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Deutsch: Neue Schutzfristen für Tonaufnahmen
On 12 September 2011, the Council adopted, by a qualified majority, a Directive that extends the term of protection of the rights of performers and phonogram producers on music recordings from 50 to 70 years.
According to the Council press release, the Directive is necessary to ensure that performers will have protection on their works during their entire lifetime.
However, it is unlikely that this term extension will benefit the vast majority performers, while the broader economic effects are, at best, unproven. First, assuming that collecting society licence fees stay the same, roughly the same amount of money will be divided between a larger pool of performers and rights holders. Many of those will be dead. Consequently, young performers entering the profession are likely to receive less.
Second, performers lose control of their work once they sign a recording contract with a record company, and extending the term of protection does nothing to address this problem.
Third, according to a joint academic statement signed in 2008 by 80 eminent academics, including several Nobel Laureates, 96% of the economic returns will go to the major record labels and top 20% of performers. Other studies suggest the extension will lead to higher prices for consumers.
Moreover, the term extension diverts billions of euro away from EU citizens because, for countries or regions that are net importers of copyrighted goods, longer terms of protection of music recordings would inevitably result in increased payments to foreign rights holders. This is likely to mean a net outflow of revenue from the EU, overwhelmingly to the benefit of the US.
Finally, the decision is culturally damaging. It will likely lead to many works being locked away, discouraging and shrinking the public domain. For example, a US study for the Library of Congress by Tim Brooks (2005) established that the prime re-issuers of historical recordings were not the copyright owners.
In an open letter in April this year four leading IP professors, including Professor Lionel Bently, Director of the Centre for Intellectual Property and Information Law at the University of Cambridge, argued that "if there was a policy designed to suppress social and commercial innovation, retrospective term extension would be your choice."
In short, this is a piece of European legislation which is almost impressively bad. It achieves the worst of all available outcomes, disadvantaging young performers, placing a barrier between citizens and their culture and producing a net loss of money from the EU to the US.
New rules on term of protection of music recordings (12.09.2011)
http://consilium.europa.eu/uedocs/cms_data/docs/pressdata/en/intm/1245...
The Proposed Directive for a Copyright Term Extension -A backward-looking
package (27.10.2008)
http://www.cippm.org.uk/downloads/Term%20Statement%2027_10_08.pdf
The European Strategy: Send Money to the US (Part Deux (4.11.2011)
http://piracy.ssrc.org/the-european-strategy-send-money-to-the-us-part...
Directive of the European Parliament and of the Council amending Directive
2006/116/EC on the term of protection of copyright and certain related
rights
http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/copyright/docs/term/2011_directive...
Commission's Press release on the Directive on the term of protection of
copyright and certain related rights
http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/copyright/term-protection/term-pro...
The Value of the EU Public Domain (2009)
http://rufuspollock.org/economics/papers/value_of_the_public_domain_eu...
Open Letter (11.04.2011)
http://www.cippm.org.uk/copyright_term.html
(Contribution by Daniel Dimov (EDRi) and Peter Bradwell (EDRi-member Open Rights Group -UK))
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Deutsch: Das neue Windows 8 könnte freie Betriebssysteme blockieren
The hardware certified for the new 64 bit operating system from Microsoft (Windows 8) will have to use the Unified Extensible Firmware Interface (UEFI) with security measures that would not allow installing of other operating systems, such as GNU/Linux.
The UEFI firmware specifications might require next-generation PC firmware to only boot an image signed by a key chain rooted in keys built into the PC. Apparently, Microsoft and other companies are pushing for this modification to be mandatory, so that it cannot be disabled by the user.
Thus "a system that ships with only OEM and Microsoft keys will not boot a generic copy of Linux," as underlines the Red Hat developer Matthew Garrett in his blog post where it explains the technical details of the new change.
Ross Anderson from EDRi-member FIPR - UK reminded that similar issues were discussed in 2003 with the Trusted Computing initiative, which petered out after widespread opposition from the free software community and others. However, the current proposal is even worse, as "unauthorised" operating systems like Linux and FreeBSD just won't run at all.
