If the Supreme Court doesn’t reverse a lower court’s ruling, internet service providers (ISPs) could be forced to terminate people’s internet access based on nothing more than mere accusations of copyright infringement. This would threaten innocent users who rely on broadband for essential aspects of daily life. EFF—along with the American Library Association, the Association of Research Libraries, and Re:Create—filed an amicus brief urging the Court to reverse the decision.

The Stakes: Turning ISPs into Copyright Police

Among other things, the Supreme Court approving the appeals court’s findings will radically change the amount of risk your ISP takes on if a customer infringes on copyright, forcing the ISP to terminate access to the internet for those users accused of copyright infringement—and everyone else who uses that internet connection.

This issue turns on what courts call “secondary liability,” which is the legal idea that someone can be held responsible not for what they did directly, but for what someone else did using their product or service.

The case began when music companies sued Cox Communications, arguing that the ISP should be held liable for copyright infringement committed by some of its subscribers. The Court of Appeals for the Fourth Circuit agreed, adopting a “material contribution” standard for contributory copyright liability (a rule for when service providers can be held liable for the actions of users). The lower court said that providing a service that could be used for infringement is enough to create liability when a customer infringes.

In the Patent Act, where Congress has explicitly defined secondary liability, there’s a different test: contributory infringement exists only where a product is incapable of substantial non-infringing use. Internet access, of course, is overwhelmingly used for lawful purposes, making it the very definition of a “staple article of commerce” that can’t be liable under the patent framework. Yet under the Fourth Circuit’s rule, ISPs could face billion-dollar damages if they fail to terminate users on the basis of even flimsy or automated infringement claims.

Our Argument: Apply Clear Rules from the Patent Act, Not Confusing Judge-Made Tests

Our brief urges the Court to do what it has done in the past: look to patent law to define the limits of secondary liability in copyright. That means contributory infringement must require more than a “material contribution” by the service provider—it should apply only when a product or service is especially designed for infringement and lacks substantial non-infringing uses.

The Human Cost: Losing Internet Access Hurts Everyone

The Fourth Circuit’s rule threatens devastating consequences for the public. Terminating an ISP account doesn’t just affect a person accused of unauthorized file sharing—it cuts off entire households, schools, libraries, or businesses that share an internet connection.

• Public libraries, which provide internet access to millions of Americans who lack it at home, could lose essential service.
• Universities, hospitals, and local governments could see internet access for whole communities disrupted.
• Households—especially in low-income and communities of color, which disproportionately share broadband connections with other people—would face collective punishment for the alleged actions of a single user.

With more than a third of Americans having only one or no broadband provider, many users would have no way to reconnect once cut off. And given how essential internet access is for education, employment, healthcare, and civic participation, the consequences of termination are severe and disproportionate.

What’s Next

The Supreme Court has an opportunity to correct course. We’re asking the Court to reject the Fourth Circuit’s unfounded “material contribution” test, reaffirm that patent law provides the right framework for secondary liability, and make clear that the Constitution requires copyright to serve the public good. The Court should ensure that copyright enforcement doesn’t jeopardize the internet access on which participation in modern life depends.

We’ll be watching closely as the Court considers this case. In the meantime, you can read our amicus brief here.

「社会環境の変化に対応した電波有効利用の推進の在り方」に関する　情報通信審議会からの一部答申

弾道ミサイルを想定した住民避難訓練の実施

第745回　官民競争入札等監理委員会（開催案内）

令和6年度民間放送事業者の収支状況

令和7年台風第15号等に伴う災害に係る普通交付税（11月定例交付分）の繰上げ交付

基幹放送用周波数使用計画の一部を変更する告示案に係る意見募集の結果及び電波監理審議会からの答申

周波数再編アクションプラン（令和7年度版）（案）に対する意見募集

電波法施行規則の一部を改正する省令案等に対する意見募集の結果及び電波監理審議会からの答申

第44回政策評価審議会（令和7年9月4日持ち回り開催）資料・議事要旨

統計研究研修所管理・研修部管理課 非常勤職員採用情報

情報通信審議会　総会（第54回）配付資料・議事概要・議事録

(訳者まえがき)ガザにイスラエル軍の地上部隊が本格的に侵攻し、北部の住民を強制的に排除しはじめたことが報じられている。日々報道で映し出されるガザの光景から、私たちは、北部やガザ市に住みつづける人たちが今でも多くいることをつい忘れていまいがちだ。しかし。まだ住み続けている人たちが確実にいる。なぜなのか、安全な所などないとはいえ、まだ南部の方が相対的に安全ではないのか。以下に訳出したのは、+972magazineに掲載された記事で、筆者は今でも北部のガザ市に住む。この記事には、未だに住み続ける人たちの思いの深さが、そのコミュニティや家族、隣人たちやその場所への深い愛着――この愛着にはナクバの記憶が欠かせないものとして受け継がれている――とともに、読む者の胸に迫ってくる。生き延びてほしいと思う。ただそれだけの言葉しかかけらないとはいえ、生き延びてほしいと思う。ぜひお読みください。(としまる)

San Francisco billionaire Chris Larsen once again has wielded his wallet to keep city residents under the eye of all-seeing police surveillance. 

