On Wednesday 18 February, Joost Poort will defend his thesis Empirical Evidence for Policy in Telecommunication, Copyright & Broadcasting.

Place: Agnietenkapel, Oudezijds Voorburgwal 229, Amsterdam.
Time: 14.00.

Abstract:
This dissertation contains nine articles with an empirical focus in copyright, telecommunication, and broadcasting. These articles address different research questions and employ a variety of methodological approaches. They all share an economic foundation and the aim to contribute to evidence based policymaking in the field of information law.
Topics covered range from the welfare effects of illegal downloading, to those of public television; from the effectiveness of blocking access to The Pirate Bay to stop consumers from illegal downloading, to the effect of adequate legal online services on illegal downloading; from fixed price regulation for e-books, to text and video relay services to enable the hearing impaired to use telephony services; from the valuation of commercial radio licenses, to setting renewal fees for telecommunication spectrum based on an auction.
Using these nine articles as case studies, the role and impact of economic evidence for policymaking in the field of information law is investigated. It is concluded that this role is positive rather than normative: legal or social norms maintain the upper hand as guiding principles for policy, more than the economic goal of welfare maximization. However, this does not by any means render economic analysis useless. Increasingly, politicians, judges and stakeholders require economic analysis and economic evidence to make informed decisions about new policy measures, to make optimal decisions within existing legal boundaries and to fathom the consequences of proposed legal interventions. Without empirical evidence they may simply assume the effects of a policy measure as an article of faith.

Samenvatting:
Dit proefschrift bevat negen artikelen met een empirische inslag op het gebied van het auteursrecht, telecommunicatie, radio en televisie. Deze artikelen adresseren uiteenlopende onderzoeksvragen met verschillende onderzoeksmethodes. Ze delen een economische grondslag en het oogmerk een bijdrage te leveren aan op feiten gebaseerd – ‘evidence based’ –beleid in het informatierecht.
De onderwerpen lopen uiteen van de welvaartseffecten van illegaal downloaden, tot die van de publieke omroep; van de effectiviteit van het afsluiten van de toegang tot The Pirate Bay om consumenten ervan te weerhouden illegaal te downloaden, tot het effect van adequate legale online diensten op dat downloaden; van een vaste prijs voor e-boeken, tot tekst- en videobemiddelingsdiensten om mensen met een auditieve beperking in staat te stellen te telefoneren; van de waardering van commerciële radiovergunningen, tot het vaststellen van verlengingsvergoedingen voor telecommunicatiespectrum op basis van een veilig.
Door deze negen artikelen te gebruiken als cast-studies, is de rol en invloed van economisch bewijsmateriaal voor de beleidsontwikkeling in het informatierecht onderzocht. Geconcludeerd wordt dat deze rol veeleer positief dan normatief is: meer dan het economische doel van welvaartsmaximalisatie, voeren wettelijke en maatschappelijke normen de boventoon als beginselen voor beleid. Maar dit maakt economische analyse allerminst overbodig. Steeds vaker hebben politici, rechters en belanghebbenden economische analyse en economisch bewijsmateriaal nodig om geïnformeerde beslissingen te nemen over nieuwe beleidsmaatregelen, om optimale beslissingen te nemen binnen bestaande juridische kaders en om de gevolgen van voorgestelde maatregelen te doorgronden. Zonder empirisch bewijsmateriaal zouden zij de effecten van een beleidsmaatregel simpelweg als geloofsartikel kunnen veronderstellen.

During the the fourth edition of the annual prize for the best publication of the year, organised by the Law Faculty of the University of Amsterdam, the third place was awarded to Joost Poort and João Pedro Quintais for their article "The Levy Runs Dry. A Legal and Economic Analysis of EU Private Copying Levies."

Purpose of the prize
The prize has been introduced on the initiative of the dean and the Science Committee in order to strengthen and support the research culture within the Faculty of Law and to allow young researchers  (PhD students, or candidates who completed their PhD within the last five years at the FdR) to give publicity to their work. The prize entails an amount of 1,000 Euros for the winner, 500 Euros for the first runner up, and 250 Euros for the third place. The prizes will be added to the research budget of the research group and which the winner can use for research activities such as congress visits, etc.

