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Deutsch: Anhörung der Europäische Kommission über die Google Books-Einigung
The EU Google Books hearing highlighted some very serious concerns with the settlement, but mainly from a rights holder point of view.
The hearing itself addressed two quite distinct sets of issues; firstly concerns of EU rights holders with the USA agreement, and how they feel their rights are affected by that agreement. The aim for these speakers was to push the EU to uphold their exclusive rights under copyright, which they feel have been infringed, particularly by scanning and also by making works available without prior consent. Works where EU rights holders are not found may fall into this category.
The second set of issues however should be more important for EU legislators: how to make books available for search and sale in Europe. The paths forward on this are less easy, but it appears that some sort of reform to allow the exploitation of 'orphan works' is seen as a strong likelihood.
What seems less likely is an exception for scanning, search and indexing of published copyright content. Yet this may be the best answer to competition questions, by allowing a clearer path for new services to use copyright content, perhaps including video, audio and music in the future.
Similar questions may be raised around collective licensing agreements. Very little was said about the national nature of copyright, or about attempting to allow pan-European licensing, which has been a severe barrier to music services in the EU.
Competition was raised as a concern, but genuine changes that might allow competitors to develop were not discussed in depth compared with the many voices from rights holders with varying levels of concern about loss of control, and violation of international copyright.
On the wider questions of academic use, many questions were not answered. There was a similar story with privacy issues. These are social questions, which need the application of social values from civil society and politicians. Privacy for the data produced by such a fundamental service may need to be better defined in law. From that point of view, the number of MEPs attending was disappointing low, as was the number of consumer groups speaking.
The major civil society voice was that of librarians, who had important points to make. Worries were raised about preservation of content in the event of Google's demise and the current ability of researchers to analyse the data that Google has collected. They argued that copyright limitations must stand above contracts. Librarians made strong points about the need for reading habits to be kept private. They argued for the need of developing countries to be able to access the information that has been accumulated.
While Google Books is very contentious between those whose rights are affected, the wider questions of availability and access to knowledge were only really addressed by librarians and ORG in the hearing. It was apparent that some changes to copyright law may be sought, but they are likely to be the minimum needed to allow this particular type of service to develop, rather than something wide enough to liberate a fuller range of opportunities for people wanting to use copyright works and contribute to the EU's economy.
Open Rights Group's speech on to European Commission hearing on Google Books
Settlement (7.09.2009)
http://www.openrightsgroup.org/ourwork/speeches/google-books-hearing
"It is time for Europe to turn over a new e-leaf on digital books and
copyright". Joint Statement of EU Commissioners Reding and McCreevy on the
occasion of this week's Google Books meetings in Brussels (7.09.2009)
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=MEMO/09/376&am...
Bringing the world's lost books back to life (7.09.2009)
http://googlepolicyeurope.blogspot.com/2009/09/bringing-worlds-lost-bo...
(Contribution by Jim Killock - Executive Director EDRi-member ORG)
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Deutsch: Annahme des Stockholmprogramms steht kurz bevor
The timetables for the Stockholm Programme have become a great deal clearer since the return of the Parliament following the summer break and the communication between the Swedish Presidency and relevant parliamentary committees.
The Programme aims to set the priorities for a variety of justice issues (including criminal and civil law enforcement cooperation) for the period 2010-2014 and beyond. This initiative takes over from the 2004-2009 Hague Programme. Little new information about the potential content of the final document has been communicated so far, despite the fact that the broad direction of the document is expected to be finalised by the end of October. How any subsequent proposals will be scrutinised by the EU institutions will depend heavily on the outcome of the Irish referendum on the Lisbon Treaty.
