The internet is more than a big shopping centre: European Parliament calls for Digital Single Not-Just-Market

The European Commission titled one of its policy priorities the “Digital Single Market” (DSM). I applaud the aim of tearing down the many digital borders that remain in Europe – but I am convinced that if done right, it brings benefits to society far beyond facilitating commerce.

Progress must directly benefit and empower all people, […]

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No to ancillary copyright for press publishers, say more than 80 Members of the European Parliament

Today, 83 Members of the European Parliament from six political groups signed the following letter to the European Commission:

Reform of copyright law in the European Union

Dear President Juncker,
Dear Vice-President Ansip,
Dear Commissioner Oettinger,

We are writing to you as MEPs who are deeply concerned about the Commission’s Communication “Towards a modern, more […]

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Many common-sense ideas for EU copyright reform are being ignored – but we can still change that

Eighteen months have passed since the outgoing digital chief of the EU, Neelie Kroes, made a passionate appeal:

We have done preparatory work, dialogues, public consultations, legal and economic studies. We have endlessly assessed, examined, analysed. Now it’s time to act. Our single market is crying out for copyright reform.

When Günther Oettinger took over more than one […]

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End geoblocking: We need more than just roaming for Netflix!

Reacting to today’s presentation of a Portability regulation by the European Commission, Julia Reda, Pirate Party MEP and a Vice President of the Greens/EFA group, states:

“The proposed Portability regulation only fixes the cross-border access problems of some of the people under very specific circumstances: Those who already have Sky or Netflix subscriptions and want […]

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The LobbyCal project: Setting a new standard for lobbying transparency

Today, I am publishing all meetings I took with lobbyists and interest groups this year. From now on, all future meetings will be published as they happen as open data.

Several of my Greens/EFA group colleagues are doing likewise, using an open source tool that was developed on my initiative to better fulfil […]

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Ancillary Copyright 2.0: The European Commission is preparing a frontal attack on the hyperlink

The European Commission is preparing a frontal attack on the hyperlink, the basic building block of the Internet as we know it. This is based on an absurd idea that just won’t die: Making search engines and news portals pay media companies for promoting their freely accessible articles.

The newest attempt for ancillary copyright is the […]

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European Parliament delivers neither Net Neutrality nor an End to Roaming

“Today’s vote on the Telecoms Single Market package in the European Parliament constitutes a broken promise both on the end of roaming surcharges and the establishment of net neutrality”, says Julia Reda, Member of the European Parliament for the Pirate Party and shadow rapporteur for the Greens/EFA group in the Internal Market and Consumer Protection […]

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Net neutrality: Final countdown to keep the internet fair and equal

Tomorrow afternoon (Oct 27), the European Parliament holds its final vote on net neutrality. The proposal before the Parliament has crucial loopholes. My colleagues and I are fighting until the last minute for an internet that is fair and equal.

Here’s what you need to know and how you can still support the fight:

Europe Is About […]

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All our base are belong to (the) US? -TPP from a Japanese perspective-

This is a guest post by Rio (Twitter:@ld4jp), an intern at Julia’s office.

An agreement was reached on TPP, the Trans-Pacific Partnership, on the 5th of October 2015. The negotiation process of 5 years was entirely undertaken behind closed doors, and during the process Wikileaks had been the primary source for people to get […]

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Volkswagen case: Could cheating on an emissions test become a protected trade secret?

The European Parliament is currently negotiating the Trade Secret Directive in trilogue. In this week’s plenary session I called on my colleagues: We must be very careful not to include in that Directive new lines of defense for companies’ dirty secrets.

Let’s imagine for a minute the Volkswagen case had not been disclosed by […]

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