The jury about the article:
Excellent paper with direct relevance for all scholars: should we pay (and/or get paid) for copies of our publications. Beautiful example of successful combination of  a legal and eco­nomic analysis of private copying levies in the EU.

The article:
The Levy Runs Dry: A Legal and Economic Analysis of EU Private Copying Levies, Drs. J.P. Poort & Mr. J.P. Quintais, JIPITEC,  2013-3, p. 205-224

Abstract:
This article provides a legal and economic analysis of private copying levies in the EU, against the background of the Copyright Directive (2001/29), a number of recent rulings by the European Court of Justice and the recommendations presented by mediator Vitorino earlier this year. It concludes that notwithstanding these rulings and recommendations, there remains a lack of concordance on the relevance of contractual stipulations and digital rights management technologies (DRM) for setting levies, and the concept of harm. While Mr. Vitorino and AG Sharpston (in the Opinion preceding VG Wort v Kyocera) use different lines of reasoning to argue that levies raised on authorized copies would lead to double payment, the Court of Justice’s decision in VG Wort v Kyocera seems to conclude that such copies should nonetheless be levied. If levies are to provide fair compensation for harm resulting from acts of private copying, economic analysis suggests one should distinguish between various kinds of private copies and take account of the extent to which the value said copies have for consumers can be priced into the purchase. Given the availability of DRM (including technical protection measures), the possibility of such indirect appropriation leads to the conclusion that the harm from most kinds of private copies is de minimis and gives no cause for levies. The user value of copies from unauthorised sources (e.g. from torrent networks or cyber lockers), on the other hand, cannot be appropriated indirectly by rightholders. It is however an open question in references for preliminary rulings pending at the Court of Justice whether these copies are included in the scope of the private copying exception or limitation and can thus be be levied for. If they are not, as currently happens in several EU Member States, legal and economic analysis leads to the conclusion that the scope of private copying acts giving rise to harm susceptible of justifying levies is gradually diminishing.

 

Per december 2014 is Prof. dr. Nico van Eijk toegetreden tot de kenniskring van de Commissie van Toezicht betreffende de Inlichtingen- en Veiligheidsdiensten (CTIVD). Deze kenniskring dient de Commissie te adviseren over technologische, juridische en maatschappelijke ontwikkelingen die van belang zijn voor het toezicht op de inlichtingen- en veiligheidsdiensten. Leden van de kenniskring kunnen tevens worden ingezet teneinde tegenspraak te leveren in lopende onderzoeken.
De CTIVD heeft de betrokken ministers alsmede de Tweede Kamer op 23 december jl. hierover geïnformeerd. De brief is te raadplegen via de onderstaande link.

Brief aan de minister-president.

 

IViR at Computers, Privacy and Data Protection Conferentie (CPDP) 2015: Data Protection on the Move
Brussels, 21-23 januari 2015.

At CPDP 2015 IViR organised a panel on “Privacy by analogy: Lessons from copyright law, environmental law, consumer protection law and compliance with financial regulations”. CPDP offers the cutting edge in legal, regulatory, academic and technological development in privacy and data protection. Within an atmosphere of independence and mutual respect, CPDP gathers academics, lawyers, practitioners, policy-makers, computer scientists and civil society from all over the world to exchange ideas and discuss the latest emerging issues and trends. This unique multidisciplinary formula has served to make CPDP one of the leading data protection and privacy conferences in Europe and around the world.

 

The Institute for Information Law is very proud to announce that Prof. Dr. Natali Helberger has been awarded with a ERC Starting Grant. A Starting Grant is a personal grant of 1.5 million euros which is meant to support talented researchers for a period of five years while they conduct research.

She will receive the grant for her research titled:

Profiling and Targeting News Readers: Implications for the Democratic Role of the Digital Media, User Rights and Public Information Policy

Within the digital media environment, user attention is scare and competition for ‘eyeballs’ is fierce. The personalisation of media content is seen by many as a solution; with the help of (Big) Data and clever algorithms, users receive news and adverts that are tailored to their individual interests and tastes. Personalisation, however, is also part of a more fundamental paradigm shift in the media’s role from public interest intermediary to personal information coach. In her project, Hellberger will answer critical questions about the consequences of this shift for individual media users, the public debate and the role of personalised media in a democratic society.