Beatrice Ask, Swedish Minister for Justice, presented the plans of the Presidency to the European Parliament Civil Liberties Committee on 2 September and focused on the Stockholm Programme. Minister Ask made great efforts to assuage fears regarding the scope and balance of the Programme, repeatedly referring to the need to place the rights of the citizen at the centre of all decision-making on this issue and to ensure that measures that are proposed are properly justified. MEP Sophie In't Veld (ALDE, Netherlands) was very sceptical about the assurances given by the minister. In particular, she said that such an approach would be a break with tradition and that experience to date on SWIFT, ACTA, CIA renditions and that the evaluation of current anti-terrorism policies suggested that little has changed.
At the meeting, Minister Ask said that the incoming Spanish Presidency would be relied upon to propose concrete projects on the basis of the priorities in the Programme. Spanish MEP De Mera (EPP, Spain) offered the full and unequivocal support of the largest political group in the Parliament. There were various interventions regarding the status of Europol and whether it should become an EU agency. The Minister was clear in her answer, stating that Europol was and would remain intergovernmental. As regards ACTA, she was surprisingly direct, criticising the lack of transparency of negotiations and stating that border searches of MP3 players would not take place as a result of this planned agreement. She appeared to imply that fears concerning ACTA are unfounded and caused by lack of transparency.
It is expected that the bulk of discussions in the Council will be completed in late October, with an informal adoption by Justice Ministers in November and a formal adoption by the Council in December. The Civil Liberties Committee, with input from the Constitutional Affairs and Legal Affairs Committees, will produce an own-initiative report on the Declaration. It is expected that this will be adopted in Committee in November and in Plenary in December, although this is highly likely to change. There will be an inter-parliamentary hearing in the Parliament in October, involving representatives of the European Parliament and national Parliaments. The Green Group in the European Parliament will also hold a hearing, probably in October.
Commission Communication on "An Area of Freedom, Security and Justice
Serving the Citizen" (10.06.2009)
http://ec.europa.eu/commission_barroso/barrot/archive/Programme%20Stoc...
UK written comments on the European Commission's Communication on the
Stockholm Programme (27.08.2009)
http://www.statewatch.org/news/2009/sep/stockholm-uk-comments-27-08-09...
EDRi-gram: Stockholm programme - the new EU dangerous surveillance system
(17.07.2009)
http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.12/stockholm-programme-eu-survei...
(contribution by Joe McNamee - EDRi)
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Deutsch: Verhandlungen über ein neues SWIFT-Abkommen zwischen EU und USA
On 1 September 2009, the Civil Liberties Committee of the European Parliament (LIBE) held a hearing on the renewal of the agreement which is now under negotiations between the EU and the USA on data transfers via the SWIFT financial data network.
LIBE members have shown concern about the legal basis for the agreement and about that fact that the European Parliament has been kept out of the negotiations, and are asking to be involved in the drafting of the agreement.
SWIFT case started in 2006 when it came out that US administrative authorities were accessing data held on European citizens on the SWIFT financial network based in Belgium without the knowledge of the European authorities. Under the pressure of European Parliament and some Member States, measures were taken to ensure some privacy guarantees and the USA had to ensure that the collected data was used solely for anti-terrorist purposes.
The new agreement under discussion follows a change in the architectural structure of SWIFT which, according to head of SWIFT Lázaro Campos, "is a key factor in the security of our clients". The system is to have a storage centre for the European data in Switzerland.
The change of structure was encouraged by Peter Hustinx, the European Data Protection Supervisor who believes such a change would mean that the data would be stored in Europe. However, he expressed his concern regarding the necessity and proportionality of and interim agreement with the USA and called for the European data to be placed under the European data protections regulations.
During the hearing on Monday, Gilles de Kerchove, the European anti-terrorism coordinator, said that the Terrorist Finance Tracking Program, which is based on the SWIFT network, "is a very precious instrument in Europe too. It is of benefit to our Member States". Also, according to Jonathan Faull, European Commission DG Justice director-general, an agreement is necessary "so that SWIFT can operate in a legal framework. A number of negotiating criteria have therefore been proposed to reach a temporary accord, which will apply until a definitive agreement comes in under the Lisbon Treaty".