He also pointed out that such "extension of Microsoft's OS monopoly to hardware would be a disaster, with increased lock-in, decreased consumer choice and lack of space to innovate." This measure would be illegal according the EU competition law, such as article 102 of the EU Treaty, as it would give the possibility for a company to leverage a dominant position on one market (operating systems) in order to become dominant on another market (hardware).
UEFI secure booting (20.09.2011)
http://mjg59.livejournal.com/138973.html
Trusted Computing 2.0 (20.09.2011)
http://www.lightbluetouchpaper.org/2011/09/20/trusted-computing-2-0/
Windows 8 secure boot to block Linux (21.09.2011)
http://www.zdnet.com.au/windows-8-secure-boot-to-block-linux-339322781...
Ross Anderson Trusted Computing FAQ (08.2003)
http://www.cl.cam.ac.uk/~rja14/tcpa-faq.html
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Deutsch: Weitere Länder ergreifen Sperrmaßnahmen gegen unerwünschtes Glücks...
As the EU regulation of online gambling is still being discussed, more EU countries try to implement Internet blocking as a valid solution to stop access of its own citizens to locally unauthorized gambling websites.
A hearing on online gambling organized on 6 September 2011 by the European Economic and Social Committee focused on the fact that there was "an appetite for action at EU level". However, "it's up to the College of Commissioners to decide what to put in its communication, which will come out in 2012" as Pamela Brumter-Coret (acting director in DG MARKT) has explained.
While the discussions agreed on a generic EU-wide legislation to govern the online gambling market, it would still be up to the Member States on regulating this domain even further.
In the meantime, with totally different authorisations regimes in EU members states in place, it is up the European Court of Justice to interpret the EU law in this respect. The latest case in a long series of rulings on online gambling was decided on 15 September 2011 and concluded that "a monopoly on the operation of internet casino games is justifiable only if it seeks in a consistent and systematic manner to combat the risks connected with such games".
In the absence of a EU framework on this aspect, some EU countries are using unauthorised gambling as the gateway to impose Internet blocking obligations to ISPs.
In Slovakia, in order to increase the tax collection on gambling, the Ministry of Finance proposed a novelization of communication law that would oblige all ISPs to block the content from a list created by the main tax office, which is a politically nominated office. After strong pressure from the civil society, the Ministry informed the press just that it would ask for the advice the European commission.
In Romania, a new Government Decision (823/2011) initiated by the Ministry of Finance foresees that the Monitoring Operator's (a private 3rd party that would oversee the online gambling market) obligations include identifying the websites that are providing gambling activities unauthorized in Romania and sending this list to the ISPs so that those websites be blocked. The blocking list will include also websites that provide links (in a "marketing, advertising or any promotional activity") to unauthorised gambling.
Decision 823 that entered into force on 31 August 2011 makes no distinction between websites targeting Romanian consumers or not and does not include any requirement of informing these websites as being illegal or asking the hosting company to take the illegal content offline.
However, under the current law on gambling or any other legislation, there is no specific obligation for an ISP to comply with this request. Even though several human rights NGOs and ISPs tried to bring up the issue with the Ministry of Finance, the latter refused even to discuss the subject during the consultation period.
Unfortunately, this is not the only attempt to use legislation to block Internet in Romania. A new draft law on psychoactive drugs that is being discussed in the Chamber of Deputies foresees that the competent authorities might send to the Ministry of Communication a list of websites to be blocked by the ISPs. The latter need to comply within 12 hours from the request, otherwise they face fines between 50 000 - 100 000 RON (11 500 - 23 000 Euro). In this case as well, there is no judicial oversight of these blocking measures.
Commission eyes EU regulation of online gambling (15.09.2011)
http://www.euractiv.com/consumers/commission-eyes-eu-regulation-online...
Judgment in Case C-347/09 - Criminal proceedings against Jochen Dickinger and Franz Ömer (15.09.2011)
http://curia.europa.eu/jcms/upload/docs/application/pdf/2011-09/cp1100...
Internet censorship in Slovak republic (15.09.2011)
http://opensource.com/government/11/9/internet-censorship-slovak-repub...
Romania: Government decision 823/2011 - provisions on blocking (only in
Romanian)
http://www.apti.ro/HG-norme-jocuri-de-noroc
Draft Law on psychoactive substances - provisions on blocking (only in
Romanian)
http://www.apti.ro/PL-combaterea-opera%C5%A3iunilor-cu-produse-suscept...
