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Deutsch: EDRis Antwort auf die Beratung der Europäischen Kommission über urhe...
EDRi submitted a response to the European Commission's (EC) consultation on "content online". The consultation aimed to gather input on how to best support, at long last, the development of an effective, EU-wide, market for digital content in Europe.
The input provided by EDRi argued that the creation of an equitable online
content market, serving the interests of citizens and artists, can best be
achieved by:
- prioritising development of legal services;
- prioritising the creation of a single market for online content;
- avoiding the imposition of punitive measures against citizens,
which will only serve to further undermine the legitimacy of copyright law
while risking further unintended consequences;
- ensuring maximum availability of licensing information, taking the
necessary steps to adapt international copyright law, as necessary;
- updating European legislation on exceptions and limitations, in order to
protect European culture and allow European industry the maximum scope for
innovation;
- prioritising alternative licensing models such as open licensing;
- adapting European copyright legislation as necessary to achieve
these goals;
- ensuring that European copyright, innovation and access to culture
are not undermined by vested interests in the outdated distribution chain
for cultural content.
EDRi response to the European Commission Consultation Creative Content
Online (4.01.2010)
http://www.edri.org/files/edri_content_online_consultation100104.pdf
(Contribution by Joe McNamee - EDRi)
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Deutsch: Neue ACTA-Verhandlungsrunde: Die Haltung der EU
A new round of negotiations on ACTA (Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement) is taking place from 26 to 29 January 2010 in Guadalajara, Mexico. As announced by some countries participating in the event the main topics of the new negotiations are: civil enforcement, border measures and enforcement procedures in the digital environment. Transparency is also on the agenda, but only for one hour during the last day, proving the importance given to this subject.
As explained by FFII (Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure) and EDRi-member Electronic Frontier Foundation the latest EU document leaked suggests the EU would prefer ACTA to mirror existing EU legislation. This is confirmed by the statement of the designated Commissioner for Digital Agenda who said during the hearing in the European Parliament: "There has been a first proposal tabled by the United States. For the Commission, the objective of the negotiations is that our international partners guarantee the same level of protection of IP rights as the EU currently applies. There will be no harmonization via the back-door. We stick to the line they have to move to our side and that's it."
Professor Annette Kur of the Max Planck Institute in Munich pointed out in a presentation last December that "Exporting EU-style enforcement legislation to foreign trading partners is an (un)official goal of EU policy."
FFII explains that ACTA might look like the recently EU-Korea free trade agreement, meaning harsh anti-counterfeiting measures against patent infringements, which are often complex and of unclear validity. "Applied to patents, we believe these could well threaten companies that produce software, companies that use software, and free software projects alike. And the "safe harbours" for online hosting providers proposed by the agreement are no safe harbours at all. We believe these are the kind of regulations that Europe is proposing exporting to the world. "
La Quadrature du Net also thinks that ACTA wants to impose extra-judicial "voluntary" agreements between ISPs and rights holders to combat copyright infringements through "three strikes" schemes or automated content filtering or removal. To force Internet operators into accepting such access restrictions, ACTA will make them liable for the copyright infringements of their users.
Consumers International issued a Joint Declaration on ACTA explaining that the new international agreement will authorize border guards to search laptops and MP3 players and to seize them if they contain material that could seem to infringe copyright. The agreement could also introduce new criminal sanctions for copyright infringements, including sanctions for certain uses of the Internet that previously were not criminalized.
The new Spanish movement Red SOStenible called ACTA the Damocles sword at the world level against the civil rights in the digital era.
In the meantime, several MEPs are trying to get more information from the European institutions on this topic.
Alexander Alvaro (ALDE, Germany) has tabled a detailed set of questions on the issue of ACTA. The questions vary between ones that will elicit answers that have been given already (such as regarding transparency and availability of the documents), questions that can be easily dodged (when is a conclusion expected and will the Internet be covered) and ones that are much more probing. He asks, for example, if and why issues not related to counterfeiting are covered and if substantive intellectual property law will change as a result of ACTA.
Perhaps the most interesting question is "what benefit would accrue" for Europe if, as certain US officials have said, the agreement does not impose new obligations on the United States. The recent statements by Commissioners-designate De Gucht and Kroes that EU law will not change as a result of ACTA makes the answer to this particular question particularly interesting.