Several MEPs expressed their concerns related to the interim agreement especially regarding the lack of involvement of the European parliament and asked for the details on the SWIFT case to be made public. Austrian MEP Ernst Strasser considers that the European data should be processed according to European standards. In his opinion companies and citizens must have legal certainty. "It is important to conclude an agreement quickly, involving the European Parliament closely, then to renegotiate with a new mandate after Lisbon" he concluded.
European Parliament agenda (2.09.2009)
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/2009_2014/organes/libe/libe_200...
SWIFT: European bank data transfers must comply with European standards, say
MEPs (3.09.2009)
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/expert/infopress_page/019-60174-246...
European Parliament: MEPs voice concerns over SWIFT payment agreement
between EU and the US (4.09.2009)
http://www.egovmonitor.com/node/27708
EDRi-gram: EU wants to share more bank details with the US authorities
(29.07.2009)
http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.15/new-swift-problems-us-eu
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Deutsch: Ermittlungen gegen Google News in Italien wegen angeblicher Diskrimini...
The Italian Competition Authority opened an investigation on 27 August 2009 in relation to Google News after the Italian Editors Association (FIEG) claimed Google was discriminating those publishers choosing not to appear on the Italian version of Google News, by automatically excluding them from its primary search engine as well.
Various Italian newspapers consider they are deprived of attracting users and advertisers to their own web sites when their stories turn up on Google News. However, they have no problem in appearing on Google search engine.
The strongest argument of the investigation is the alleged Google "dominant position" in internet searches, making things difficult for Italian publishers who decide not to appear in Google News. But, although it is obvious that Google is largely preferred by Italian users as a search engine, this is mainly due to its efficiency.
As Andrea Monti from EDRi-member ALCEI points out, "dominant position is a concept belonging to the Antitrust law and depicts a situation where a company stays in its market in a fair stronger position then its competitors, thus setting the rules for competition. Oddly enough, this is the first time, at least in Italy, where Google is "charged" of not making contents available, while in the past its management has been accused of not removing 'disturbing contents' from its indexes".
One characteristic feature of the dominant position is the customer's so-called "locked-in syndrome" which means that when a user buys a product, certain technological characteristics make it impossible for the buyer to switch to another similar competing product as it was in Microsoft's case. With Google, users can buy advertising services wherever they like, and use other search-engines if they so want. There is nothing that Google can do but to continuously improve its services in order to preserve its users.
"We don't display the news stories in their entirety. Rather, our approach is akin to that of web search: we simply show the headlines, a line or two of text and a link to the site - just enough information to make the user want to read the full story. Once a user clicks through to the article, it's up to the news publisher to decide how to profit from this free traffic" is Google's statement in this matter.
Also Google stated that it already had a meeting this year with FIEG where it explained that all its over 25 000 sources from all over the world are in complete control in relation to whether they want to be found on Google services. "So if a news publisher doesn't want to be found on Google.com, Google.it or any other reputable search engines, it can prevent indexation automatically via a universally accepted Internet standard called robots.txt. Publishers also have a range of other ways of controlling how their content appears (or doesn't). One such option is for a publisher to continue to appear in Google web search, but not in Google News. In that case, all they need to do is contact us to be removed. In fact, we met with several Italian publishers and representatives of FIEG just this summer to explain these options," said Google in the comment published on their blog.
As regarding Google News, Google says there are more requests for inclusion than for removal because "publishers understand that the traffic generated by Google News, and services like it, provide valuable traffic: Google News sends over 1 billion clicks per month to news publishers."
Italian Antitrust to storm on Google News? (28.08.2009)
http://blog.andreamonti.eu/?p=180
More on the Italian Antitrust investigation upon Google News (1.09.2009)
http://blog.andreamonti.eu/?p=190
Google probed by Italy's anti-trust arm (27.08.2009)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/27/google_italian_probe/
About Google News In Italy (27.08.2009)
http://googlepolicyeurope.blogspot.com/2009/08/about-google-news-in-it...
