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Telecoms package

The Telecoms Package (Paquet Telecom) was a review of European telecoms law. Ordinarily, it would have dealt with network infrastructure and universal service and other purely telecoms matters. However, buried within it, deep in the detail, were important legal changes that related to enforcement of copyright. These changes represented a threat to civil liberties and risk undermining the entire structure of Internet, jeopardising businesses and cultural diversity. This was the topic of my PhD research. I have made available here the underlying research, which I subsequently published in my books and papers listed below. If you are student, you should check my books for citation and referencing.

The bottom line is that changes to telecoms regulations were needed before EU member states could bring in the so-called "3 strikes" measures - also known as "graduated response" - of which France led the way, but other governments, notably the UK, followed. A swathe of amendments were tabled at the instigation of entertainment industry lobbying. These amendments were aimed at bringing an end to free downloading. They also brought with them the risk of an unchecked corporate censorship of the Internet, with a host of unanswered questions relating to the legal oversight and administration. These issues continue to arise today in the context of new policy initiatives. 

The Telecoms Package was voted in the plenary session of the European Parliament on 24th September. It followed a brief debate on 2nd September, and a committee vote in July. In November last year it was put to vote in the European Council. Now - winter 2009 - it is headed for a second reading in the European Parliament. The official start will be 18th February, but negotiations are underway now. The plenary vote was planned for 21 April. It has been re-scheduled to 6 May. This timetable has not left much time for public debate, and it reminds me of the rushed passage of the data retention directive (see Data Retention on this site). It is, if you like, regulation by stealth.

I had originally planned that this site would just highlight reports from elsewhere, related to my research topic. But at the time, it felt wrong to me that such critical changes - which will infringe on people's freedoms and fundamentally alter the social and legal character of the Internet - should happen without at least the opportunity for a full and frank public debate. So I set out the issues as I see them, and reported on relevant public events.

 If you like the articles in this section and you are interested in EU telecoms law and the 2009 Telecoms Package, you may like my books A Copyright Masquerade: How Corporate Lobbying Threatens Online Freedoms and The Copyright Enforcement Enigma. 

Finally, you may like my book The Closing of the Net  which contains a  summary of the Telecoms Package story, and moves the policy agenda on to consider other issues of secondary liability including the Megaupload case. 

What is the correct name for the 'Telecoms Package?'

Monica Horten
Catetory: Telecoms package
Published: 30 October 2012

In 2012, three years after the conclusion of the legislative process, I've been noticing references to something called the Telecom Reform Package. Having followed the policy since 2007, I was bit puzzled why I'd never seen it before, and in particular, why I would never call it that. Had I really missed the correct name of the policy I studied?

The answer is no, I hadn't, but people who are coming to fresh since 2009, are picking up on a confusing nomenclature when they try to check the official sources. Here's why!

If you want to give it the full, official name, pershaps you should use this:

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Six MEPs table AT&T's Internet-limiting proposals

Monica Horten
Catetory: Telecoms package
Published: 25 March 2009

Six members of the European Parliament have tabled AT&T's proposals to limit users access to the Internet.

 

Six MEPs have taken text supplied by the American telecoms multi-national, AT&T, and pasted it directly into amendments tabled to the Universal Services directive in the Telecoms Package. The six are Syed Kamall , Erika Mann, Edit Herczog , Zita Pleštinská , Andreas Schwab , and Jacques Toubon .

AT&T and its partner Verizon,   want the regulators in Europe to keep their hands-off new network technologies which will provide the capability for  broadband providers  to restrict or limit users access to the Internet.  They have got together with a group of other telecoms companies to lobby on this issue. Their demands  pose a threat to the neutrality of the network, and  at another level, to millions of web businesses in Europe.

The Universal Services directive is supposed to set out the rights of users and

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How the EU is bargaining away the Internet

Monica Horten
Catetory: Telecoms package
Published: 23 March 2009

Political deals are being done which remove users rights to distribute Internet content, impose conditions on Internet access and which could permit broadband providers to limit access to a specified list of websites or a premium paid-for Internet. Net neutrality, and millions of Internet businesses, are under threat if this goes ahead.

***The next and final trialogue is Tuesday 24 March ***

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Toubon hijacks Telecoms Package for copyright

Monica Horten
Catetory: Telecoms package
Published: 23 March 2009

Copyright is back in the Telecoms Package second reading as a users rights amendment is hijacked  for copyright enforcement by French MEP Jacques Toubon. Article 32a of the Universal Services directive, (formerly known as Amendment 166) has instead been  turned into an attack on the fundamental   rights of Internet users. 

 

Copyright enforcement will be permitted in a cynical legal twist on a Telecoms Package  amendment designed to protect users rights. Article 32a of the Universal Services directive (also known as Amendment 166) was designed to protect users' rights against copyright enforcement measures such as graduated response / 3-strikes . These measures impose sanctions such as cutting people off the Internet for downloading music or entertainment, and especially target peer-to-peer users.

The amendment was filed unsurprisingly by the French MEP Jacques Toubon , who has been working for 12 months to get copyright enforcement into the Telecoms Package - the cooperation amendment (Article 33.3) of the Universal Services directive is also his amendment, drafted by the French collecting  society SACD. A different version of Toubon's amendment has also been proposed by the Council as a"compromise". 

 

MEP Toubon's amendment twists the wording of this amendment, such that it appears to mean that users Internet access  can be

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Lion of France on the attack against Amendment 138

Monica Horten
Catetory: Telecoms package
Published: 22 March 2009

And the British bulldog persists with the 'wikipedia amendments' to bring in a conditional Internet.

The French government is said to be 'fighting like a lion' to kill the controversial Amendment 138 for user safeguards in the Telecoms Package. It is taking its fight to heart of the Council of Ministers, where the British government is also pushing its position for an Internet where access and use is conditional on the operator's terms.

Amendment 138 is the controversial amendment which seeks to protect users rights in respect of 3-strikes sanctions, and would make it difficult for France to legally bring in its Hadopi law. It has effectively stopped the EU from bringing in a 3-strikes policy, which had been on the cards for a separate 'Creative Content Online' initiative.

There is also a strange perversion of the other user safeguard amendment - known as amendment 166 (article 32a) in the Universal Services directive - that has appeared in one of the latest documents.

The UK government's 'wikipedia amendments' have been tabled by several MEPs in the Universal

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About Iptegrity

Iptegrity.com is the website of Dr Monica Horten, independent policy advisor: online safety, technology and human rights. Advocating to protect the rights of the majority of law abiding citizens online. Independent expert on the Council of Europe Committee of Experts on online safety and empowerment of content creators and users.  Published author, and post-doctoral scholar, with a PhD from the University of Westminster, and a DipM from the Chartered Institute of Marketing.  Former telecoms journalist,  experienced panelist and Chair, cited in the media eg  BBC, iNews, Times, Guardian and Politico.