Current EU Copyright Review threatens Free and Open Source Software. Take action now to preserve the ability to collaboratively build software online!

The P2P Foundation supports the SAVE, CODE, SHARE campaign to defend our Internet sovereignty and digital collaborative spaces. Click here to sign as an individual or organization. The letter below, along with the signatures signatures, will be delivered
the Members of the European Parliament and the EU Council. The following is taken from SaveCodeShare.eu:

Open Letter to Secure Free and Open Source Software Ecosystem in the EU Copyright Review

Your mobile device, your car, your wifi router at home, your television, the airplanes in which you travel all contain Free and Open Source Software. This widespread reuse is possible because Free and Open Source Software can be shared openly, studied and customised to meet any need.

The EU is getting ready to vote a “Copyright Reform” package which fundamentally undermines the foundations upon which Free and Open Source Software is built. The proposed Article 13 of the EU Copyright Directive targets every online service that allows its users to upload and share content with each other, including code hosting platforms.

Under this proposal code hosting platforms will be compelled to prevent any possible copyright infringement by developing fundamentally flawed filtering technologies. These filtering algorithms will ultimately decide what material software developers should be allowed to share.

As a result of this ongoing copyright review, every user of a code sharing platform, be they an individual, a business or a public administration, is to be treated as a potential copyright infringer: their content, including entire code repositories, will be monitored and blocked from being shared online at any time. This restricts the freedom of developers to use specific software components and tools that in return leads to less competition and less innovation. Ultimately this can result in software that is less reliable and a less resilient software infrastructure for everybody.

We, individuals, developers, organisations and companies that develop or rely on the Free and Open Source Software ecosystem call upon European decision makers to protect open, collaborative software ecosystems. We call upon European policy makers to fundamentally rethink or delete Article 13 of the EU Copyright Reform in order to avoid the threat it poses for Free and Open Source Software.

Save Europe’s digital future, by making sure that there is a re-think or deletion of Article 13 in the EU Copyright Reform.

Please Save Code Share!

Take Action Now

About the initiative

#SaveCodeShare is an initiative launched by the FSFE and OpenForum Europe in September 2017. It aims to bring awareness about the unintended impact of Article 13 of the proposed Copyright Directive on software sharing platforms. Through the research presented in our White Paper, the initiative shows that better awareness is needed to understand where and how innovation takes place in the current market. This is a first step in order to create a proper regulatory framework. And this is what this initiative aims to achieve.

The post SAVE, CODE, SHARE! Current EU Copyright Review threatens Free and Open Source Software. Take action now! appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Why is software created using taxpayers’ money not released as Free Software?

We want legislation requiring that publicly financed software developed for the public sector be made publicly available under a Free and Open Source Software licence. If it is public money, it should be public code as well.

Code paid by the people should be available to the people!

Reposted from PublicCode.eu

REASONS FOR PUBLIC CODE

• Tax savings: Similar applications don’t have to be programmed from scratch every time.
• Collaboration: Efforts on major projects can share expertise and costs.
• Serving the public: Applications paid by the public should be available for everyone.
• Fostering innovation: With transparent processes, others don’t have to reinvent the wheel.

Free Software gives everybody the right to use, study, share and improve software. This right helps support other fundamental freedoms like freedom of speech, press and privacy.

Do you believe that Free Software should be the default option for publicly financed software? Let’s convince your political representatives!

Sign the letter here!

The post Public Money, Public Code appeared first on P2P Foundation.

Full title: “Blockchain technology as a regulatory technology: From code is law to law is code”

Abstract

“Code is law” refers to the idea that, with the advent of digital technology, code has progressively established itself as the predominant way to regulate the behavior of Internet users. Yet, while computer code can enforce rules more efficiently than legal code, it also comes with a series of limitations, mostly because it is difficult to transpose the ambiguity and flexibility of legal rules into a formalized language which can be interpreted by a machine. With the advent of blockchain technology and associated smart contracts, code is assuming an even stronger role in regulating people’s interactions over the Internet, as many contractual transactions get transposed into smart contract code. In this paper, we describe the shift from the traditional notion of “code is law” (i.e., code having the effect of law) to the new conception of “law is code” (i.e., law being defined as code).

Read the full article here.

Photo by elsahammond

The post Essay of the Day: From code is law to law is code appeared first on P2P Foundation.

The platform cooperativism movement, which brings about the best societal effects of the so called ‘sharing economy’, is on the rise. Nonetheless, it is far from being popular and nothing indicates that it will. In this paper we investigate the economic mechanisms through which dominant platforms remain dominant and hinder the development of alternative platform cooperatives. We conclude that a crucial factor is the fact that the property over the data created in sharing economy platforms is private and exclusive. We then propose a policy that has three goals: curtailing dominant platforms’ dominance, fostering platform cooperativism and maximizing the beneficial societal effects that can be derived from exploiting the data generated in platforms. The policy is based on making the data generated in sharing economy platforms a common to which reciprocity licenses would apply.

Carballa Smichowski Bruno (2016) – Data as a Common in the Sharing Economy a General Policy Proposal (CEPN… by P2P Foundation on Scribd

Photo by marcinignac

The post Data as a common in the sharing economy: a general policy proposal appeared first on P2P Foundation.