Google abuses the news ? (only in Italian, 27.08.2009)
http://punto-informatico.it/2698711/PI/News/google-abusa-delle-news.as...
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Deutsch: Telekompaket: alle Seiten bereiten sich auf die letzte Schlacht vor
Preparations are being made in the EU institutions for the expected third reading of the Telecom Package. The timescale for the remainder of the legislative process will be determined by the official communication of the Council Common Positions to the Parliament. In theory, this can happen as late as mid-October, meaning that the final agreement could happen as late as the end of November or early December.
In the absence of official finalised documents from the Council, work on the dossier is focusing at the moment on procedural aspects of the negotiations. The negotiation takes place between representatives of the 27 Member States and 27 Members of the European Parliament (with the balance between political groups in the Parliament overall reflected in the political allegiances of the 27 MEPs). Representatives of EU Member States have informally stated that they believe that Amendment 138 is the only controversial issue and a significant number of Council Members wish to restrict discussions to this issue.
Without new information from the Council, discussions in the European Parliament's Industry Committee on 2 September 2009 generated far more heat than light. Catherine Trautmann (S&D, France) proposed moving the debate forward by suggesting that the incoming Commissioner be asked to start work on net neutrality from scratch. Pilar Del Castillo (EPP, Spain) (rapporteur for the creation of a European Communications Market Authority) lamented the lack of communication from the Council and the fact that so much effort had achieved so little for the citizens of Europe.
A hearing organised by the Green Group in the European Parliament produced a general discussion on issues related to copyright and net neutrality. In the absence of clarity regarding what specifically will be in the Council texts and insight into what issues may be subject to renewed debate in conciliation, no discussion on the detail of the telecom packet was possible.
As regards the procedure that will be followed, while the range of options for tabling amendments is greatly restricted for the second reading, these restrictions are eased in the current conciliation phase. In reality however, it is more a question of what unravels when a particular thread is pulled. For example, if the famous Amendment 138 is adopted, negotiators might argue that it is appropriate to fix the related text.
The Member States can be expected to push for as much of the Common Position as possible to be retained and to push again for the "compromise" that was agreed with the Parliament negotiators on Amendment 138 in the first reading (but not adopted).
Telecom Package seminar (7.09.2009)
http://euwiki.org/index.php/Telecoms_Package/September_7_Seminar
EDRi-gram: The telecoms ministers rejected the telecom package as adopted by
the EP (17.06.2009)
http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.12/telecom-ministers-reject-pack...
EDRi-gram: European Parliament votes against the 3 strikes. Again
(6.05.2009)
http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.9/ep-plenary-votes-against-3-str...
(contribution by Joe McNamee - EDRi)
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Deutsch: Beratungen darüber, wie die digitale Bibliothek der EU geführt werde...
The European Commission launched a consultation on 28 August 2009 on EU's digital library project Europeana, set up in November 2008, in order to find the best way to make the project work.
Differently from the controversial Google's Book project having scanned about 10 million books, many of which are still copyrighted based on Google's agreement with the US Author's Guild allowing the company to scan copyrighted material in the US, Europeana has scanned about 4.6 million works including books, photos, films and maps which are not covered by copyright and has not yet included orphaned copyrighted works.
The project has met difficulties in developing and in competing with Google's initiative because of the current legal framework. "Europeana includes, for legal reasons, neither out-of print works (some 90% of the books in Europe's national libraries), nor orphan works (estimated at 10 - 20% of in-copyright collections) which are still in copyright but where the author cannot be identified," says the recent European Commission statement.
Viviane Reding, EU Commissioner for Information Society and Media, who is very strongly supporting the project, considers alarming the fact that "only 5% of all digitised books in the EU are available on Europeana." She also observed that "almost half of Europeana's digitised works have come from one country alone, while all other Member States continue to under-perform dramatically. To me this shows, above all, that Member States must stop envying progress made in other continents and finally do their own homework. It also shows that Europeana alone will not suffice to put Europe on the digital map of the world. We need to work better together to make Europe's copyright framework fit for the digital age."
