EU Europeana Awareness Event "Culture for Digital Innovation"

(EbS)
Official statements by

• Michel PRAET, Member of the European Council President Cabinet
• Neelie KROES, Vice-President of the EC in charge of Digital Agenda
• Uffe ELBAEK, Danish Minister for Culture
• Bruno RACINE, Chair of the Europeana Foundation and President of the "Bibliothèque nationale de France"
• Summary of key conclusions from the seminar "Culture for Creativity" by Nigel SHABOLT, Professor of Artificial Intelligence (AI) at the University of Southampton
• Moderated discussion with EU Ministers
• Closing Remarks by Jill COUSINS, Executive Director Europeana Foundation

EU - What does it mean to be open online?

(RAPID)
Speech by Neelie Kroes Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for the Digital Agenda, World Wide Web Conference 2012 Lyon, 19 April 2012.

EU - Digital Agenda and Open Data From Crisis of Trust to Open Governing

(RAPID)
Speech by Neelie Kroes, Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for the Digital Agenda, Bratislava, 5 March 2012

Broken Promises of Privacy: Responding to the Surprising Failure of Anonymization

(UCLA Law Review) by Paul Ohm, University of Colorado Law School. Computer scientists have recently undermined our faith in the privacy-protecting power of anonymization, the name for techniques for protecting the privacy of individuals in large databases by deleting information like names and social security numbers. These scientists have demonstrated they can often 'reidentify' or 'deanonymize' individuals hidden in anonymized data with astonishing ease. By understanding this research, we will realize we have made a mistake, labored beneath a fundamental misunderstanding, which has assured us much less privacy than we have assumed. This mistake pervades nearly every information privacy law, regulation, and debate, yet regulators and legal scholars have paid it scant attention. We must respond to the surprising failure of anonymization, and this Article provides the tools to do so.

EU - Commission proposes a comprehensive reform of data protection rules

(RAPID)
The European Commission has proposed a comprehensive reform of the EU's data protection rules. The Commission's proposals update and modernise the principles enshrined in the 1995 Data Protection Directive to guarantee privacy rights in the future. They include a policy Communication setting out the Commission's objectives and two legislative proposals: a Regulation setting out a general EU framework for data protection and a Directive on protecting personal data processed for the purposes of prevention, detection, investigation or prosecution of criminal offences and related judicial activities.

EU - Setting up the European Cloud Partnership

(RAPID)
Speeh by Neelie Kroes, Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for the Digital Agenda, World Economic Forum Davos, Switzerland, 26th January 2012.

EU - Coalition of top tech & media companies to make internet better place for kids

(RAPID)
28 leading companies have come together to form a new Coalition to make a better and safer internet for children. Put together by the Commission, founding Coalition members are: Apple, BSkyB, BT, Dailymotion, Deutsche Telekom, Facebook, France Telecom-Orange, Google, Hyves, KPN, Liberty Global, LG Electronics, Mediaset, Microsoft, Netlog, Nintendo, Nokia, Opera Software, Research in Motion, RTL Group, Samsung, Sulake, Telefonica, TeliaSonera, Telenor Group, Tuenti, Vivendi, Vodafone. Priority actions include making it easier to report harmful content, ensuring privacy settings are age-appropriate, and offering wider options for parental control, reflecting the needs of a generation that is going online at an increasingly young age.

EU - Who feeds the artist ?

(RAPID)
Speech by Neelie Kroes, Vice-President of the European Commission responsible for the Digital Agenda, Forum d'Avignon 19 November 2011, Avignon, France. Is the current copyright system the right and only tool to achieve our objectives? Not really, I'm afraid. We need to keep on fighting against piracy, but legal enforceability is becoming increasingly difficult; the millions of dollars invested trying to enforce copyright have not stemmed piracy. Meanwhile citizens increasingly hear the word copyright and hate what is behind it. Sadly, many see the current system as a tool to punish and withhold, not a tool to recognise and reward.