Britta Thomsen (S&D, Denmark) tabled a similar question to both Commission and Council, with a specific query as to whether recitals 30 and 31 of the "telecom package" (by which, she presumably means Directive 2009/136/EC, amending the e-privacy and universal service Directives) will be adequately respected by ACTA.
Blogging ACTA Across The Globe: FFII's Ante Wessels on Exporting Europe's
Flaws (26.01.2010)
http://www.eff.org/deeplinks/2010/01/blogging-acta-across-globe-ffiis-...
European Union's Comments to the US Proposal Special Requirements Related to
the Enforcements of IPRs in the Digital Environment (29.10.2009)
http://blog.die-linke.de/digitalelinke/wp-content/uploads/674b-09.pdf
ACTA Agenda - Round 7 (26-29.01.2010)
http://www.mfat.govt.nz/Trade-and-Economic-Relations/Trade-Agreements/...
Enforcing European Intellectual Property Rights in Europe and in Third
Countries - The Quest for Balance (12.2009)
http://www.se2009.eu/polopoly_fs/1.28342!menu/standard/file/Kur%2C%20M...
ACTA Attacks Internet! Let's Attack ACTA! (25.01.2010)
http://www.laquadrature.net/en/acta-attacks-internet-lets-attack-acta
Consumers International: Joint Declaration on ACTA
http://a2knetwork.org/joint-declaration-acta
(North)american friends are needed (only in Spanish, 25.01.2010)
http://red-sostenible.net/index.php/NotaPrensa5
Written Question by Alexander Alvaro (ALDE) to the Commission (22.01.2010)
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+WQ+E-...
Written Question by Britta Thomsen (S&D) to the Council (21.01.2010)
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/sides/getDoc.do?pubRef=-//EP//TEXT+WQ+E-...
EDRi-gram: IP Chapter in the EU-Korea free trade agreement essentially
flawed (13.01.2010)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number8.1/eu-korea-ip-chapter-ffii
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Deutsch: Das Public-Domain-Manifest
A new public manifest called the Public Domain Manifesto was launched on 25 January 2010, as a document developed within COMMUNIA, the European Thematic Network on the Digital Public Domain, during the last two years.
According to the network, The Public Domain ensures that the principles of Article 27 of the Universal Declaration of Human Rights ("Everyone has the right freely to participate in the cultural life of the community, to enjoy the arts and to share in scientific advancement and its benefits") can be fully enjoyed by everyone across the world.
The document outlines a series of general principles (opening with: the Public Domain is the rule, copyright protection is the exception) along with various issues relevant to today's Public Domain, and provides some recommendations aimed at protecting the Public Domain and ensuring that it can continue to function in a meaningful way - with particular relevance to education, cultural heritage and scientific research.
The Manifesto also includes a number of issues relevant to the Public Domain that must be addressed immediately. The recommendations refer to reducing the copyright term, taking into account the effects on public domain when changing the scope of copyright protection and suggest to legally punish any false or misleading attempt to misappropriate Public Domain material.
The authors of the Manifesto hope that the new document can be embraced by the civil society at large as a tool to maintain and promote this precious common good for citizens across the world and for future generations to come.
The document already includes a list of individuals and organizations that have signed the Manifesto, but the list is also open to anyone for new endorsements.
The Public Domain Manifesto
http://www.publicdomainmanifesto.org/node/8
Press release: The Public Domain Manifesto launches today (25.01.2010)
http://communia-project.eu/sites/cms.communia-project.eu/files/PDmanif...
Translations of the Manifesto
http://www.publicdomainmanifesto.org/node/9
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Deutsch: OSZE fordert die Türkei auf Gesetze für Internetsperren zu ändern
OSCE (Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe) Media Freedom representative Miklos Haraszti asked the Turkish Government on 18 January to change their Internet law in order to observe OSCE commitments and other international standards protecting freedom of expression.
A survey commissioned by Haraszti's office, analyzing Turkey's Internet Law in force since 2007, has shown that based on the respective law, the Turkish authorities were able to block the access to Internet of about 3700 websites. These sites included foreign websites such as YouTube, Geocities, DailyMotion and Google, blocked by court orders and administrative blocking orders issued by the Telecommunications Communication Presidency (TIB).
The study also shows a lack of transparency in relation to the blocking orders issued either by the court or TIB and the fact that TIB has not made public the blocking statistics since May 2009.