The Commission declared its target to reach 10 million digitised objects by 2010 and wants to get opinions from the industry and the public on how it should operate the Europeana project which costs 3 million euro per year.
"How can it be ensured that digitised material can be made available to consumers EU-wide? Should there be better cooperation with publishers with regard to in-copyright material? Would it be a good idea to create European registries for orphan and out-of print works? How should Europeana be financed in the long term?" are some of the questions asked by the Commission in the statement announcing the consultation.
The consultation runs until 15 November 2009.
EU consults on copyright problems of digitising libraries (1.09.2009)
http://www.out-law.com/page-10340
Commission of the European Communities - Europeana - next steps (28.08.2009)
http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/digital_libraries/d...
Questions for the public consultation "Europeana - next steps"
http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/digital_libraries/d...
i2010: Digital Libraries Initiative
http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/digital_libraries/i...
Europeana - Europe's digital library
http://www.europeana.eu/
Digital libraries initiative of the European Union
http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/activities/digital_libraries/i...
Europe's Digital Library doubles in size but also shows EU's lack of common
web copyright solution (28.08.2009)
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/09/1257&...
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Deutsch: ICO geht gegen Verluste persönlicher Daten in Großbritannien vor
After UK Information Commissioner's Office (ICO) has found Wigan schools in breach of the Data Protection Act following a theft of a laptop with personal information on about 43 000 children and young people, the Wigan council has agreed to sign an Undertaking to take the necessary measures to comply with the law.
The stolen laptop was stored in a locked office but it was not encrypted and the data on it was not protected. By signing the Undertaking, the Wigan Council has agreed to ensure the encryption of all portable and mobile devices, including laptops used to store and transmit personal data. The commitment includes the training of the staff regarding the data storing policy and the obligation of the staff to adhere to that policy. Additional appropriate data protection measures will also be implemented.
This is just one of the many cases of personal data losses during the last few years in UK and Ireland. In the case of August 2008 of the loss by PA Consulting of a memory stick containing personal data on prison population and offenders, it has come out that the amount of lost data was much higher than first stated.
Through its Resource Account for 2008-2009, the Home Office has admitted the lost device was not containing data on 127 000 people as initially believed but actually it contained data on about 377 000 people, the additional 250 000 being data on users of the Drug Interventions Programme. These users are recorded only by their initials, rather than their full names, thus the personal data being limited in nature.
The Information Commissioner Christopher Graham has also expressed his opinion that the courts and the Parliament are to blame for the leakage of personal information that was discovered during an investigation carried out by ICO's Motorman into the activities a private investigator's activities.
The investigation has revealed 17 500 requests from about 400 journalists to the private investigator for private information on political personalities, celebrities or security personnel. The information thus obtained was used by the journalists to publish various articles based on it.
Graham said that to obtain and sell personal data without permission as well as to publish stories based on the data obtained by deception was in breach of the Data Protection Act which says that organisations must guard against unlawful data processing. He reminded the House of Commons Select Committee on Culture, Media and Sport, that the ICO already revealed the problems of the trade in personal data in 2006, in a report "What Price Privacy Now?", but that no action had been taken by the authorities.
"We were let down by the courts, who didn't seem to be interested in levying even the pathetic fines they had at their disposal; we were rather let down by parliament in the end, with no legislation; and we were let down by the newspaper groups, which didn't take it seriously," said Graham.
ICO Press Release - Wigan Council improves security after details on most
school children are stolen (2.09.2009)
http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/pressreleases/wigan_020909_fina...
Home Office coughs to larger data loss (28.08.2009)
http://www.theregister.co.uk/2009/08/28/home_office_data_loss/
Drug records added to data loss (26.08.2009)
http://www.kable.co.uk/home-office-data-loss-26aug09
Courts and Parliament 'let us down' on personal data trade, says privacy
watchdog (2.09.2008)
http://www.out-law.com/page-10349
Data Protection Act 1998 - Undertaking by Wigan Council as data controller
http://www.ico.gov.uk/upload/documents/library/data_protection/notices...