EU - Poland loses case on PSI Directive

(Europa)
Case C362/10 - The Court of Justice of the EU confirmed that Poland failed to transpose the PSI Directive correctly. The Court agreed with the Commission in regards of all grievances. In particular, the Court stated that persons who would like to re-use PSI should know in which circumstances they can rely on respect of conditions of re-use established by the PSI Directive. According to the Court a national regulation on access to documents is not, by itself, susceptible of transposing the provisions of the Directive with the clarity necessary to satisfy the requirements of legal security and enabling persons who would like to re-use public documents to know all their rights. The Court also stated that a fact that a certain activity is not exercised in a Member State does not dispense that Member State from transposing all the provision of a directive. Such obligation lies on all Members States in order to prevent any possible modifications and to guarantee that everyone in the EU, also in those Member States who don't exercise certain activities, know with clarity and precision and in all circumstances the full scope of their rights and obligations. The full text of the judgement.

EU - Commission requests Estonia and Slovakia to comply with public sector information rules

(RAPID)
The European Commission has requested Estonia and Slovakia to bring their laws in line with EU rules on the re-use of public sector information (PSI). These countries are not currently guaranteeing fair conditions for re-use of public sector information, in breach of the EU's PSI Directive. Estonia and Slovakia have failed to correctly implement most provisions of the Directive, including the prohibition of discriminatory or monopolistic practices by public bodies.

EU - Opening up Europe: from Common Standards to Open Data

(RAPID)
Speech by Neelie Kroes, Vice President, European Commission responsible for the Digital Agenda, OpenForum Europe Summit 2011, Brussels 22nd September 2011. I am convinced that the potential to re-use public data is significantly untapped. Such data is a resource, a new and valuable raw material. Since 2003 the Directive on the re-use of public sector information has regulated this field establishing the principle that public authorities should make data available and let individuals and businesses make use of it. Our consultation on the review of that Directive got a wide response. The consensus was that the principles of the Directive are valid, namely, the importance of public sector information as a raw material and the economic and social value in its re-use. But we need to clarify how those principles are put into practice. And maybe get rid of a few exceptions or loopholes. We'll be looking at the way data is disclosed - the formats and the way data licenses operate to make re-use straightforward in practice. We'll also be looking at charging regimes because expensive data isn't "open data". will also be updating the rules for the re-use of our own data. We are planning two data portals to give simple and systematic access to public data at European level.

UK - Mixed results since Blair's 'dangerous' Freedom of Information Act launched

(Guardian)
"Freedom of Information Act. Three harmless words. I look at those words as I write them, and feel like shaking my head 'til it drops off. You idiot. You naive, foolish, irresponsible nincompoop. There is really no description of stupidity, no matter how vivid, that is adequate. I quake at the imbecility of it." Thus Tony Blair records in his memoirs what he believes to have been one of his greatest mistakes while in office: introducing legislation intended to shed light on government in a manner that empowered people.

Commission brokers agreement on out-of-commerce books

(RAPID)
Michel Barnier, European Commissioner for the Internal Market and Services, presided over the signing of a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) in which libraries, publishers, authors, and their collecting societies have agreed to a set of Key Principles that will give European libraries and similar cultural institutions the possibility to digitise and make available on line out-of-commerce books and learned journals which are part of their collections. Collecting societies representing right holders in books and learned journals will play a key role in the practical implementation of the MoU which should substantially facilitate the negotiation and acquisition of the licences that libraries and similar cultural institutions need to digitise and put on line an important part of their archives (i.e. the books and learned journals in their collections which are out-of-commerce). See also MEMO/11/619.

Working for Rupert Murdoch

(Desiderata)
by John Carr. I worked for News Corporation for about two and a half years, until the end of 2009. At first I gloried in the title of Vice President of MySpace, Safety and Security, Europe. Rupert Murdoch Murdoch completely rejected a laissez faire philosophy in relation to content appearing on his site. The company insisted on using a blocking list to prevent anybody posting links to any web sites known to contain child abuse images. They helped develop a US-wide system which allowed MySpace to seek out anyone with a conviction for sex offences and kick them off.

ICANN - .xxx: Der Internet-Rotlichtbezirk öffnet

(Heise)
ICM Registry, Betreiber des ersten Rotlichbezirks im Internet, hat die Termine für den Beginn der Vorregistrierungen und die generelle Öffnung der .xxx-TLD bekannt gegeben. Zwischen 7. September und 28. Oktober 2011 können etablierte Erotikanbieter ihre eingetragenen Marken unter .xxx vorregistrieren oder Markeninhaber anderer Branchen ihren Namen sichern.