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Deutsch: Französisches Verfassungsgericht schränkt Haftung von Bloggern ein
The French Constitutional Court decided on 16 September 2011 that the website administrators (such as editors of blogs or online forums) should not automatically be held criminally responsible for online comments posted on their sites. The action was brought to court by a distribution company against a blog created by one of its franchisees where the mother company was criticised by the commentators of that blog.
The court's arguments were that the online editor had no knowledge beforehand of the content of the comments posted on his site. Also the commentator may remain anonymous and difficult to trace back. "The possibility to identify the authors of messages through the communication data stored by the technical operators is too uncertain to be a guarantee" said the Court. As the site cannot trace back the comment's author and therefore cannot pass on the responsibility, it is therefore unacceptable to penalise the site editor for messages he was not aware of before publication.
The court also explained that the law on mass-media, that included a presumption of responsibility for the directors of a publication, would not apply directly in this new field.
Indeed, previous modifications to the law on audio-visual communications, included a paragraph that says: "the director or co-editor of a publication cannot be hold criminally responsible as main actor if it can be established that he had no knowledge of the message before its online posting or if, since the moment he has become aware of it, he acted promptly to withdraw the message". The law does not say anything about an online service creator whose responsibility could be engaged in case the message author cannot be identified.
This interpretation of the Constitutional Court goes on the same principles applied in February 2011 by the Cassation Court that recognized the hosting status of several Web 2.0 services stating they were not liable for the content posted online on their platform, if they had not been appropriately informed.
"This decisions constitutes a much welcome jurisprudence in France", commented Meryem Marzouki from French EDRi member IRIS, "however the risk remains that a future legislation extends the criminal liability of blog owners for comments and other content generated by third parties on their blog".
Decision French Constitutional Court no 2011-164 (only in French,
16.11.2011)
http://www.conseil-constitutionnel.fr/conseil-constitutionnel/francais...
Priority Constitutionality Question: a blog creator is not automatically
responsible (only in French, 16.09.2011)
http://fr.news-republic.com/Web/ArticleWeb.aspx?regionid=2&article...
The website producers' responsibility limited by the Constitutional Court
(only in French, 16.09.2011)
http://www.numerama.com/magazine/19838-la-responsabilite-des-producteu...
EDRi-gram: The French supreme court recognizes hosting status of Web 2.0
services (23.02.2011)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number9.4/french-supreme-court-cases-fuzz...
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Deutsch: Freiheit statt Angst: Hochsaison für (digitale) Bürgerrechte in Euro...
European policy making has long been blind to the digital environment, ignoring the potentials of the Internet and the positive impact of the free flow of information in society.
Over the last 10 years, an increasing number of surveillance measures have restricted civil liberties and have promoted fear rather than freedom. A large number of measures have been or are currently being introduced and result in a restriction of the fundamental rights of all citizens in the EU: the data retention directive, the SWIFT and PNR agreements, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, data exchanges with the USA without proper data protection laws or the blanket collection of our biometric data - just to mention a few.
After a couple of attempts to launch a series of European digital civil rights events, the necessary preconditions for its success are now better than ever. National governments are more and more aware of the various issues involved by the Internet and are getting involved in addressing these issues. However, since they seemed to have had only fear to offer in the last decade, one of the main goals of the movement is to provide a positive discourse. The international Freedom not Fear week laid another stone for a counterbalance to the well organised and influential industry lobby. The week started on 10 September 2011 in Berlin, Dresden, Vienna, Brussels, Luxembourg and Warsaw. It ended with a final weekend in Brussels from 17 to 19 September 2011.
On the initiative of unwatched.org talks workshops were organized in Vienna to discuss civil rights and modern data protection laws. Sessions were dedicated to topics including the right to information, open data, PNR, web blocking and current situation regarding data retention in Austria.
The three-day event in Brussels was organised by the German working group on data retention (AK Vorrat) and the Belgian Net Users' Rights Protection Association. It was supported by many European organisations including EDRi-members Bits of Freedom, FoeBuD, Liga voor Mensenrechten, Digitale Gesellschaft.