Home Office Resource Accounts 2008-09 (21.07.2009)
http://www.official-documents.gov.uk/document/hc0809/hc04/0466/0466.pd...
EDRI-gram: UK Watchdog asks the European Commission to adopt security breach
law (10.09.2008)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number6.17/ncc-security-breach-law
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Deutsch: Zum Mitmachen
It is crucial to save Net Neutrality !
http://www.laquadrature.net/en/it-is-crucial-to-save-net-neutrality
This article is also available in:
Deutsch: Lesestoff
In Russia, there is nothing that bloggers can't spin (3.09.2009)
http://neteffect.foreignpolicy.com/posts/2009/09/03/in_russia_there_is...
State 2.0: a new front end? (7.09.2009)
http://www.opendemocracy.net/article/state-2-0-a-new-front-end
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Deutsch: Agenda
10-12 September 2009, Potsdam, Germany
5th ECPR General Conference, Potsdam
Section: Protest Politics
Panel: The Contentious Politics of Intellectual Property
http://www.ecpr.org.uk/potsdam/default.asp
12 September 2009, Worldwide
2nd International Action Day "Freedom not Fear - Stop the Surveillance
Mania" Demonstrations, Events, Privacy Parties etc. in many countries
http://wiki.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/Freedom_Not_Fear_2009
14-15 September 2009, Grand-Saconnex, Switzerland
EuroDIG 2009
http://www.eurodig.org/
16-18 September 2009, Crete, Greece
World Summit on the Knowledge Society WSKS 2009
http://www.open-knowledge-society.org/
17-18 September 2009, Amsterdam, Netherlands
Gikii, A Workshop on Law, Technology and Popular Culture
Institute for Information Law (IViR) - University of Amsterdam
http://www.law.ed.ac.uk/ahrc/gikii/2009.asp
23-24 September 2009, Copenhagen, Denmark
The Net will not forget
European conference on ICT and Privacy
http://www.ict-privacy.dk/
29-30 September 2009, Warsaw, Poland
3rd International Conference "Keeping Children and Young People Safe Online"
http://konferencja.saferinternet.pl/articles-2009/3rd_international_co...
1-2 October 2009, Barcelona, Spain
6th Communia Workshop: Memory Institutions and Public Domain
http://www.communia-project.eu/ws06
16 October 2009, Bielefeld, Germany
10th German Big Brother Awards
http://www.bigbrotherawards.de/
21-23 October 2009, Istanbul, Turkey
eChallenges 2009
http://www.echallenges.org/e2009/default.asp
24 October 2009, Zurich, Switzerland
Big Brother Awards Switzerland
Deadline for nominations: 31 August 2009
http://www.bigbrotherawards.ch/2009/
25 October 2009, Vienna, Austria
Austrian Big Brother Awards
Deadline for nominations: 21 September 2009
http://www.bigbrotherawards.at/
26-27 October 2009, Vienna, Austria
3rd European Privacy Open Space
https://www.privacyos.eu/index.php?option=com_content&view=categor...
29 October - 1 November 2009, Barcelona, Spain
Free Culture Forum: Organization and Action
http://fcforum.net/
3 November 2009, Madrid, Spain
Civil Society Conference: "Global Privacy Standards for a Global Economy"
Organized by Electronic Privacy Information Center
http://www.privacyconference2009.org/privacyconf2009/home/eventos_prev...
4-6 November 2009, Madrid, Spain
31st International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy
http://www.privacyconference2009.org
13-15 November 2009, Gothenburg, Sweden
Free Society Conference and Nordic Summit
http://www.fscons.org/
15-18 November 2009, Sharm El Sheikh, Egypt
UN Internet Governance Forum
http://www.intgovforum.org/