Free software is built by a community of hackers and activists who
care about freedom. But forces outside that community affect the work
done within in it, for good or ill. While we at the FSF regularly deal
with GNU General Public License (GPL) violators (who we always
hope are just community members waiting for a proper introduction) ,
there is another force that can have a substantial effect on user
freedom: governmental policy.
Laws, regulations, and government actions can have a lasting impact on
users. The GNU GPL is based in copyright but uses its power in a
"copyleft" way to actually protect users from the negative impacts of
copyright, patents, and proprietary license agreements. While we can
sometimes turn a law on its head to make it work for users like this,
other times we are forced to push back in order to guarantee their
rights. In order to achieve our global mission of promoting computer
user freedom and defending the rights of software users everywhere, we
must often take action to petition and protest governing bodies and
their regulations. For the Licensing and Compliance Lab this is
particularly relevant to our work, as these rules can affect how the
licenses published by the FSF protect users. 2015 was a year filled
with such actions, and 2016 will see much of the same. While our work
this past year often involved issues with the U.S. government, the
scope of our work is global. As our worldwide actions on the
Trans-Pacific Partnership (TPP) and other international agreements
demonstrate, bad laws in the U.S. have a tendency to spread around the
globe. We work to educate the U.S public about problematic laws and
regulations here, and we also work with supporters and partner
organizations in countries around the world to achieve the same goals
in their countries.
We want to take a moment to look back on the work we've done on the
licensing team pushing for policies that protect users, and fighting
to stop laws and regulations that would harm them.
TPP and the threat of international "trade" agreements
As we explain on our international trade issue page "The FSF has
been warning users of the dangers of the Trans-Pacific Partnership
(TPP) for many years now. The TPP is an agreement negotiated in secret
nominally for the promotion of trade, yet entire chapters of it are
dedicated to implementing restrictions and regulations on computing
and the Internet."
But the TPP is not the only threat looming. In October, FSF's Donald
Robertson gave a talk at SeaGL outlining the threats from the
alphabet soup of international "trade" agreements. A widening web of
negotiations is criss-crossing the globe seeking to implement many of
the same terrible restrictions found in TPP.
During the past year we warned of the dangers of these
international agreements and pushed activists to try and
stop the fast-tracking of TPP in the U.S..
But we are of course not alone in our opposition to TPP. We worked
together with dozens of other groups during the year. In November, we
supported a rally and hackathon put on by our friends at the
Electronic Frontier Foundation. They currently have another
action helping people to contact Congress in the U.S. telling them to
stop TPP. This year, we will have much more to do in order to stop
TPP and many TPP clones in the future.
The Digital Millennium Copyright Act's (DMCA) anti-circumvention provisions
One of the biggest actions we took in 2015 involved fighting back
against the DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions. We explained the
issue back in April of 2015:
Every three years, supporters of user rights are forced to go through
a Kafkaesque process fighting for exemptions from the
anti-circumvention provisions of the DMCA... In short, under the
DMCA's rules, everything not permitted is forbidden. Unless we expend
time and resources to protect and expand exemptions, users could be
threatened with legal consequences for circumventing the digital
restrictions management (DRM) on their own devices and software and
could face criminal penalties for sharing tools that allow others to
do the same. Exemptions don't fix the harm brought about by the
DMCA's anti-circumvention provisions, but they're the only crumbs
Congress deigned to throw us when they tossed out our rights as
users.
In the year's round of exemption proposals, we called for the repeal
of these provisions and supported every proposed exemption. We
called out the companies, organizations and
government agencies that tried to lock users down by opposing
these exemptions. When the Copyright Office failed to grant all
proposed exemptions, we explained how the process was broken and
called again for the repeal of the onerous law.
On this front, we had some success, as Congress and the Copyright
Office are starting to listen. 2015 ended with the Copyright
Office asking for public comments about the DMCA's anti-circumvention
provisions and the exemptions process, noting many of the criticisms
we levied throughout the year. In 2016, the fight continues, we'll
need your help to end the nightmare of these restrictions and their
broken exemption process, rather than simply patch over the problems
it creates.