"The impact of the current regime and related deficiencies are wide, affecting not only the freedom to speak and receive information, but also the right for blocked websites to receive a fair trial," says the study.
In his statement to the Turkish authorities, Haraszti said: "In its current form, Law 5651, commonly known as the Internet Law of Turkey, not only limits freedom of expression, but severely restricts citizens' right to access information."
Haraszti believes that even is some of the content of the blocked sites is considered bad such as child pornography, the law is not fit to sanction it. "Instead, by blocking access to entire websites from Turkey, it paralyzes access to numerous modern file-sharing or social networks."
OSCE representative considers that some of the reasons for blocking sites are "arbitrary and political, and therefore incompatible with OSCE's freedom of expression commitments." He also said that the Turkish law was failing to safeguard freedom of expression and criminal code clauses were used against journalists who risked ending up in jail.
The main recommendation of OSCE is therefore to reform or abolish the Turkish Internet Law. "I hope that the Turkish authorities will soon remove the blocking provisions that prevent Turkish citizens from being part of today's global information society," stated Haraszti
Report of the OSCE Representative on Freedom of the Media on Turkey and
Internet Censorship (11.01.2010)
http://www.osce.org/documents/rfm/2010/01/42294_en.pdf
Turkey blocking 3,700 websites, reform needed: OSCE (18.01.2010)
http://www.reuters.com/article/idUSTRE60H2WJ20100118?type=technologyNe...
OSCE Press release- Turkey's Internet law needs to be reformed or abolished,
says OSCE media freedom representative(18.01.2010)
http://www.osce.org/fom/item_1_42372.html
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Deutsch: Bankdatenabkommen unter schwerem Beschuss der EU-Abgeordneten
The debate on the bank data ("SWIFT") agreement in the European Parliament's Committee on Civil Liberties, Justice and Home Affairs yesterday and today showed a clear conflict between parliamentarians on the one side and the EU Council as well as the European Commission on the other side. EDRi asks its readers to call Social Democrat and Conservative MEPs before 4 February and convince them to be firmly against the bank data transfer and protect European privacy rights.
The EU Justice and Home Affairs Ministers had signed an agreement with the US government on the transfer of bank data from the EU to the US for the Department of Treasury's "Terrorist Finance Tracking Program" (TFTP) on 30 November last year. It would legalize the use of bank data, including inner-European transactions, by US security agencies, which had been going on since 9/11 2001 and only became public in 2006. The new agreement had only been only possible because Germany abstained after a heavy fight between conservative and liberal parties in the Berlin coalition. Members of the European Parliament furiously criticized this move, because one day later, on 1st December, the Lisbon Treaty entered into force and gave the Parliament full veto powers in the area of justice and home affairs. Only later it turned out that because some national parliaments had announced reservations to the signature, the deal was not concluded and now has to be dealt with under codecision procedures.
The President of the European Parliament in December repeatedly had asked the Council and Commission to refer the agreement to the EP as soon as possible, without getting any reply. Only last week, the Spanish presidency told MEPs that the delay was caused by translation problems and that the EP would get it on 25 January. When MEPs found out that the text of the agreement had already been published in the Official Journal, they immediately suspected a foul play by Council and Commission. The agreement will enter into force provisionally on 1st February, but the EP can only vote on it in the next plenary session (8 to 11 February). The Council has turned down a request by the EP to postpone the provisional application by two weeks.
In today's (27 January 2010) committee session, Commission representative Johnathan Faull revealed that there will also be a new, confidential, report by French anti-terror judge Jean-Louis Bruguière next week, when the committee will already have its vote on the agreement. MEPs from both Liberal and Green groups demanded that all such background documents be made public immediately, including an opinion of the Council's legal service and the secret annex that lists the financial service providers affected by the agreement. MEPs from all groups except for the conservatives also criticized the substance of the agreement, citing numerous articles that are not in line with EU or Council of Europe data protection regulation or the EU charter of fundamental rights. The EP's rapporteur on this dossier, Dutch liberal Jeanine Hennis-Plasschaert, also rejected the Council's and Commission's repeated claim that without the provisional application of the agreement, we would have a "security gap". Austrian Conservative MEP Ernst Strasser stated that "if there was a security gap, we would have it now - from 1st January to 31st January," referring to the fact that the global bank transaction provider SWIFT has already changed its architecture on 1st January. SWIFT is now routing inner-European transactions only within Europe, thereby cutting off direct access by US agencies. The discussion became fully absurd when commission representative Faull suggested that we would even get a "privacy gap" if the agreement is vetoed by the EP. Vice European Data Protection Supervisor Giovanni Buttarelli quickly debunked such assertions, citing a new legal analysis done by his staff which also revealed several privacy and legal protection flaws in the agreement.
