News and media law leaders endorse principles for Internet press freedom

The Statement of Vienna is a body of 16 principles which was adopted in 21 November 2002 in Vienna, Austria, by members of nine leading global press freedom organizations as the fundamental guidelines for protecting press freedom on the Internet.

The Statement affirms, among its principles, that "news media in cyberspace and via international satellite broadcasts should be afforded the same freedom of expression rights as traditional news media. ..." (Full text of the Statement follows).

The conference, titled Press Freedom on the Internet, was co-sponsored by the World Press Freedom Committee and the Communications and Media Law Committee of the Association of the Bar of the City of New York.

Excerpts from the conference can be found on the World Press Freedom Committee's Web site, www.wpfc.org.

Among the topics examined at the conference: How Internet news travels, and how and where it is censored and restricted; issues of Internet legal jurisdiction; press freedom concerns related to an upcoming UN World Summit on the Information Society; and ways in which the free flow of Internet news content can be protected from censorship, blocking and government restriction.

-- Tom Curley, in one of his first public statements since taking over June 1 as president and CEO of The Associated Press, said Internet issues - especially relating to intellectual property rights - are among the greatest concerns for the AP's worldwide operations. "In every meeting I go to, there are issues around piracy and threats to our revenue stream," he said. Other concerns include "considerable threats to getting access to information, what happens to that information and what we are responsible for," he said.

Curley noted that AP has just designated New York lawyer John Keitt as general counsel with special responsibility for addressing intellectual property and other business development issues.

-- Rep. Christopher Cox, R-Calif., co-sponsor with Rep. Tom Lantos (D-Calif) of a bill to establish an office of Global Internet Freedom, explained his purpose in introducing the bill, which is expected to reach the floor of the House of Representatives in early July.

-- Geoffrey Robertson, noted British human rights lawyer, described the new challenges the Internet poses for publishers, who are now becoming targets for libel suits from all corners of the world based on complaints by plaintiffs that they have been wronged by material appearing on the Internet, even if it originates in another country.

-- Kim Holmes, U.S. Assistant Secretary of State for International Organization Affairs, declared that the United States will defend press freedom rights at the United Nations and UNESCO, and at an upcoming World Summit on the Information Society.

Others making statements included experts in news, journalism education, media law and Internet technology: Leonard Sussman, senior scholar in international communications at Freedom House; Shanthi Kalathil, author of global studies of Internet freedom, Carnegie Endowment for International Peace; Xiao Qiang, director of the China Internet Study Program at UC Berkeley Graduate School of Journalism; Ben Edelman, who has written extensively about Internet blocking, Harvard Law School;

Guy-Olivier Segond, Special Ambassador, World Summit on the Information Society; Henrikas Yushkiavitshus, Adviser to UNESCO Director General Koichiro Matsuura; Andres Garcia Lavin, former President, Inter American Press Association and International Association of Broadcasting; Mogens Schmidt, Assistant Director, Press Freedom and Democracy, UNESCO; Ronald Koven, European Representative, World Press Freedom Committee;

Adam Clayton Powell III, Visiting Professor, Annenburg School for Communication, USC; Timothy Balding, Director General, World Association of Newspapers; Tala Dowlatshahi, U.S. Representative, Reporters Without Borders; Mick Stern, Webmaster, Committee to Protect Journalists; David Schulz, Esq., Clifford Chance LLP; Jan Constantine , Esq., News American Publishing Co.; Kevin Goering, Esq., Coudert Bros. LLP; Stuart Karle, Esq., Dow Jones & Co.;

Kevin Goldberg, Communications lawyer with Cohn & Marks; WPFC General Counsel; Jane Kirtley, Silha Professor of Media Ethics and Law, University of Minnesota School of Journalism and Mass Communication; Paige Anderson, Staff Counsel for Global Internet Policy Initiative, Center for Democracy and Technology; Roger Parkinson, former president, World Association of Newspapers; Andrew Nachison, Director, The Media Center, American Press Institute; Seymour Topping, San Paulo Professor of International Journalism, Columbia University; Richard Winfield, Clifford Chance US LLP; former AP General Counsel.

The Statement of Vienna Adopted 21 November 2002 in Vienna Endorsed 28 June 2003 in New York:

COMMITTEE TO PROTECT JOURNALISTS COMMONWEALTH PRESS UNION INTER AMERICAN PRESS ASSOCIATION INTERNATIONAL ASSOCIATION OF BROADCASTING INTERNATIONAL FEDERATION OF THE PERIODICAL PRESS INTERNATIONAL PRESS INSTITUTE NORTH AMERICAN BROADCASTERS ASSOCIATION WORLD ASSOCIATION OF NEWSPAPERS WORLD PRESS FREEDOM COMMITTEE

PRESS FREEDOM ON THE INTERNET

1. News media in cyberspace and via international satellite broadcasts should be afforded the same freedom of expression rights as traditional news media. Any text adopted by the World Summit on the Information Society should affirm this.

