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Declaration of Internet Freedom
We stand for a free and open Internet.
We support transparent and participatory processes for making Internet policy and the establishment of five basic principles:
Expression: Don't censor the Internet.
Access: Promote universal access to fast and affordable networks.
Openness: Keep the Internet an open network where everyone is free to connect, communicate, write, read, watch, speak, listen, learn, create and innovate.
Innovation: Protect the freedom to innovate and create without permission. Don’t block new technologies, and don’t punish innovators for their users' actions.
Privacy: Protect privacy and defend everyone’s ability to control how their data and devices are used.
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The attempt to make Google pay for access would adversely affect all bot functions like the kind used by HealthMap. FluTrackers would not be affected because we hand select all of the items to be posted here. We read individual newspapers and do not rely on mechanized bot programs. Having said that, we are impacted, as everyone in the world, if any of the major internet search companies restrict their work.
Furthermore, we are incorporated in the state of Florida and are subjected to the copyright laws of the United States. In the United States statements of facts are not subject to copyright law. For example, if a news source states that 4 people are hospitalized in Florida, this is not an original work. It is the statement of a fact. And therefore, copyright can not be claimed for this fact. We will continue our work here by posting the pertinent facts from items we find, and a live link back to the source.
The humanitarian impact of European laws targeting Google News
By PLOS Guest Blogger
Posted: December 19, 2012
David Scales and John Brownstein from Healthmap discuss why laws aimed at news aggregators will have an unintended impact on mapping emerging health threats.
"On November 30th, the German Bundestag had its first reading of a draft law proposing to extend copyrights to require news aggregators like Google News or HealthMap to pay for access to articles. While proponents of the law state that Google should pay for linking to articles, dissenters see this as an attempt to prop up the failed business model of a declining industry. One critic, Jan Malinowski, the head of the Information Society Department at the Council of Europe, described these laws as the equivalent of “proposing policy measures to stop the industrial revolution in the interest of the equine trade.” France and Italy are contemplating emulating the draft German law and The Economist recently reported that Austria and Switzerland are considering doing the same.
HealthMap, where we work, is among the leading epidemic detection technologies relying on secondary use of aggregated media information. We comb through thousands of articles a day, extracting those containing information on infectious diseases, and putting this information on a map – for free – at healthmap.org. These laws would increase our costs dramatically. While a German publisher claimed that potential charges would be low, stating that “publishers don’t want to hinder aggregation; they want to foster it. The only thing we want to stop is aggregation at the price of zero.” Unfortunately, advocates of these laws do not seem to realize some of the most innovative aggregation, crowdsourcing and secondary use projects would be extinguished at any price. If we were required to pay for every article our technology combs through, paying a fraction of a cent per article would still put us out of business.
Indeed, our ability to gather infectious disease information has already been adversely affected by similar restrictions to Google News. Belgium has prohibited indexing of its newspapers by Google News since 2007. Recently, 150 of Brazil’s largest newspapers (making up 90% of the country’s circulation) also opted out of Google News. HealthMap has detected fewer epidemic events in Brazil and Belgium in light of these actions. This puts citizens in those countries unnecessarily at risk by compromising the flow of real-time information available to health officials and the public.
We are not the only ones facing this problem. While the potential price structure has yet to be released in any of the proposed laws, the costs of using media aggregation are likely to exceed the budgets of humanitarian organizations generating these data. Google has warned that if fees are charged in France it “would consequently be forced to stop indexing the French sites.” Some think Google is bluffing, that its deep pockets will enable it to withstand the increased costs. We will not be so lucky; neither will many others..."
more....
hat tip to Michael Coston for the link
We stand for a free and open Internet.
We support transparent and participatory processes for making Internet policy and the establishment of five basic principles:
Expression: Don't censor the Internet.
Access: Promote universal access to fast and affordable networks.
Openness: Keep the Internet an open network where everyone is free to connect, communicate, write, read, watch, speak, listen, learn, create and innovate.
Innovation: Protect the freedom to innovate and create without permission. Don’t block new technologies, and don’t punish innovators for their users' actions.
Privacy: Protect privacy and defend everyone’s ability to control how their data and devices are used.
-----------------------------------
The attempt to make Google pay for access would adversely affect all bot functions like the kind used by HealthMap. FluTrackers would not be affected because we hand select all of the items to be posted here. We read individual newspapers and do not rely on mechanized bot programs. Having said that, we are impacted, as everyone in the world, if any of the major internet search companies restrict their work.
Furthermore, we are incorporated in the state of Florida and are subjected to the copyright laws of the United States. In the United States statements of facts are not subject to copyright law. For example, if a news source states that 4 people are hospitalized in Florida, this is not an original work. It is the statement of a fact. And therefore, copyright can not be claimed for this fact. We will continue our work here by posting the pertinent facts from items we find, and a live link back to the source.
The humanitarian impact of European laws targeting Google News
By PLOS Guest Blogger
Posted: December 19, 2012
David Scales and John Brownstein from Healthmap discuss why laws aimed at news aggregators will have an unintended impact on mapping emerging health threats.
"On November 30th, the German Bundestag had its first reading of a draft law proposing to extend copyrights to require news aggregators like Google News or HealthMap to pay for access to articles. While proponents of the law state that Google should pay for linking to articles, dissenters see this as an attempt to prop up the failed business model of a declining industry. One critic, Jan Malinowski, the head of the Information Society Department at the Council of Europe, described these laws as the equivalent of “proposing policy measures to stop the industrial revolution in the interest of the equine trade.” France and Italy are contemplating emulating the draft German law and The Economist recently reported that Austria and Switzerland are considering doing the same.
HealthMap, where we work, is among the leading epidemic detection technologies relying on secondary use of aggregated media information. We comb through thousands of articles a day, extracting those containing information on infectious diseases, and putting this information on a map – for free – at healthmap.org. These laws would increase our costs dramatically. While a German publisher claimed that potential charges would be low, stating that “publishers don’t want to hinder aggregation; they want to foster it. The only thing we want to stop is aggregation at the price of zero.” Unfortunately, advocates of these laws do not seem to realize some of the most innovative aggregation, crowdsourcing and secondary use projects would be extinguished at any price. If we were required to pay for every article our technology combs through, paying a fraction of a cent per article would still put us out of business.
Indeed, our ability to gather infectious disease information has already been adversely affected by similar restrictions to Google News. Belgium has prohibited indexing of its newspapers by Google News since 2007. Recently, 150 of Brazil’s largest newspapers (making up 90% of the country’s circulation) also opted out of Google News. HealthMap has detected fewer epidemic events in Brazil and Belgium in light of these actions. This puts citizens in those countries unnecessarily at risk by compromising the flow of real-time information available to health officials and the public.
We are not the only ones facing this problem. While the potential price structure has yet to be released in any of the proposed laws, the costs of using media aggregation are likely to exceed the budgets of humanitarian organizations generating these data. Google has warned that if fees are charged in France it “would consequently be forced to stop indexing the French sites.” Some think Google is bluffing, that its deep pockets will enable it to withstand the increased costs. We will not be so lucky; neither will many others..."
more....
hat tip to Michael Coston for the link