ACTA in 2012: From Desperation to Inspiration

The European Commission has announced that it is withdrawing its referral of ACTA to the European Court of Justice. If you had forgotten about that particular detail, you're probably not alone: so much happened with ACTA in such a short space of time during the last year, that it's easy to lose track. 

On Open Enterprise blog.

European Commission Meeting on Copyright

One of the more extraordinary transformations in the last couple of decades has been copyright's evolution from a rather dry and dusty subject of interest only to a specialised class of lawyers to something that affects everyone every second of their lives online. Indeed, copyright is now arguably among the most important laws around today, and is having a major impact on a wide range of issues - the defeat of ACTA, nominally a treaty about trade, is perhaps the most dramatic example of this.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Supplying The Missing Ingredient In Evidence-Based Policymaking: Evidence

It seems extraordinary that in the area of copyright it is only recently that people have started to consider the evidence before formulating policy. Even now, there is still resistance to this idea in some quarters. Elsewhere, though, there is a growing recognition that policy-makers must have access to the data they need when considering how to achieve given goals. 

On Techdirt.

Horizon 2020: Defending Open Access and Open Data

At the end of last year, I wrote about the important Horizon 2020 initiative. Here's how it describes itself:
On Open Enterprise blog.

Copyright Hardliners Adapt 'Copyright Reform' Language; They Just Mean In The Other Direction

Neelie Kroes has emerged as perhaps the most Net-savvy politician in the European Commission, with her repeated calls for a new approach to copyright in Europe that takes cognizance of the shift to a digital world. That's one measure of how mainstream the idea has become. Another is the fact that even copyright hardliners like Michel Barnier, the Commissioner responsible for the Internal Market in Europe, are starting to frame the discussion in a similar way. A recent speech, for example, is entitled "Making European copyright fit for purpose in the age of internet", where he asks whether Europe has found the optimum balance between a number of factors: 

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Give Your Views on Europe's Digital Future

As you may have gathered, I'm a big fan of consultations: if they are asking us what we think, we really ought not pass up the chance of telling them. Sometime those consultations concern extremely specific and urgent matters, like surveillance or net neutrality, and sometimes they are more general. Here's an example of the latter:

On Open Enterprise blog.

Is The EU's New Directive On Clinical Trials Moving In The Wrong Direction?

It's a cliché that we live in a world increasingly awash with digital data. Even though it all comes down to 1s and 0s, not all data is equally important or valuable. Data about clinical trials, for example, is literally a matter of life and death, since it is used to determine whether new drugs should be approved and how they should be used. That gives clinical data a critical role in the approval process: results that support the use of a new drug can lead to big profits, while negative results can mean years of expensive research and development have to be discarded. 

On Techdirt.

Does CETA Spell ACTA?

Last month I wrote about the "clean and open Internet" consultation being carried out by the European Commission, and pointed out that many of the E-commerce Directive's measures mapped quite neatly onto some of the worst ideas of ACTA. Maybe it won't turn out to be as bad as it looks, but it's hard not to get the impression that the European Commission is determined to push through similar measures, by hook or by crook, not least when there things like this crawl out of the woodwork:

On Open Enterprise blog.

Why This EU Meeting on FRAND in Open Source?

Long-suffering readers may recall that the issue of FRAND licensing in the context of open standards cropped up quite a lot this year. We still don't know what the final outcome of the UK consultation on open standards will be, but whatever happens there, we can be sure that FRAND will remain one of the hot topics.

On Open Enterprise blog.

Last Chance: Consultation on Net Neutrality in EU

Back in July, I wrote about a consultation on net neutrality from the EU, entitled On-line public consultation on "specific aspects of transparency, traffic management and switching in an Open Internet". Just to remind you, here's the background:

On Open Enterprise blog.

European Parliament Committee Calls For Creation Without Copyright To Become EU Policy

The European Union's governmental machine is a complicated beast, with its intertwining of supra-national, national and party-political levels (if you're interested in understanding how it works, the digital rights organization EDRI has put together a useful introduction (pdf).) That makes it quite hard to tell what is going on behind the scenes with this new Opinion of the International Trade Committee on a Digital Freedom Strategy in EU Foreign Policy (pdf.) 

On Techdirt.

The New Kremlinology: Decoding The Signals Of Future EU Copyright Enforcement Moves

The negotiations behind closed doors of major treaties like ACTA and TPP, and the refusal of participants to release official drafts or to engage in any kind of substantive dialog, has meant that activists and observers have been obliged to seize upon even the smallest signs and hints emerging from those talks in an attempt to guess what is going on. In a way, we are witnessing the birth of a new form of Kremlinology, which Wikipedia explains as follows: 

On Techdirt.

Chile Leads The Way On Intermediary Liability Protections

As Techdirt reported, the European Commission is conducting a major consultation on the "procedures for notifying and acting on illegal content hosted by online intermediaries" that could radically affect the liability of online service providers in the European Union. Other parts of the world are doubtless examining this area too, and one at least -- Chile -- has already come up with a novel approach. 

On Techdirt.

EU To Open Up Secret Clinical Trial Data; TPP Looking Even More Retrogressive

Openness is really beginning to sweep through the European Union at all levels. Yesterday we wrote about the European Commission's ambitious plans to make the results of publicly-funded research freely available as open access; now comes news of a major opening up in the world of pharmaceutical data: 

On Techdirt.

European Parliament Declares Its Independence From The European Commission With A Massive Rejection Of ACTA. Now What?

In a plenary vote today, the European Parliament has rejected ACTA by 478 votes to 39, with 165 abstentions. That followed a failed attempt by the right-of-center EPP Group to call for a postponement. Although the final result was not totally unexpected, since the signs had been pointing this way for a time, it nonetheless represents a huge victory for campaigners who had more or less given up hope of stopping ACTA in Europe even a few months ago. So the question now becomes: what are the ramifications? 

On Techdirt.

ACTA Supporters In Europe Fighting To The Bitter End

As Techdirt has reported over the last few months, the passage of ACTA through the European Union's approval process has been little short of extraordinary. At the end of last year, ACTA seemed almost certain to be approved without difficulty. Then, inspired by the Internet community's success in stopping SOPA, European citizens woke up to ACTA's problems and took to the streets in huge numbers. 

On Techdirt.

EU Commissioner Reveals He Will Simply Ignore Any Rejection Of ACTA By European Parliament Next Week

The day before the EU's International Trade committee (INTA) recommended that the European Parliament should reject ACTA, the EU commissioner with responsibility for the treaty, Karel De Gucht, had given a speech to its members, trying to win them over. Although it was short, it turns out to be highly revealing about the European Commission's future ACTA strategy. Here's what he said: 

On Techdirt.

European Commission Blames Social Networks For ACTA Failure; Worried About Its Imminent Directive On Copyright Enforcement

Now that the EU's ratification of ACTA has departed from the original script of everyone just waving it through, the European Commission is clearly trying to come up with Plan B. Some insights into its thinking can be gained from the minutes (pdf) of a recent Commission meeting, pointed out to us by André Rebentisch. 

On Techdirt.

ACTA Update X

As far as we can tell, ACTA has been put on hold for months, maybe even a year, while the European Court of Justice (ECJ) considers its compatibility or otherwise with European laws. But that doesn't mean everything has stopped. The European Parliament has begun examining ACTA from various viewpoints through its committees. 

On Open Enterprise blog.

European Commission Suggests ACTA's Opponents Don't Have 'Democratic Intentions'

Last week, we had a story about the IFPI (the international equivalent of the RIAA) saying that the ACTA protests were trying to "silence the democratic process". You might have thought that was bad enough, but here's worse. 

On Techdirt.