Saving Wi-fi
Unfortunately, the DMCA isn't the only government policy seeking to
lock down devices and restrict the ability of users to control their
own computing. In 2015, the U.S. Federal Communications Commission
(FCC) announced the proposal of new rules requiring manufacturers of
wireless devices to implement locks on all wireless devices. The FCC
is charged with divvying up wireless spectrum in the U.S., and works
to enforce regulations ensuring that devices do not exceed their
mandated spectrum. But in trying to achieve that goal, they proposed
rules that would in practice encourage device manufacturers to cripple
their wireless-enabled hardware so that users could no longer install
free software on those devices.
So the FSF and our allies fought back, starting a campaign to
Save Wi-Fi. The coalition came together and filed over 3,000
public comments in opposition to the rules. FSF licensing & compliance
manager Joshua Gay and executive director John Sullivan even
met with the FCC to make free software concerns heard. The work
to protect Wi-Fi continues in 2016.
Education needs freedom
Not every issue we confront in this arena is a threat to user freedom.
Government policy can also work to help support free software, as we
are seeing with the U.S. Department of Education's recent push to
upgrade the rules around grant-funded educational works. In October of
2015, the Department of Education called for comments on its proposed
regulations, which were intended to create greater access and sharing
by requiring grant-funded works to be under a free license. There was
just one hitch — the regulations as proposed didn't quite get the job
done, because they didn't explicitly require the freedom for
downstream users to redistribute modified copies of the works. So we
rallied users and free software activists to provide feedback to
the Department of Education on the new rules. While no decision has
yet been announced, we're excited about this new policy and our
ability to help shape it to ensure that user freedom is enjoyed by
all.
Working together for free software
Fighting to protect free software and user freedom is not something
that we can do alone. In our actions we always seek to collaborate
with activists and organizations working towards a common cause. We
also want to help other groups petitioning their governments to do so
in ways that respect the rights of users. Even where we are not
involved in a particular action we help organizations offer petitions
or tools to users that can be utilized on a fully free system. One
particular issue in this space is offering petitions or methods of
writing to government representatives that do not require the use of
proprietary JavaScript. We explain the issue to other
organizations and, whenever possible, offer assistance in crafting
on-line petitions that are compatible with free software ideals. Along
similar lines, when it comes to submitting public comments to the
U.S. government, many agencies also require the use of proprietary
JavaScript in order to submit comments on-line. While we push for the
government to change this situation, we also offer to submit comments
on behalf of the community via the post. We did this with our action
on the Department of Education proposal, and we will be doing the same
for our upcoming push on the DMCA.
A look ahead
While 2015 was a big year in working to improve government policy,
much still needs to be done in the year ahead. The fight to stop TPP
still goes on, and other "trade" agreements loom on the horizon. For
the DMCA, our voice was heard in 2015, but now we need to actually
bring about the necessary changes. The FCC-instigated lockdown of
wireless devices still hangs over our head. We will continue to fight
for the rights of users on these issues, and any new ones that spring
up.
But as our work in 2015 shows, we can't do it alone. We need the help
of other organizations and activists to keep up the fight. And we need
you as well. Our actions would mean nothing without your voice joining
in to amplify and spread the message.
In addition to supporting our actions and making your voice heard, you
can help fund the work we do to amplify your concerns. Can you support
this important making a donation to the Free Software
Foundation? You can make a long-term commitment to help the FSF
sustain and grow the program for years to come by
becoming an associate member for as little as $10/month (student
memberships are further discounted). Membership offers many
great benefits, too. Other ways you can help:
- Support the EFF's action to stop TPP.
- Make sure to join the Defective by Design mailing list to help
end the DMCA anti-circumvention madness.
- Share this article with your friends and colleagues to help them
understand the threats to user freedom posed by government policy.
