[governance] Brazilian Congress and lobbyists kill world first internet Bill of Rights

[Robert Guerra]

Brazilian Congress and lobbyists kill world first internet Bill of Rights |
UNCUT
http://uncut.indexoncensorship.org/2012/11/brazil-internet-marco-civil/
------------------------------

Digital

The Brazilian Congress’ lower house has killed a draft bill that would have
pioneered the world’s first “Internet Bill of
Rights<http://uncut.indexoncensorship.org/2012/09/brazil-marco-civil-internet>.”
Feted by free-speech
activists<http://www.article19.org/resources.php/resource/3389/en/brazil:-civil-rights-framework-for-the-internet>
and
negotiated over several years, the bill used a civil rights framework to
guarantee basic rights for internet
users<http://www.techdirt.com/articles/20111004/04402516196/brazil-drafts-anti-acta-civil-rights-based-framework-internet.shtml>,
content
creators and online intermediaries — establishing that providers are not
responsible for user content.
[image: Marco Civil da Internet | Cultura Digital | CC: BY-NC-SA]

Marco Civil da Internet | Cultura Digital | CC: BY-NC-SA

The bill, known as Marco Civil da Internet <http://marcocivil.com.br/>, also
guaranteed net neutrality<http://topics.nytimes.com/topics/reference/timestopics/subjects/n/net_neutrality/index.html>
—
a move that angered the telecommunications industry as it would prevent
internet service providers (ISPs) from implementing a two-tier flow of
internet traffic. ISPs worldwide are keen to charge differentiated rates
for delivering digital content, this would enable the industry to charge
either content providers or consumers more for delivering some kinds of
internet traffic, such as movies.

A vote on the draft bill scheduled to take place in the Chamber of Deputies
on 20 November was postponed. It was the fifth time in the last two months
that a vote on Marco Civil was pushed back after legislators failed to
agree on the text. House Speaker Marco Maia has now removed Marco Civil
from the list of draft bills on Brazilian lawmakers’ agenda — meaning it
will not be bought back to the floor.

The main reason for Marco Civil’s failure was a lack of consensus on the
issue of net neutrality. Deputy Alessandro
Molon<https://twitter.com/alessandromolon>, who
sponsored the bill, says Brazil’s main telecommunication
companies<http://seekingalpha.com/article/276687-5-top-yielding-brazil-telecom-stocks>lobbied
hard against it, arguing it was contrary to the principles of the
free market.

Other elements of the bill also created controversy — copyright holders
were angered by the legal protections offered to internet intermediaries
who host or transmit content shared or created by third parties (companies
like Google and Facebook). The draft bill stated that such third party
content should only be deleted after a court order. Detractors say this
process should be faster and simpler, and providers should be able to
remove content after being merely notified by offended parties — an
argument seen by analysts and activists as a risk to free speech.

The companies’ case apparently influenced key members of Congress and made
it impossible to reach an agreement on Marco Civil’s final text. Although
industry lobbies were successful in watering
down<https://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2012/11/brazilian-internet-bill-threatens-freedom-expression>
key
user protections, their legislative surrogates wanted to impose even
greater changes on the text.

After Marco Civil’s failure on Tuesday, Molon said it was up to society to
put pressure on deputies to push the draft bill to the floor. He was also
critical of big companies that had “their interests frustrated” by Marco
Civil.

Molon was supported by the countries President Dilma Rousseff and
Vice-President Michel Temer — president of PMDB Party, the main ally to
Rousseff’s Workers’ Party in Congress. Despite their respective parties
having a substantial legislative majority Rousseff’s and Temer’s support of
Marco Civil was rendered ineffectual after lawmakers — mainly from PMDB —
took issue with key elements.

The failure of Marco Civil was denounced by activists all around the
internet. The Pirate Party founder Rick Falkvinge called the episode a
“political fiasco” in which Brazil wasted a chance to gain world-wide
influence on free speech issues.

“[The Marco Civil obstruction] follows a ridiculous watering-down and
dumbing-down of the bill, at the request of obsolete industry lobbies.
Having been permanently shelved, this means that Brazil has practically
killed its chance of leapfrogging other nations’ economies”, said
Falkvinge<http://falkvinge.net/2012/11/21/brazil-squanders-chance-at-geopolitical-influence-kills-internet-rights-bill-in-political-fiasco>on
his website.

“Marco Civil could be an advance not only for Brazil, but for all
countries, on how to discuss law enforcement on the online world — and its
consequences”, said André Pase <https://twitter.com/andrepase>, Digital
Communication professor at PUC University in Porto Alegre.

“A legal framework could go beyond regular laws that get easily obsolete in
a context of innovation, where fresh, free online services are born all the
time.”

*Rafael Spuldar is a journalist based in São Paulo*
------------------------------

(via Instapaper <http://www.instapaper.com/>)


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