European Parliament Still Debating Three Strikes Laws

from the which-way-will-they-go dept

I don't understand enough about how EU policy-making works to fully understand this, but the EU Parliament which has rejected "three strikes" type rules (that would kick those accused of copyright infringement offline after three accusations) as being against basic civil rights in the past, has apparently rejected yet again a three strikes approach. Yet... at almost the same time, we're being told that France is actively pushing the EU Parliament to approve a three strikes provision in a telco bill that will be voted on next week. There was some concern last year that while the EU Parliament rejected three strikes, it would backdoor its way in via a separate telco bill. Is that what's happening again, where there are two separate discussions about three strikes provisions? It would be great if those familiar with how the EU Parliament system works could explain the two items.

Filed Under: europe, isps, politics, three strikes

European Mobile Operators Cooperate On Coverage

from the if-you-can't-beat-'em dept

American mobile operators' advertising is still dominated by claims about their network coverage, from the "Can You Hear Me Now?" guy to consistent sniping about whose network is bigger. But in Europe, competing on coverage largely went out years ago, thanks to smaller geographic areas to cover and denser populations, while converging on a single technology didn't hurt, either. Some operators there have gone so far as to embrace network sharing, where they collaborate on their infrastructure with their rivals to cut costs. Vodafone and Telefonica have announced the biggest network-sharing deal so far, saying they'll jointly build new cell sites and consolidate existing ones in several countries across the continent. Network sharing is seeing renewed interest as operators look to trim their capital expenditures, but it can benefit consumers as well. In one sense, a lot of spending is duplicated by rival operators as they build out network footprints that are roughly equivalent; significantly reducing that cost would have a big impact on their businesses, and allow them to redirect some of those resources elsewhere. As a Telefonica exec says, "by reducing our costs in areas of the business that customers don't see, we can ensure that we invest in areas they truly value." Thus far, many operators' response to the commoditization of their product has been to try and differentiate on coverage; eliminating that factor could spur them to differentiate in other ways, such as with new and better services.

Filed Under: cooperation, europe, mobile coverage
Companies: telefonica, vodafone

EC's Latest Rules Govern Its Coffee Machines

from the politicians dept

The European government's penchant for regulation is well-documented: its generally fruitless battles against Google and Microsoft are but two examples. Now, though, it's taking on the really serious stuff: the quality of the espresso in the European Commission's offices. The NYT says the EC bought 21 high-tech coffee machines at 5,000 euros each for its headquarters, "as a perk to keep top officials and visiting dignitaries from having to line up in cafes on other floors of the star-shaped Berlaymont Building." The big bill attracted criticism as another example of wasteful spending, but a bigger problem emerged for Commission employees -- the coffee didn't taste good. The Italian company that made the machines plans to replace them with some modifications (apparently water softeners in the coffeemakers were partly to blame), and it will also train "coffee monitors" in "coffee tasting theory and sensorial techniques," "recipes and hints," and "ordinary machine maintenance procedures." I'm not sure if it's heartening or frustrating to learn that bureaucrats' penchant for wasting time, money and other resources is pretty much the same the world over.

Filed Under: coffee machines, europe, regulations

European Parliament Committee Backs Further Hack Of Roaming Charges

from the the-answer-is-always-more-regulation dept

The European Union has been interfering in the market for international mobile-phone roaming rates for some, taking the populist position that the charges were too high, and forcing caps on the wholesale rates operators charge each other, hoping to drag down retail prices. But the effect was, as we predicted, baloon squeezing: while intra-Europe roaming rates fell, operators looked to boost rates paid by people from outside Europe and their domestic rates. What makes this situation particularly ridiculous is that it was one manufactured by the EU itself. When Vodafone expanded across the continent by buying German operator Mannesmann in 2000, it was essentially prevented by EU regulators from introducing any roaming products that utilized its competitive advantage. The regulators said that if Vodafone cut any of its international roaming prices, it would have to offer the same price to its rivals -- removing any motivation for the operator to cut prices and introduce new services.

The EU continues to try to regulate itself out of this self-created mess, the latest move being that a European Parliament committee has voted to further cap roaming charges on text messages and mobile data. The plan moves forward to the whole Parliament, and will be considered on the cusp of peak travel season, so the politicans can brag to their constituents that in this time of economic misery, they're moving to cut their vacation costs. But what they're really doing is further impeding the market by removing any incentive for operators to compete with one another -- just as the EU regulators did back in 2000. This was a situation created by overzealous regulation: had the EU allowed the likes of Vodafone to create products based on its competitive advantage, it's likely the market would have brought prices down on its own, and without the balloon-squeezing effect. But once the EU began interfering, that became impossible, since it in essence outlawed competition. Interfering in the market even more may be politically useful, but won't create lasting competition that will benefit consumers in the long run.