See also the UvA website ERC Starting Grant for nine UvA and AMC-UvA researchers and Foliaweb UvA-hoogleraar Helberger ontvant ERC Starters Grant (in Dutch).

On 19 September 2014 Natali Helberger held her inaugural speech at the UvA on a related topic: Media and users: towards a new balance.

 

Frameworks for Modeling Cognition and Decisions in Institutional Environments: A Data-Driven Approach
 

Recently Joan-Josep Vallbé published a new book in the Law, Governance and Technology Series. See Springer for more information about the book.

 

Summary:
This book deals with the theoretical, methodological, and empirical implications of bounded rationality in the operation of institutions. It focuses on decisions made under uncertainty, and presents a reliable strategy of knowledge acquisition for the design and implementation of decision-support systems. Based on the distinction between the inner and outer environment of decisions, the book explores both the cognitive mechanisms at work when actors decide, and the institutional mechanisms existing among and within organizations that make decisions fairly predictable.

While a great deal of work has been done on how organizations act as patterns of events for (boundedly) rational decisions, less effort has been devoted to study under which circumstances  organizations cease to act as such reliable mechanisms. Through an empirical strategy on open-ended response data from a survey among junior judges, the work pursues two main goals. The first one is to explore the limits of “institutional rationality” of the Spanish lower courts on-call service, an optimal scenario to observe decision-making under uncertainty. The second aim is to achieve a better understanding of the kind of uncertainty under which inexperienced decision-makers work. This entails exploring the demands imposed by problems and the knowledge needed to deal with them, making this book also a study on expertise achievement in institutional environments.

This book combines standard multivariate statistical methods with machine learning techniques such as multidimensional scaling and topic models, treating text as data. Doing so, the book contributes to the collaboration between empirical social scientific approaches and the community of scientists that provide the set of tools and methods to make sense of the fastest growing resource of our time: data.

Google en het recht om vergeten te worden

Vrijdagmiddag 21 november 2014, 14.30-17.15 uur
Trippenhuis, Kloveniersburgwal 29, Amsterdam

Op 13 mei 2014 heeft het Hof van Justitie een spraakmakende uitspraak gedaan in de zaak Google/Spain. Individuele burgers hebben het recht om voortaan bepaalde zoekresultaten niet meer te laten terugkomen wanneer op hun naam gezocht wordt in de Google-zoekmachine. Het geeft de burger stevig gereedschap in handen om het ‘recht om vergeten te worden’ te effectueren. Er zouden inmiddels al meer dan 100.000 verzoeken bij Google zijn binnengekomen om links naar allerlei soorten inhoud te verwijderen: strafbladgegevens, gênante foto's, cyberpesten, beschuldigingen van tientallen jaren geleden, negatieve persartikelen. Hoe gaat dit uitpakken? Ligt censuur op de loer? Op 18 september 2014 deed de Nederlandse rechter de eerste uitspraak over de wijze waarop Google invulling geeft aan het arrest van het Hof van Justitie.

De Vereniging voor Media- en Communicatierecht (VMC) belegt op vrijdag 21 november een Studiemiddag over the right to be forgotten. Aan de orde komen ook the right to erasure zoals in de komende General Data Protection Regulation opgenomen, en de uitdagingen voor het bedrijfsleven bij de feitelijke implementatie daarvan.

De volgende sprekers belichten het onderwerp vanuit verschillende invalshoeken.

• Ot van Daalen – advocaat bij Digital Defence en privacy-onderzoeker bij het Instituut voor Informatierecht van de UvA;
• Peter Olsthoorn – journalist en schrijver, onder meer van de boeken De Macht van Google en Privacy bestaat niet, doe er je voordeel mee;
• Simone van Ginhoven en Marlies Blokland – beiden legal counsel bij Vodafone.

Dagvoorzitter is Prof. Nico van Eijk. Na de inleidingen is er zoals gebruikelijk ruimte voor discussie, en de middag wordt afgesloten met een borrel.