The follwing two weeks before the EP plenary vote will now be decisive not only for privacy protection for EU citizens in the fight against terror, but also for transatlantic relations in this field and for the role of the European Parliament with its new powers under the Lisbon Treaty. Left, Liberal, and Green MEPs seem to be willing to kill the agreement and protect privacy rights, while conservatives still seem to be trying to save it. The decisive group will therefore be the Social Democrats. EDRi asks its readers to call Social Democrat and Conservative MEPs (not only) in the LIBE committee before 4 February and convince them to be firmly against the bank data transfer in the committee vote.
EU Council Decision on the agreement (30.10.2009)
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2010:008:00...
Text of the agreement between the European Union and the United States
of America on the processing and transfer of Financial Messaging Data
from the European Union to the United States for purposes of the
Terrorist Finance Tracking Program (30.10.2009)
http://eur-lex.europa.eu/LexUriServ/LexUriServ.do?uri=OJ:L:2010:008:00...
European Data Protection Supervisor: Comments on
different international agreements, notably the EU-US and EU-AUS PNR
agreements, the EU-US TFTP agreement, and the need of a comprehensive
approach to international data exchange agreements: (25.01.2010)
http://www.edps.europa.eu/EDPSWEB/webdav/site/mySite/shared/Documents/...
European Parliament press release: SWIFT interim agreement: Civil liberties
Committee to vote on 4 February (27.01.2010)
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/news/expert/infopress_page/019-67946-025...
Members of the European Parliament's Committee on Civil Liberties,
Justice and Home Affairs
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/activities/committees/membersCom.do?lang...
Members of the European Parliament by Country
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/members/public/geoSearch.do?language=EN
Ralf Bendrath: SWIFT Agreement Not in Line with European Parliament 's
Demands (18.11.2009) (updated on 25.01.2010)
http://bendrath.blogspot.com/2009/11/swift-agreement-not-in-line-with....
EU: Assessment of the Article 29 Working Party and the Working Party on
Police and Justice (22.01.2010)
http://www.statewatch.org/news/2010/jan/eu-art-29-cttee-swift.pdf
EDRi-Gram: Bank Data Transfer to US about to be stopped (18.11.2009)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number7.22/swift-project-could-stop
(Contribution by Ralf Bendrath, EDRi member Netzwerk Neue Medien)
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Deutsch: Kommissarin Kroes über Netzneutralität
On 14 January 2010, Neelie Kroes, the former Competition commissioner, had her interview in front of the Internal Market and Industries committees of the European Parliament (EP) as designated for the position of digital agenda commissioner.
Answering to the various questions of the committee, Kroes addressed a serious of issues covering freedoms in the networked society, amendment 138 of the Telecom package, interoperability standards and net neutrality.
Kroes supported net neutrality and said this would be a central issue on her agenda. "Open and clear cut net neutrality is needed," said Kroes who considers the EP must be vigilant against "new threats to Net Neutrality which can arise from many sources, and blocking and discrimination against VoIP services by mobile operators in a number of European countries are just one example. For me, it's main (key) that we're not blocking opportunities for certain technologies..."
When asked to say what she understood by net neutrality, Kroes said: "The core issue is whether Internet access providers and broadband providers should be able to exercise control and limit users' access to any content; to me that is a no go when it's done for commercially motivated reasons; only for security reasons or when spam is involved ; (if it's for) commercially motivated reasons, that's not net neutrality."
Ms. Kroes was also interviewed a second time by the same Comittees in a closed door hearing. Her opinion on Net neutrality was the same and she suggested a summit on "the open internet" to prepare the Commission's policy on net neutrality later in 2010.
When asked about fundamental rights, freedom of expression and privacy in relation to ACTA (Anti-counterfeiting Trade Agreement), in Kroes's opinion ACTA was a threat to net neutrality and the Community acquis and stated: "For the Commission the objective is that our international partners guarantee the same level of protection as the EU provides."