On 17 September, protesters descended on Brussels for the first time to confront European policies and to call on the European institutions to preserve their freedom and civil rights. The protesters want their fundamental rights to be respected in the networked world. Furthermore, many of the protesters feared that information stored by governments was not secure and was bound to be hacked, leaked, abused or misinterpreted. In a speech in front of the European Commission, Patrick Breyer (AK Vorrat) underlined the importance of the weekend to contribute to a free and open society that we want our children to grow up in.
The three-day event in Brussels also included an international conference on Sunday where a series of working groups on data retention, CCTV surveillance, net neutrality and PNR were held. On Monday, the participants shared their concerns in discussions with representatives from the European Commission and Members of the European Parliament regarding the revision of the data retention directive and the current negotiations on passenger name record agreements. Activists from all over Europe took the opportunity to network and to launch an international platform for all future campaigns under the banner "Freedom not Fear".
Freedom not Fear platform
http://wiki.freedomnotfear.org
Events in
Berlin
http://www.freiheitstattangst.de/
Brussels
http://wiki.vorratsdatenspeicherung.de/Freedom_Not_Fear_2011/Brussels
Vienna
http://www.unwatched.org/Freiheit_statt_Angst_2011
Luxembourg
http://piratenpartei.lu/node/380
Warsaw
http://wolnyinternet.panoptykon.org/
(Contribution by Kirsten Fiedler - EDRi)
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Deutsch: Britische Regierung fordert von Suchmaschinen Unterstützung im Kampf ...
During his speech at the Royal Television Society's Cambridge Convention on 14 September 2011, UK Culture Secretary Jeremy Hunt called on search engines and ISPs to bar links to websites which, allegedly, distributed material unlawfully, on companies to stop advertising with the respective websites and on financial institutions to block transactions related to such websites.
Hunt announced at the beginning of 2011 that the Government would conduct a review of UK communications laws and a consultation on new legislation in the matter opened in May to get feedback from media, telephone providers, TV, radio and online publishers.
Following the consultation, proposals for a Communications Bill are now to be put forward leading to new communications regulations that would come into effect in 2015.
Hunt expressed the idea that the Communications Act had to change in order to address, amongst other things, the "protection of consumers and companies from offensive content and from the damage done by unlawful or unlawfully distributed content."
Regarding the "offensive content", in the Secretary's opinion, the Act should oblige ISPs to ensure that their customers "make an active choice about parental controls, either at the point of purchase or the point of account activation."
The UK official rejected the freedom of speech argument against obliging ISPs to block websites, considering the illegal distribution of copyrighted material as a theft and "a direct assault on the freedoms and rights of creators of content to be rewarded fairly for their efforts."
Therefore, he called for the cooperation of the search engines and ISPs in this matter and suggested a series of actions to be included in the new Communications Act among which, the creation of a cross-industry body in charge of identifying copyright infringing websites, the introduction of the responsibility for search engines and ISPs to make access to such sites hard (after a court has established the respective websites contained unlawful content or promoted unlawful content), the responsibility for advertisers to remove their advertisements from such sites and the responsibility of financial entities to remove their services from the respective websites.
Mr Hunt also proposed a "streamlined legal process", speeding up the process of bringing to court those accused of copyright infringement.
Free speech advocates believe these plans are dangerous, pushing private bodies into taking decisions about who's breaking the law. "That amounts to privatisation of justice, which is very dangerous," said Jim Killock, executive director of the EDRi-member Open Rights Group (ORG). ORG filed an FOI request asking for the evidence gathered by the Culture Secretary. "(...) we are willing to bet that he has not commissioned anything, and yet again, these are unbalanced, lobby-driven proposals," said Killock.
Jeremy Hunt's speech at Royal Television Society - RTS Cambridge Convention
(14.09.2011)
http://www.culture.gov.uk/news/ministers_speeches/8428.aspx
Search and ISP companies may be asked to help tackle copyright infringement,
says minister (15.09.2011)
http://www.out-law.com/en/articles/2011/september/search-and-isp-compa...
British Minister Wants Search Engines to Fight Piracy (15.09.2011)
http://blogs.wsj.com/tech-europe/2011/09/15/british-minister-wants-sea...
