and the fear that it would set a dangerous precedent for different kinds of materials that governments could illegally scan user’s devices for.