Copyright is a sensitive issue according to Kroes who believes that "as long as there are different national copyright rules, it is difficult to have a pan-European piracy initiative" and she expressed the wish to work with Commisioner Michael Barnier. This is a contradiction as Barnier is in favour of stronger enforcement measures against piracy that threaten Internet neutrality as well as a single European digital market that Kroes also supports.
Asked if she intended to create an EU cyberspace regulator, Kroes replied she would rather see the strengthening of ENISA's role.
She also said she wanted 100 percent broadband availability across the EU, to "improve competitiveness and bring an excellent opportunity to create jobs, higher productivity and economic growth".
The new commission is estimated be in place by 10 February.
Summary of hearing of Neelie Kroes - Digital Agenda (14.01.2010)
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/hearings/press_service/product.htm?langu...
Written answers by Neelrie Kroes - Hearing with Neelie KROES, Vice-President
designate of the Commission/Commissioner-designate for Digital Agenda
(22.12.2009)
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/hearings/static/commissioners/answers/kr...
Neelie Kroes: can she protect Net Neutrality? (14.01.2010)
http://www.iptegrity.com/index.php?option=com_content&task=view&am...
Commissioner Kroes commits herself to Net neutrality (15.01.2010)
http://www.laquadrature.net/en/commissioner-kroes-commits-herself-to-n...
Kroes to uphold net neutrality in Europe (18.01.2010)
http://news.zdnet.co.uk/communications/0,1000000085,39994505,00.htm
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Deutsch: Italien wünscht eine Lizenz für das Hochladen von Videos ins Interne...
The Italian Government intends to introduce a new decree that would require people who upload videos onto the Internet to get authorization from the Communications Ministry just like television broadcasters.
Article 4 of the respective decree, which is strongly pushed by Silvio Berlusconi, specifies that a ministerial authorisation is required for the dissemination over the Internet "of moving pictures, whether or not accompanied by sound." This will affect sites of newspapers, IPTV and mobile TV, as well as any person who wants to upload a video on a video-sharing website.
A press conference was held by the opposition in the Parliament on 14 January 2010 who consider the proposed decree as a threat to freedom of expression.
"The decree subjects the transmission of images on the Web to rules typical of television and requires prior ministerial authorization, with an incredible limitation on the way the Internet currently functions," said opposition lawmaker Paolo Gentiloni.
The decree was also criticised by Article 21, an organization supporting freedom of speech as stipulated in article 21 of the Italian constitution. The group launched an appeal on 15 January called "Hands Off the Net" against the decree in which they state that the proposed measures would only represent "the end of freedom of expression on the Web" and would prevent the Italian citizens from placing their own moving pictures on the Internet.
Nicola D'Angelo, a commissioner in the Italian Communications Authority, considers that the decree goes against the EU AudioVisual Media Services directive by the extension of the rules that apply to television to online video content.
Many critics consider that the decree is the result of the Prime Minister Berlusconi's interests as owner of Mediaset, Italy's largest private TV broadcaster.
Reporters Without Borders expressed its concern regarding the decree as a threat to freedom of expression and urged the Constitutional court to reject it entirely.
The European Commission has also reacted, following complaints from the Italian Associations. "The Commission services will launch an infringement procedure for non-notification against Italy," an EU official told EurActiv.com. He also added "the E-Commerce Directive provides that there is no general monitoring obligation for Internet service providers", which the Italian new decree is contradicting. Moreover, the official made clear that "pure video-sharing platforms do not meet the definition of an audiovisual media service," and therefore should not be covered by national laws "as far as they do not exercise editorial decisions".
Proposed Web video restrictions cause outrage in Italy (15.01.2010)
http://www.thestandard.com/news/2010/01/15/proposed-web-video-restrict...
Italy proposes mandatory licenses for people who upload video (16.01.2010)
http://www.boingboing.net/2010/01/16/italy-proposes-manda.html
A law to change the Net into a big TV (only in Italian, 14.01.2010)
http://punto-informatico.it/2786742/PI/Commenti/una-legge-trasformare-...
Italy wants to regulate Google and Youtube (25.01.2010)
http://www.theinquirer.net/inquirer/opinion/1588404/italy-regulate-goo...
