February 6, 2012
This is not the message that the European Commission would like to give, but it is what comes across. Internal Market Commissioner Michel Barnier, speaking in Copenhagen last Thursday, gave his priorities for the European internal market for 2012. He called it the “Single Market 2.0”. In summary, he wants reliable online payment systems that can equally be trusted to black payments on request, in respect of mis-behaving music and film download sites.
February 5, 2012
British Conservative MEP, Syed Kamall, is asking the European Commission to confirm or deny in writing the existence of a footnote in ACTA, that would have mandated 3-strikes measures to disconnect users from the Internet. It looks like a banal incident in the ongoing knock-about between the European Commission and the Parliament over ACTA (Anti-counterfeiting Trade Agreement). But the question highlights the ridiculousness of the Commission trying to hide the real intent of ACTA, and in...
Poland appears to have beaten a hasty, possibly temporary, retreat over ACTA, as a wave of mass protests forced a U-turn.
Poland may have signed ACTA (Anti-counterfeiting Trade Agreement), but will not ratify it for the time being. The Polish government has caved in to the demands of young protesters who marched through the streets of several Polish cities last week, angry that ACTA would result in censorship of the Internet.
January 29, 2012
Reading the media coverage of the Polish anti-ACTA marches, and Kader Arif's resignation, there’s a lot of confusion about ACTA (Anti-counterfeiting Trade Agreement) and SOPA (Stop Online Piracy Act). For example, I’ve read that ACTA is going to impose “SOPA-like blocking”. That ACTA is “Big Brother to” SOPA or “even worse than” SOPA. Is this the case?
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January 26, 2012
The apparent grace of a Japanese signing ceremony is blasted by the shock resignation of the European Parliament's ACTA rapporteur, Kader Arif .
The EU signed the Anti-counterfeiting Trade Agreement (ACTA) today at a ceremony in the Japanese Foreign Ministry in Tokyo. The EU’s signature was penned by His Excellency, Mr. Hans Dietmar Schweisgut, Ambassador and Head of the Delegation of the European Union to Japan. Barely was...
January 23, 2012
With ACTA and Bill Gates on the agenda, the DEVE committee meeting promises to be interesting.
Former Microsoft chairman, Bill Gates is to address the Development committee in the European Parliament tomorrow (24 January). Mr Gates would normally expect to be the star attraction. By an ironic twist of fate, Mr Gates - who is no stranger to anti-piracy measures - may well find that he is the warm-up act for the poker- hot politics of the secretly-drafted...
January 16, 2012
I find the case of USG v Richard O’Dwyer quite disturbing. It has hit the British media over the matter of extradition, and a weak agreement between Britain and the US. But having gone carefully through the judgement, I feel this is only part of the story. It looks to me like a cynical manoevre by the US copyright industries, notably the Motion Picture...
January 11, 2012
The European Commission could ask ISPs to block content, and ask payment providers to withold money on demand from rights-holders, following a policy announcment released today. The much-awaited announcement sets out EU official policy on the Internet and e-commerce. It follows a review of the E-commerce directive by the Commission.
January 6, 2012
When I heard yesterday that Richard Hooper had been appointed to run a feasibility study for the proposed Digital Copyright Exchange, I was optimistic that finally someone in authority would bite this poisoned bullet and wreak change on the stifled copyright industries. Regrettably, on examining the Feasibility Study document, I see little basis for maintaining that optimism. There is an urgent need for a shake-up of copyight licencing in the EU, but sadly this study is unlikely to carry...
January 3, 2012
Will the next corporate scandal involve the Internet?
The Financial Times today* suggests that 2012 will be a pivotal year for the media. I think that when we look back in a few years’ time, 2010 will be a tipping point for the Internet too. In retrospect, we will know whether those who currently guard the networks had a public or a private interest at heart.
In 2011, we saw the apparent vindication of the Internet as an enabler of democracy, coupled...