Jeremy Hunt calls on search engines to back anti-piracy plans (14.09.2011)
http://www.independent.co.uk/life-style/gadgets-and-tech/news/jeremy-h...
EDRi-gram: Copyright industry obtains court injunction against BT to block
website (24.08.2011)
http://www.edri.org/edrigram/number9.16/newzbin-case-uk-bt
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Deutsch: Italien plant One-Strike-Gesetz gegen Copyright-Verstöße
A group of the Italian parliamentarians has recently introduced a draft law which could basically block the freedom of expression and access to information in Italy.
The draft law, which includes two articles, stipulates that an Internet user may be banned to access the Internet based on a simple notification from "any interested person" about an alleged copyright infringement. And this, without any judicial procedure and without the right to appeal.
ISPs would be bound to suspend the access to the "blacklisted" users suspected of copyright infringement and apply preventive filters against services that allegedly infringe copyright and services which "may" lead citizens to "think" that infringing services exist.
The draft law not only violates several European Directives (such as the Telecom Package), but is also in violation of the European Convention for the Protection of Human Rights and Fundamental Freedoms and the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union by not complying to the right to a due legal process - the right to be heard and legal representation - and is equally in violation of the principle of proportionality.
Text of the draft law (only in Italian)
http://www.camera.it/126?PDL=4549&leg=16&tab=2
A short analysis of Internet killer Centemero draft law by Paolo Brini for
AirVPN (19.09.2011)
http://www.twitlonger.com/show/d62gmb
The right to Internet and the Italian parliament: DDL Centemero-Versace
introduces the suspension of the access to Internet for those who download
movies or music (only in Italian, 18.09.2011)
http://www.fulviosarzana.it/blog/il-diritto-ad-internet-ed-il-parlamen...
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Deutsch: ENDitorial: Finnische Big Brother Awards zu EFFis 10. Geburtstag
EDRi member Electronic Frontier Finland (Effi) organized the seventh Big Brother Awards (BBA) in Finland on 11 September 2011 as part of the celebration events of Effi's tenth birthday.
Electronic Frontier Finland - Effi - was founded in 2001, a few days before the 9/11 attack, by people who were concerned about freedom of expression and information getting trampled by commercial interests, abuse of copyright, and DRM techniques. In ten years Effi has grown into an organization of nearly 2000 members. Lawmakers and media ask for Effi's opinion in matters of Internet and information society; citizens whose digital rights are violated by government or companies turn to Effi for advise.
Before the BBA ceremony, Effi held a seminar chaired by president Timo Karjalainen, viewing the history and future of digital rights. Two ex-presidents of Effi, Ville Oksanen and Tapani Tarvainen, talked about Effi's challenges and victories in the past. For example, in 2003, Effi managed to prevent some freedom of speech restrictions for professional media from being expanded to private websites. Effi also got Finnish MEPs to cooperate in turning down the software patent directive.
Despite Effi's efforts, some bad laws have been passed. The web censorship law - or the "Law about measures to prevent spreading child pornography" in Newspeak - that authorizes the Police to keep a secret blacklist of urls to be blocked came into effect in 2008. Matti Nikki (the Winston Smith awardee of 2010) found out that most of the urls had nothing to do with child abuse, and wrote this on his website. Soon Nikki's website was on the blacklist! After three years of fighting, the Supreme administrative court finally ordered the police to remove his site from the blacklist. Today, most operators do not block sites according to the list and some offer blocking optionally, so the law is practically useless.
In the seminar, two speakers viewed Effi "by outsider's eyes". Network expert Mikko Kenttälä noted how protecting networks from abuse might raise privacy issues. He recommended that Effi take more actions like radio campaigns for a wide audience in addition to talking to politicians. Writer and game designer Ville Vuorela told he regularly got involved in conversations with people who think Effi is a bunch of pirates wanting to rob artists their work for free, or want to spread child pornography. Ville usually manages to correct these misunderstandings and make people see why Effi represents the good and sensible view against the evils of the world.
Erka Koivunen, head of CERT-FI team in Finnish Communications Regulatory Authority, talked about his work: promoting security in the information society by preventing, observing, and solving information security incidents and disseminating information on threats to information security.