A free press means a free people. Press freedom on the Internet must be a fundamental characteristic of this and of any new communication system.

2. This principle is embodied in UNESCO's Declaration of Sofia of 1997:

"The access to and the use of these new media should be afforded the same freedom of expression protections as traditional media."

This declaration, adopted by a broad cross-section of journalists from both East and West Europe, was formally endorsed by the member states of UNESCO at its General Conference in 1997.

3. A major priority must be implementation of Article 19 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights:

"Everyone has the right to freedom of opinion and expression; this right includes freedom to hold opinions without interference and to seek, receive and impart information and ideas through any media and regardless of frontiers."

That pledge, made by the international community in 1948, must be a living reality everywhere.

4. There are many forms of communication over the Internet, and it is important not to confuse them. News, for example, is different from such things as pornography, paedophilia, fraud, conspiracy for terrorism, incitement to violence, hate speech, etc., although there may be news stories about such problems. Such matters as those listed are normally covered in existing national general legislation and can, if appropriate and necessary, be prosecuted on the national level in the country of origin.

No new legislation or international treaty is necessary.

5. Some countries that have advocated controls over the free flow of information across national frontiers have tried to justify such controls on political grounds, regional value systems or national information sovereignty.

Such controls are clearly in violation of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights.

6. Over the years, developing countries have complained of being unequal partners in world communication ability. The new information technologies afford just the opportunity for interactive and multi-way communication that these developing world critics have said they want.

For those in many countries, Article 19 is still a promise rather than a reality. The new communication technologies could go a very long way toward fulfilling the promise.

7. Those who seek answers to the so-called "digital divide" neglect to recall that previous communication technologies such as printing, radio and television also started in advanced, more developed countries and spread virtually throughout the world, largely thanks to natural market processes.

The rate of spread of each successive new communication technology accelerated radically. According to the International Telecommunication Union, it took 38 years for the first 50 million radio sets to be in place worldwide, 13 years for the first 50 million television sets, and just four years for the first 50 million Internet connections. There are now more than 10 times as many Internet connections worldwide.

8. Because general principles are at stake, there is concern that controls instituted for new communication technologies could "wash back" into controls over traditional news media. This would be regressive and tragic.

Nothing that could work in this manner should be permitted at this Summit.

9. A number of proposals for regulation and controls now being made were made and rejected during past debate over now-discredited proposals for a "new world information and communication order." There are clearly those at work who seek to revive and assert for their own purposes such restrictive proposals in the new guise of countering alleged threats and dangers posed by new communication technologies.

These proposals must again be successfully resisted, just as they were earlier.

10. Many of the fears over the new communication technologies expressed by officials and politicians seem to reflect anxieties about the new and unfamiliar, which they do not control. Such anxieties often reflect ignorance on what the new communication technologies really are and of how they work.

They can also reflect a fear of freedom.

Discussions of many alleged problems are often conducted on the basis of unproved assertions and speculations. Rigorously researched, hard data is missing to describe the supposed threats posed by the new communication technologies, with these unproven dangers used to justify the calls for controls.

11. If successful, proposals to control content and its dissemination through new information technologies would severely constrain their rapid spread and development.

12. In the broader freedom of expression context, existing international copyright regimes and intellectual property rights agreements are, generally speaking, an indispensable encouragement to creation and innovation.

Those who seek to undermine such existing conventions on the grounds of free access would, in fact, succeed only in drastically reducing incentives for developing and distributing information.

13. Most people in the world continue to receive their news and information through traditional broadcast and print media and are likely to continue to do so for the foreseeable future.

14. The forthcoming World Summit on the Information Society provides both opportunities to broaden the reach of freedom of expression as well as dangers from those who would narrow it -- unthinkingly or deliberately.

15. Everyone involved in preparations for that summit in late 2003 in Geneva, and for the follow-up summit in 2005 presently scheduled for Tunis, should bear firmly in mind the need to maximize opportunities for extending press freedom and to resist the threats to restrict it.

To that end, civil society and all those engaged in news flows over the Internet must be an integral part of the preparations at every stage. This summit conference cannot be left to governments and technocrats alone.

16. The Coordinating Committee of Press Freedom Organisations calls for concerted effort to make preserving and extending the free flow of news and information in cyberspace a basic concern of the Summit.

News on the Internet is the same as news everywhere. New technology does not require any reconsideration of fundamental rights such as freedom of the press.

We call on delegates and others involved in the Summit process to: a) reject any proposal aimed at restricting news content or media operations, b) support inclusion of a clear statement of unqualified support for press freedom on the Internet, and c) include with action on any other subject that could be used restrictively a clear statement that the particular provision involved is not intended to involve any restriction on press freedom.

There must be press freedom in cyberspace.