Government wants to clamp down on online video (20.01.2010)
http://www.rsf.org/Government-wants-to-clamp-down-on.html
YouTube, EU e-commerce rules under threat (27.01.2010)
http://www.euractiv.com/en/infosociety/youtube-eu-commerce-rules-threa...
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Deutsch: Französisches LOPPSI 2 Gesetz – Internet sperren oder nicht sperren
The members of the Law Commission of the French National Assembly have issued their first amendments to LOPPSI 2 draft law that is to be discussed in the Assembly starting with 9 February 2010.
If adopted as such, the law will oblige ISPs to block the access to the sites included on a list established by the French administration without any judicial control, under the pretext of the protection of children. "When the need to fight against the dissemination of images and representations of minors according to the provisions of article 227-23 of the criminal code justifies it, the administrative authority notifies the persons mentioned at item 1 (i.e.ISPs) the Internet addresses of online public communication services that are subject to the provisions of this article for which these persons must prevent the access without delay" says article 4 of the law.
Some of the amendments proposed by the Law Commission refer exactly to this law article. The amendment submitted by deputies Patrick Braouzec and Michel Vaxès actually proposes the deletion of the article arguing that it does not really solve the child pornography issue. They even argued that this approach could be a mistake as filtering will allow hiding the evolution of the phenomenon. They also consider that anyway those who perform child pornography crimes and disseminate such content on the Internet are very capable of getting around any filtering techniques by using crypting and anonimisation methods thus being "paradoxically, better protected". The two opponents also argued that the filtering measures are against the jurisprudence of the Constitutional Council if they eliminate the judicial authority from the process. Also, in their opinion, the system attacks the network neutrality and filtering should be applied at the level of the computers such as parental filtering software.
Deputies Lionel Tardy and Nicolas Dupont-Aignan submitted two separate but similar amendments. While the first is asking for an agreement from the judicial authority before the application of filtering techniques ordered by the administrative authority to ISPs, the second proposes the elimination of the administrative authority from the process to be replaced entirely by the judicial one.
Lionel Tardy also proposes to force the administrative authority to specify to the ISPs which are the filtering techniques they can use to block paedophilic sites. "The law must not resume to ordering the blocking of the access to certain Internet sites, but indicate to ISPs what techniques they may use. The obligation they bear should be an obligation of means and for that, the means that can be put in force must be listed" said the deputy.
The inefficiency of the filtering technique has been revealed several times by many experts and as was proven by a recent report issued in November last year "Internet Blocking: Balancing Cybercrime Responses in Democratic Societies." The study concludes that the blocking measures are ineffective. Many technical ways exist to get around blocking technologies. More importantly, the blocking measures are intrusive and often abuse fundamental freedoms.
Similar arguments on over-blocking were raised by Aurélien Boch from Internet users association OBEDI who explained: "when an address is filtered, all the sites hosted by the same server will be filtered whether it is the site of Nouvel Observateur or a pornographic site." He also pointed out that "as the list will be secret, it will be impossible to verify which sites are filtered".
Loppsi : the first amendments on Internet filtering (only in French,
25.01.2010)
http://www.numerama.com/magazine/14925-loppsi-les-premiers-amendements...
Draft law on orientation and programming for internal security (n° 1697)-
Amendements received by the Commission for Laws of the National Assembly
(only in French)
http://www.assemblee-nationale.fr/13/pdf/amendements_commissions/cloi/...
Loppsi law programmed on 9 February in the National Assembly (only in
French, 25.01.2010)
http://www.numerama.com/magazine/14880-la-loi-loppsi-programmee-le-9-f...
Loppsi law arrives on the Assembly's desks (only in French, 21.01.2010)
http://tempsreel.nouvelobs.com/actualites/politique/20100120.OBS4210/l...
EDRi-gram: Internet blocking gets a red card ! (4.11.2009)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number7.19/internet-blocking-report
EDRi-gram: France: CNIL's opinion on LOPPSI draft law (29.07.2009)
http://www.edri.org/edri-gram/number7.15/cnil-opinion-opssi
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Deutsch: Kulturausschuss des Europäischen Parlaments – Gutachtenentwurf zu I...
The European Parliament (EP) has started its deliberations on a non-binding report on "Internet governance, the next steps", following the Commission's Communication on this topic in 2009.
The draft Opinion of the European Parliament's Culture Committee has been published. The MEP in charge in that committee is Ivo Belet (EPP, Belgium) who has been trying to sell the idea of an Internet levy to pay for illegal downloads recently.