The final talk before the BBA ceremony was given by Internet researcher Mikko Särelä about anonymous communication. Recently, some authoritative people including the Minister for Foreign Affairs have voiced opinions that anonymous writing on Internet should be prohibited because it is usually racist or otherwise offensive. Mikko emphasised the importance of anonymity in contexts like Alcoholics Anonymous, or teenagers insecure about their sexual orientations seeking for peer support. The cure for offensive talk on newspaper websites is coherent moderation, not control of the whole Internet.
In the BBA, the public sector category had several strong competitors, like VTT Technical Research Center of Finland, which generously lets its scientists keep their jobs as long as they don't discuss their research in public without permission. The tight game was won by the Ministry of Internal affairs, which bravely fought against crime by letting the police break into citizens' computers and disable security mechanisms.
The business category winner is Google, which recorded not only Street Views but also wireless Internet traffic, "by accident". This performance was rated even higher than that of Nokia Siemens Network, whose mobile tracking system has helped dictators in Iran and Bahrain.
The winner of the individual category is Tuija Brax, former Minister of Justice. Her achievements include a law that enables cutting off the Internet connection for mere suspicion of infringing copyright - no need to bother courts of law.
Special Life Work Award went to Jouni Laiho, a civil servant who creatively combined the powers Montesquieu separated.
Effi also gave Winston Smith Prizes to two civil servants who have fought against the Big Brother. Sami Kiriakos wrote a memo that led to decriminalisation of using open WLANs; Tomi Voutilainen has publicly defended e-mail privacy and criticized spending taxpayers' money on useless control mechanisms. A special 19.84 euro international prize was given to James Love, director of KEI.
Photos and comments from the event (only in Finnish)
http://www.effi.org/blog/2011-09-12-Virpi-Kauko.html
http://www.effi.org/blog/2011-09-13-Virpi-Kauko.html
http://www.effi.org/blog/2011-09-14-Virpi-Kauko.html
Press release: Finnish Big Brother Awards 2011 (14.09.2011)
http://www.effi.org/julkaisut/tiedotteet/110914-finnish-big-brother-aw...
(Contribution by Virpi Kauko, EDRi-member Effi)
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Deutsch: Lesestoff
Consumers out in force against targeted online ads (14.09.2011)
http://www.euractiv.com/infosociety/consumers-force-targeted-online-ad...
This article is also available in:
Deutsch: Agenda
27-30 September 2011, Nairobi, Kenya
Sixth Annual IGF Meeting: Internet as a catalyst for change: access,
development, freedoms and innovation
http://www.intgovforum.org/cms/nairobipreparatory
11 October 2011, Brussels, Belgium
ePractice Workshop: Addressing evolving needs for cross-border eGovernment
services
http://www.epractice.eu/en/events/epractice-workshop-cross-border-serv...
13-14 October 2011, Lisbon, Portugal
2nd International Graduate Conference in Communication and Culture: The
Culture of Remix
http://blogs.nyu.edu/projects/materialworld/2011/05/cfp_the_culture_of...
18-19 October 2011, Helsinki Finland
The Finnish Internet Forum 2011
http://internetforum.fi/
20-21 October 2011, Warsaw, Poland
Open Government Data Camp
http://opengovernmentdata.org/camp2011/
27-29 October 2011, Barcelona, Spain
Oxcars and FreeCultureForum 2011
Networks for a R-evolution
http://www.2011.fcforum.net/en
31 October 2011, Mexico City, Mexico
2011 The Public Voice Civil Society Meeting
http://thepublicvoice.org/events/mexicocity11/
2-3 November 2011, Mexico City, Mexico
33rd International Conference of Data Protection and Privacy Commissioners
Privacy: The Global Age
http://www.privacyconference2011.org/index.php?lang=Eng
9 November 2011, Bucharest, Romania
Inet Conference: Access, Trust and Freedom: Coordinates for future Internet
http://www.isoc.org/isoc/conferences/inet/11/bucharest-agenda.shtml
11-13 November 2011, Gothenburg, Sweden
FSCONS is the Nordic countries' largest gathering for free culture, free
software and a free society.
http://fscons.org/
25-27 January 2012, Brussels, Belgium
Computers, Privacy and Data Protection 2012
http://www.cpdpconferences.org/