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

Fri Nov 30 17:32:48 EST 2012

I wouldn't be so pessimist about the Bill of Law.
It is not dead yet. Just follow on twitter the hashtag #MARCOCIVIL to
follow the latest developments. We are facing a tough struggle in the
Country (I'm following it from abroad unfortunately), but we shall succeed.

On Fri, Nov 30, 2012 at 5:21 PM, Robert Guerra <rguerra at privaterra.org>wrote:

> 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/>)
>
>
> Sent from my iPhone
>
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