The San Francisco Police Commission, the Board of Supervisors, and Mayor Daniel Lurie have signed off on Larsen’s $9.4 million gift of a new Real-Time Investigations Center. The plan involves moving the city’s existing police tech hub from the public Hall of Justice not to the city’s brand-new police headquarters but instead to a sublet in the Financial District building of Ripple Labs, Larsen’s crypto-transfer company. Although the city reportedly won’t be paying for the space, the lease reportedly cost Ripple $2.3 million and will last until December 2026. 

The deal will also include a $7.25 million gift from the San Francisco Police Community Foundation that Larsen created. Police foundations are semi-public fundraising arms of police departments that allow them to buy technology and gear that the city will not give them money for.  

In Los Angeles, the city’s police foundation got $178,000 from the company Target to pay for the services of the data analytics company Palantir to use for predictive policing. In Atlanta, the city’s police foundation funds a massive surveillance apparatus as well as the much-maligned Cop City training complex. (Despite police foundations’ insistence that they are not public entities and therefore do not need to be transparent or answer public records requests, a judge recently ordered the Atlanta Police Foundation to release documentation related to Cop City.) 

A police foundation in San Francisco brings the same concerns: that an unaccountable and untransparent fundraising arm shmoozing with corporations and billionaires would fund unpopular surveillance measures without having to reveal much to the public.  

Larsen was one of the deep pockets behind last year’s Proposition E, a ballot measure to supercharge surveillance in the city. The measure usurped the city’s 2019 surveillance transparency and accountability ordinance, which had required the SFPD to get the elected Board of Supervisors’ approval before buying and using new surveillance technology. This common-sense democratic hurdle was, apparently, a bridge too far for the SFPD and for Larsen.  

We’re no fans of real-time crime centers (RTCCs), as they’re often called elsewhere, to start with. They’re basically control rooms that pull together all feeds from a vast warrantless digital dragnet, often including automated license plate readers, fixed cameras, officers’ body-worn cameras, drones, and other sources. It’s a means of consolidating constant surveillance of the entire population, tracking everyone wherever they go and whatever they do – worrisome at any time, but especially in a time of rising authoritarianism.  

Think of what this data could do if it got into federal hands; imagine how vulnerable city residents would be subject to harassment if every move they made was centralized and recorded downtown. But you don’t have to imagine, because SFPD already has been caught sharing automated license plate reader data with out-of-state law enforcement agencies assisting in federal immigration investigations. 

We’re especially opposed to RTCCs using live feeds from non-city surveillance cameras to push that panopticon’s boundaries even wider, as San Francisco’s does. Those semi-private networks of some 15,000 cameras, already abused by SFPD to surveil lawful protests against police violence, were funded in part by – you guessed it – Chris Larsen. 

These technologies could potentially endanger San Franciscans by directing armed police at them due to reliance on a faulty algorithm or by putting already-marginalized communities at further risk of overpolicing and surveillance. But studies find that these technologies just don’t work. If the goal is to stop crime before it happens, to spare someone the hardship and the trauma of getting robbed or hurt, cameras clearly do not accomplish this. There’s plenty of footage of crime occurring that belies the idea that surveillance is an effective deterrent, and although police often look to technology as a silver bullet to fight crime, evidence suggests that it does little to alter the historic ebbs and flows of criminal activity. 

Yet now this unelected billionaire – who already helped gut police accountability and transparency rules and helped fund sketchy surveillance of people exercising their First Amendment rights – wants to bankroll, expand, and host the police’s tech nerve center. 

Policing must be a public function so that residents can control - and demand accountability and transparency from - those who serve and protect but also surveil and track us all. Being financially beholden to private interests erodes the community’s trust and control and can leave the public high and dry if a billionaire’s whims change or conflict with the will of the people. Chris Larsen could have tried to address the root causes of crime that affect our community; instead, he exercises his bank account's muscle to decide that surveillance is best for San Franciscans with less in their wallets. 

Elected officials should have said “thanks but no thanks” to Larsen and ensured that the San Francisco Police Department remained under the complete control and financial auspices of nobody except the people of San Francisco. Rich people should not be allowed to fund the further degradation of our privacy as we go about our lives in our city’s public places. Residents should carefully watch what comes next to decide for themselves whether a false sense of security is worth living under constant, all-seeing, billionaire-bankrolled surveillance. 

　戦後８０年を迎えた今年、新たな戦前状況にあらがうため沖縄のメディアは、過去の戦争や戦後史を検証して教訓とし、再び戦争をさせない報道に懸命に取り組んでいる。　市民運動も新たな展開をしている。「戦争止めよう！　沖縄・西日本ネットワーク」が結成され、６月に東京行動を実施するなど、活動の規模を拡大してきた。　しかし、日本の軍事費は拡大を続け、米軍と一体となった戦争準備を着々と進めている。軍事演習が日常化し、生活の場に軍事が無遠慮に入り込み、全国でミサイル配備、弾薬庫整備などの計画が..