Toegang is voor leden gratis. Niet-leden betalen Euro 20,=. Indien u advocaat bent en een deelname-certificaat wilt hebben om de gevolgde Studiemiddag voor twee opleidingspunten te kunnen opgeven bij de NOvA, dit graag aangeven bij de aanmelding.

Aanmelding kan plaatsvinden door een email te sturen naar studiemiddag@mediaforum.nl

IVIR and the Digital Methods Initiative of UvA's Media Studies department have won a grant from the University of California's Berkely Center for Law and Technology.

Public sector bodies are viewed as key sources of open data. Governments around the world have made opening up data a priority and an integral part of their wider open government agendas. However, there are widespread concerns that releasing government data sets with personal information threatens privacy and related rights and interests.

The project Reconciling Fair Information Principles and Open Data policies examines this tension between open data policy and privacy norms. Legal analysis will be informed by results of state-of-the-art digital research methods. The empirical study will highlight which actors (e.g. government, civil society, private sector) are talking about open data and privacy, what issues they are concerned about, and how these issues are being presented

See the award announcement at http://www.law.berkeley.edu/17848.htm
 

IVIR and the Digital Methods Initiative of UvA's Media Studies department have won a grant from the University of California's Berkely Center for Law and Technology.

Public sector bodies are viewed as key sources of open data. Governments around the world have made opening up data a priority and an integral part of their wider open government agendas. However, there are widespread concerns that releasing government data sets with personal information threatens privacy and related rights and interests.

The project Reconciling Fair Information Principles and Open Data policies examines this tension between open data policy and privacy norms. Legal analysis will be informed by results of state-of-the-art digital research methods. The empirical study will highlight which actors (e.g. government, civil society, private sector) are talking about open data and privacy, what issues they are concerned about, and how these issues are being presented

See the award announcement at http://www.law.berkeley.edu/17848.htm
 

Axel Arnbak, his supervisor Nico van Eijk and co-authors Hadi Asghari and Michel van Eeten at Delft University of Technology have published a centerpiece of Axel's doctoral project in the Communications of the ACM. The article has been downloaded over 25.000 times in the first two weeks after its publication. Visual artist Willow Brugh, Axel's colleague at the Berkman Center at Harvard University, has made a mesmerizing vizthink animation as a teaser to the article:

 

 

A.M. Arnbak, H. Asghari, M. van Eeten, N.A.N.M. van Eijk, Security Collapse in the HTTPS Market, Communications of the ACM, 2014-10, vol. 57, p. 47-55.
Also published in: ACM Queue – Security, 2014-8, vol. 12.

Abstract: 
HTTPS (Hypertext Transfer Protocol Secure) has evolved into the de facto standard for secure Web browsing. However, widely reported security incidents—such as DigiNotar's breach, Apple's #gotofail, and OpenSSL's Heartbleed—have exposed systemic security vulnerabilities of HTTPS to a global audience. The Edward Snowden revelations—notably around operation BULLRUN, MUSCULAR, and the lesser-known FLYING PIG program to query certificate metadata on a dragnet scale—have driven the point home that HTTPS is both a major target of government hacking and eavesdropping, as well as an effective measure against dragnet content surveillance when Internet traffic traverses global networks. HTTPS, in short, is an absolutely critical but fundamentally flawed cybersecurity technology.

To evaluate both legal and technological solutions to augment the security of HTTPS, our article argues that an understanding of the economic incentives of the stakeholders in the HTTPS ecosystem, most notably the CAs, is essential. We outlines the systemic vulnerabilities of HTTPS, maps the thriving market for certificates, and analyzes the suggested regulatory and technological solutions on both sides of the Atlantic. The findings show existing yet surprising market patterns and perverse incentives: not unlike the financial sector, the HTTPS market is full of information asymmetries and negative externalities, as a handful of CAs dominate the market and have become "too big to fail." Unfortunately, proposed E.U. legislation will reinforce systemic vulnerabilities, and the proposed technological solutions that mostly originate in the U.S. are far from being adopted at scale. The systemic vulnerabilities in this crucial technology are likely to persist for years to come.