Today in the European Parliament, the Internal Market and Consumer Protection (IMCO) Committee voted on its opinion on a Commission proposal to reduce geoblocking of online TV and radio programmes.
I was originally in charge of drafting this opinion, but have decided to withdraw my name, since modifications adopted by a majority of EPP and S&D […]
more ›The European Commission has today published its mid-term review of the Digital Single Market strategy – as a Word document with “track changes” left on. At the halfway stage, the European Commission is failing to live up to its ambitions.
Former Digital Commissioner Oettinger let big business interests sabotage the project of tearing down of digital borders […]
more ›The European Commission plans to expand copyright in the EU in ways that threaten core functions of the internet: Links and file uploads.
Independent academic experts have denounced these plans in untypically frank terms as “ill-conceived”, “undesirable”, “unlikely to achieve anything”, “an interference with freedom of speech”, “displaying an alarming disregard for fundamental rights” and bad for […]
more ›The World Wide Web Consortium (W3C) is considering to standardize a highly controversial proposal on Encrypted Media Extensions for the use of DRM technology (copyright restrictions) in modern web browsers.
Together with my colleague Lucy Anderson, I wrote the following letter to Vice-President Andrus Ansip and Commissioners Elżbieta Bieńkowska and Margrethe Vestager with a set of […]
more ›European startups’ ability to innovate, to compete in the global internet economy and to create growth and jobs in Europe is under threat by a proposed expansion of copyright.
These rules would ensure that the next Facebook or Google can not come from Europe, founders from all over the EU warned at a recent meeting […]
more ›This morning, Politico Europe published a draft report [paywalled] by Therese Comodini Cachia (EPP), the Member of the European Parliament’s Legal Affairs Committee responsible for the Parliament’s reaction to the Commission’s copyright reform proposal. MEP Julia Reda (European Pirate Party, Vice President Greens/EFA group) comments:
We now know that none of the controversial centrepieces of the copyright reform […]
more ›The European Commission wants to obligate internet platforms to monitor all content their users upload for copyright infringements. This is laid out in Article 13 of Günther Oettinger’s copyright overhaul plans.
I’ve detailed the harmful effects such upload surveillance would have in my previous post 10 things on the web the EU Commission wants to […]
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Today, the European Parliament discusses the Delvaux report on “Civil Law Rules on Robotics“. Tomorrow, we will vote on it.
The report includes the call for a general discussion “on new employment models and on the sustainability of our tax and social systems” as robots continue to displace workers. Because the Legal Affairs Committee included […]
more ›Your freedom to share online is threatened.
The EU Commission wants to introduce an extra copyright for news sites that would make how you share articles today illegal – unless money changes hands. Learn about the proposals and its effects.
Members of the European Parliament from all political groups and many different countries are coming […]
more ›In its Communication on Building a European Data Economy, the European Commission is taking steps towards a new copyright-like protection for raw data (“Data producer’s right”, pg. 13). This is the final bad idea Günther Oettinger submitted as parting digital Commissioner – it would have far-reaching dire consequences and must be rejected.
This idea would protect any […]
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