Oddly, the initial draft report contains nothing particularly negative and even chooses to focus on positive international cooperation, rather than more restrictive measures, like blocking, when referring to "harmful" and illegal content. The next steps for the dossier are for other MEPs to table amendments/additions to the text, adopt a final report and then give this to the Committee in charge (the Industry Committee) to take it into account.
During the Committee discussions, Mr Belet made it clear that he wanted more accountability of ICANN towards governments. However, when the issue of China being involved in global Internet governance was raised, he explained that the issue was "risky" and, without wanting to be selfish, the issue was how to give the EU more influence. While opposing the introduction of issues like copyright and net neutrality into his report (because this had been dealt with in the telecoms package), he was nonetheless open to discussion as to whether copyright could nonetheless be included.
The MEP in charge in the lead Committee is Francisco Sosa Wagner of the Unión, Progreso y Democracia party. According to Wikipedia, that party argued, in its initial manifesto, the radical notion that "citizens (are) able to think for themselves". It remains to be seen if he wishes to, and is able to, get such a concept into his report.
Commission Communication (18.06.2009)
http://ec.europa.eu/information_society/policy/internet_gov/docs/commu...
Draft Culture Committee Opinion (17.12.2009)
http://www.europarl.europa.eu/meetdocs/2009_2014/documents/cult/pa/799...
Draft Industry Committee Report - Not yet available
(Contribution by Joe McNamee - EDRi)
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Deutsch: Preisverleihung des European Civil Society Data Protection Award
WHERE: The award ceremony will take place on 28 January 2010 at the Kaaitheater (20 square Sainctelette 1000 Bruxelles)
WHEN: during a Pecha Kucha (a series of 13 presentations that each last 6 minutes). The Pecha Kucha event starts around 8 pm. Then, there is a break at around 9.20 and it ends at 11 pm.
The Award ceremony will take place just after the break. AEDH and EDRI presidents will give the prize.
Attendance to Pecha Kucha and to the ceremony is free, you just have to register.
Pecha Kucha and the ceremony are part of a series of linked privacy events that will be organised on Thursday 28th of January 2010 throughout Brussels, with the Vrije Universiteit Brussel as a main or a co-organiser together with other civil society actors. The CPDP conference will follow on Friday and Saturday.
Pecha Kucha registration
http://pechakucha.architempo.net/
Side events (28-30.01.2010)
http://www.cpdpconferences.org/sideevents.html
CPDP Conference (29-30.01.2010)
http://www.cpdpconferences.org
Booklet - The European Data Protection Day
http://www.cpdpconferences.org/Resources/european_data_protection_book...
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Deutsch: Mitmachen!
Contribute to international survey on orphan works!
Experts who create and curate digital content from public sector organisations across Europe, are invited to contribute to JISC's international survey on "orphan works" called in from the Cold Europa 2010.
There are millions of so-called "orphan works" - photographs, recordings, texts and other ephemera from the last 100 years - which risk becoming invisible because rights holders are not known or easy to trace.
Now this topic is the focus of this survey commissioned by the JISC-led Strategic Content Alliance in conjunction with the Association of European Research Libraries (LIBER), the European Bureau of Library, Information and Documentation Associations (EBLIDA) and the Wellcome Trust.
The survey aims to establish how much time, effort and money is spent on orphan works across Europe by people working in the public sector and to find out the effect orphan works have on cultural heritage preservation at an international level.
Closing date 26 February 2010 at 18.00 GMT.
http://surveys.polldaddy.com/s/476EBBEAF7ED1854/
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Deutsch: Leseempfehlung
Cambridge researchers criticise online shopping security problems and call
for better regulation of online credit card payments (26.01.2010)
http://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/2010/01/26/how-online-card-security...
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/Papers/fc10vbvsecurecode.pdf
The 2009 Anti-Spam Measures Survey - ENISA (22.01.2010)
http://www.enisa.europa.eu/act/res/other-areas/anti-spam-measures
http://www.thestandard.com/news/2010/01/22/europes-spam-war-hits-stale...
GeneWatch UK on the National DNA Database (16.01.2010)
http://gizmonaut.net/blog/uk/genewatch_on_the_ndnad_and_crime_and_secu...
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Deutsch: Agenda
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