EU Commissioner Kroes: 'We Are Now Likely To Be In A World Without SOPA And Without ACTA'
from the she-said-what??? dept
Neelie Kroes gave a keynote speech at this year's re:publica conference in Berlin (disclosure: I spoke there too) that brought together many of the themes she has touched on recently -- the open Web, copyright licensing, the potential of open data, and the need to provide enhanced Internet safety for children. Interesting and important as all those are, they pale into insignificance beside the following comment she made:
We have recently seen how many thousands of people are willing to protest against rules which they see as constraining the openness and innovation of the Internet. This is a strong new political voice. And as a force for openness, I welcome it, even if I do not always agree with everything it says on every subject. We are now likely to be in a world without SOPA and without ACTA. Now we need to find solutions to make the Internet a place of freedom, openness, and innovation fit for all citizens, not just for the techno avant-garde.
Coming from one of the most senior members of the European Commission, which is still desperately trying to push ACTA through the European Parliament, that's an extraordinary statement; the question is: what does it really mean?
Some have suggested that this is an attempt to lull ACTA opponents into a false sense of security so as to allow the European Commission to work behind the scenes for ratification. But that seems unlikely: important though the re:publica conference is, such a statement from an EU commissioner there is hardly enough to trick many ACTA opponents into giving up.
Others would like to believe that the European Commission has finally come to its senses and recognized that the opposition to ACTA is too deep and wide to be overcome, and have accepted its inevitable defeat. Again, that is not really credible given the continuing attempts by the European Commission to persuade European politicians to support the referral of ACTA to the European Court of Justice, and to delay the vote in the European Parliament.
What it may indicate is a growing split in the European Commission between the pragmatists like Kroes, who have accepted that ACTA is doomed, even if they are not really very happy with that outcome, and the hardliners led by the commissioner handling the negotiations, Karel De Gucht, who are still fighting a rearguard action.
That fits with what we know about Neelie Kroes. For example, as Techdirt reported, she has come out in favor of copyright reform and against Internet disconnections -- two views that are probably not shared by all her European Commission colleagues. With her latest frank acknowledgement of ACTA's dwindling chances of being ratified, it would seem that, once again, Kroes is in the vanguard of accepting the reality of the digital world, rather than stubbornly fighting it to the bitter end.
Assuming that there is indeed a growing rift within the European Commission, that in itself is significant, because it represents a departure from the earlier position of presenting a unified front. Given that the European Parliament is also divided between the more realistic socialists, liberals and greens on the one hand, and the more recalcitrant conservatives on the other, it looks like a huge fault line is developing right through the European political machine. Against that background, it would seem increasingly unlikely that ACTA will now be ratified by Europe.
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Filed Under: acta, berlin, european union, neelie kroes, re:publica, sopa
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Expect Obama to be somehow brought into this.
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Re:
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Rare
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I'm curious though, it seems that Bob and other shills don't post comments when an article like this gets published, I wonder why....
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It's true that the influential German MEP Klaus-Heiner Lehne, who chairs the Legal Affairs committee JURI and who is himself an IP lawyer, is as signed-up an IP maximalist as you are likely to find.
But there are also important voices of sanity in the party, for example the Austrian MEP Paul Rübig. Rübig is chair of European Parliament's Scientific Technology
Options Assessment Panel (STOA), and a member of the Industry committee ITRE which has already recommended non-ratification of the treaty.
His view is that the present text now needs to be scrapped, with any new treaty needing to be renogatiated from scratch from the bottom up, focussing narrowly on product counterfeiting and nothing else, rather than the present text which he sees as overbroad and utterly vague.
http://fm4.orf.at/stories/1698154/
There is a battle on for each EPP vote, and it will be won individual MEP by individual MEP
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I am very surprised that the danish representatives for ALDE was clear on voting no. They are known as extremely opportunist and breaking party-line to suit their own agenda. Voting no seems like a purely national fishingexpedition for votes on this issue since they were the ones representing Denmark through the negotiations...
All in all I do not see a clear win for the pragmatist yet, but a lot of signs that in the parliament, many believe that ACTA is as dead a fish as they come.
I would wait untill we see the recommandation from LIBE - Not because I think it will bin the expected rejection from S&D - since they have confidential and non-leaked inside information on some minutes from late rounds of the negotiations (through a lawsuit!). How that will effect the recommandation is still unknown but I would look closely at the comments in the document when it is released (most likely may 9).
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Want enthusiastic "young" voters like the ACTA protestors.
The voice of the "youth" generation.
Well stand for their beliefs then.
"young" is a powerful word to describe your voting base. It exudes confidence , virility , activeness and a whole host of other positive visions.
Suppose my point is.... Co-opt them with the prize of youth votes which is indeed the reality.
If all they want is votes then all they have to do is.....
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Yay!
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"We know you're out there. We can feel you, now. You're afraid. You're afraid of change. We didn't come here to tell you how this is going to end. We came here to tell you how it's going to begin. We're going to seed these files, and then we're going to show everyone else what you don't want them to see—a world without you. A world without copyrights and patents, without borders or boundaries. A world where anything is possible. Where we go from there is a choice we leave to you."
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That said, we do see pretty conflicting views inside the EU, depending which part of it you are referring to. So I do agree they are somewhat split (European countries, disagreeing on something? No way! /sarc). The message I take from this is simply that we must stay vigilant. The fight for freedom and privacy rages on and we have neither seen nor we will see any opportunity to lay down our weapons (we the people).
Worth following VERY close.
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control
Read "the master switch" by Tim Wu and you will see all new media started free (film, radio, cable, telephone) and eventually were all brought under state control. So will the internet, tax slaves are not to understand their enslavement.
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