Rights Protection System
The Rights Protection System ( RPS ) is a content filter system introduced in September 1999 by the Federal Association of the Phonographic Industry (BPI or German IFPI ) , which aims to curb copyright infringements on the Internet.
functionality
While cryptography ( digital rights management ) is supposed to prevent works from being used in a way other than that authorized by the rights holder, watermarks are supposed to help locate works that have been taken from a cryptosystem and sent to the network in unencrypted form, the BPI chooses a third Path. He searches the net for pieces of music that are offered without the permission of the record companies concerned. If the server is in Germany , it asks the operator to remove the files. According to the Teleservices Act , the provider is responsible for third-party content if he is informed of a copyright infringement and is technically able to prevent its use ( notice-and-takedown ).
In this way, more than 2,000 German websites were closed by the beginning of 2001. However, if the server is located abroad, for example in Eastern Europe or South America , the BPI does not have this legal control in many cases. If the BPI cannot take action against the illegal files itself, it would at least want to prevent German Internet users from accessing them. The proposed RPS is intended to monitor all cross-border data traffic and keep files identified as illegal out of the way.
The planned system is technically the same as the filtering process used to protect minors against pornography: a manually compiled list of URLs can no longer be called up through the filter. Similar systems are the firewalls of companies and universities, which are supposed to prevent employees and students from accessing entertainment information, or the censorship gateways of countries like the People's Republic of China or Singapore .
All German providers who have a connection abroad (according to IFPI data not more than 50 to 70) should set up RPS servers. The entire data traffic would initially be cached there in order to filter it. The URL negative list with the known addresses allegedly violating copyright law should be updated up to hourly, populated by the rights holders and, if possible, administered by the state, such as the customs authorities.
If the RPS found a URL from the list in the data traffic flowing through, it would block access. The German IFPI sees this as a “virtual border seizure” . After completion of the ongoing field test, IFPI wants to address all Internet providers with border gateway routers so that they can install this system. Her legal advisor pointed out that the providers are legally obliged to do so, since with the RPS such filtering is "technically possible and reasonable" .
It is technically relatively easy to circumvent such a system if providers and users of unauthorized content would use encryption, send the data by e-mail, call up the URLs of accesses from abroad or change their servers at short intervals, such as common with providers of pornography.
Problems and criticism
Apart from the experts, the RPS plans hardly triggered any reaction.
However, problems arise from the political implications. The idea that an industrial association wants to curtail the functionality of a public infrastructure for all Internet users in Germany in the interests of its members is viewed by critics as scandalous. The industry is aware of the explosiveness of such a system: "The danger of being pushed into the censorship corner is great," fears a spokesman for the BPI.
The name Rights Protection System is possibly intended to avoid an association with the heated debate about filtering in the mid-1990s. At the time, some experts were of the opinion that filtering on the end user's computer and under his control was a good aid for informational self-determination, but that any filtering at an upstream level (at the Internet provider or gateway) should be rejected. On the other hand, the name is misleading because the system neither protects content from copyright infringements nor takes action against websites that offer content that the rights industry was not able to protect.
It is also criticized that the music industry is promoting the solution to its particular problem as a national protection system which, once established, should also serve the customs and law enforcement authorities as well as the tax authorities. The IFPI legal advisor Nils Bortloff claimed that the RPS helped to implement national law on the Internet. It is not only suitable for protecting copyright, but can also be used against the distribution of illegal products or illegal material.
literature
- Volker Grassmuck : Free Software. Between private and public property . Federal Agency for Civic Education, Bonn 2002, ISBN 3-89331-432-6
Web links
- The Right Protection System (RPS) for protection against Internet abuse and copyright infringements ( Memento from February 24, 2002 in the Internet Archive ), ifpi.de
Individual evidence
- ↑ See BPI, 2001
- ↑ See Bortloff, 1999
- ↑ See Schulzki-Haddouti, 2/2000
- ↑ See Krempl, 9/1999
- ↑ See e.g. B. Berners-Lee, 1999, p. 167 ff., On the dispute over the US Communications Decency Act and the Platform for Internet Content Selection (PICS)
- ↑ See Bortloff, 1999, p. 117