Filed Under: europe, roaming

Do Game Consoles Sold In Europe Have Power Buttons?

from the dept-of-redundancy dept

As Mike noted earlier, a new EU study says that video games are good for kids. But the BBC picked up on another angle of the report, saying that games should have a "red button" parents can press to disable inappropriate games their kids are playing. That makes you wonder: if game consoles sold in Europe don't have power buttons, how do people there turn them on? Because isn't that what such a "red button" would be, just a good ol' power switch? Ok, to be fair, many consoles' power buttons these days aren't red, but still -- if parents need a way to stop their kids playing, new laws or rules to force console makers to add a "red button" are pretty unnecessary when parents already have the ability to turn the consoles or computers off. But a law forcing parents to take responsibility is a much harder sell than putting blame on the game makers.

Filed Under: children, europe, game consoles

Is Piracy Really More Important Than The Financial Crisis And Climate Change?

from the priorities,-people dept

Reader Virginia notes that in an announcement concerning European Commission President Jose Manuel Barroso and Chinese Prime Minister Wen Jiabao meeting to talk about various issues, it seems odd that "piracy" was apparently a priority over both the financial crisis and climate change. You would think that the other issues would be much more important, but the old legacy content industry still has been able to convince politicians that piracy is some huge political problem, rather than a business model issue they could take on, if only they bothered to try.

Filed Under: china, climate change, europe, financial crisis, piracy, policy

EU Proposal Would Outright Ban BitTorrent Sites, Make ISPs Copyright Cops & Use 3 Strikes

from the just-what-the-industry-ordered dept

You have to give the entertainment industry lobbyists credit for one thing: they never give up. When one of their proposals gets slapped down they always have many other efforts underway to give a similar proposal life somewhere else. So what if the EU Parliament said that using a three strikes policy went against basic civil rights? Just get another person to come up with a proposal that's even more strict. That seems to be what's happening as the EU Parliament may consider a proposal by Manuel Medina Ortega, which TorrentFreak notes basically is a perfect wishlist of the Big Copyright players. You've got your three strikes policies, your demands that ISPs "take responsibility" and (best of all) the declaration that all BitTorrent and file sharing services are 100% illegal -- no questions asked. Hmm. Apparently someone forgot to inform all the creative folks who are happily using such systems to distribute their works... I don't know enough about European politics to know if this is likely to go anywhere, but given earlier EU Parliament rulings, I'm hopeful that this is quickly tossed aside as being completely out of touch with reality.

Filed Under: eu, europe, isps, parliament, three strikes

Does ACTA Secrecy Violate European Law?

from the too-much-secrecy dept

One of the most problematic aspects of the negotiations around ACTA, the Anti-Counterfeiting Trade Agreement, is how the entire process has been shrouded in secrecy. Those involved in the process try to brush off this complaint by saying something along the lines of "but we always negotiate treaties this way!" but that's hardly a good reason to do so -- especially when the impact of ACTA could be wide ranging. Some of the documents that have leaked out from the process suggest a pretty massive shift in copyright law could be pushed through via ACTA. You would think that it would make sense for such a process to be done in public. In fact, according to some, this level of secrecy it may be illegal in Europe. The Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure (FFII) has filed a complaint in Europe, noting that the secrecy goes against EU regulations. The group is demanding either that the documents involved in the negotiations be made public... or that the EU withdraw from the negotiations (which, of course, won't happen).

Filed Under: acta, europe, openness, regulations

Did The EU Actually Do Something Right In Its Efforts To Fight Google Dominance?

from the sorta dept

Over the past few years, we've seen various European governments freak out over Google's dominance over the internet, complaining that since it was an American company, it was a problem and "something must be done." Usually this took the form of handing over a ton of taxpayer money to some ill-defined project that would compete with Google, but which usually just turned into a way for private companies to get free money. However, one project to come out of these efforts actually does look interesting. The EU has launched Europeana, a site that attempts to offer up, digitally, various cultural artifacts of Europe -- and do so in creative and useful ways. Rather than just showing documents, for example, it ties together various multimedia to make things a lot more useful.

Considering that much of the cultural content being digitized for this project is already in the hands of the government, they're pretty much the only ones that can do this, and it does seem like a great way to expose more people to these cultural artifacts. So, consider us at least a bit surprised that something useful came out of all of this. Of course, this is hardly the "Google-killer" that's always discussed when talking about these projects. Even the article linked here seems to act as if this is a major triumph over Google, though it's not clear why. This isn't a competition, and putting this info online isn't somehow defeating Google. It's just another source of information, and that's a good thing. Of course, even in doing something "right" it looks like the EU screwed up a bit -- as they didn't plan for the amount of traffic the prototype site received, and it quickly went down.

Filed Under: culture, eu, europe, eurpeana, online

Three Strikes Rule May Sneak Into EU Law, Despite Earlier Rejection

from the never-let-your-guard-down dept

We've talked in the past about how the entertainment industry never gives up trying to push through its legislative agenda -- even after it is dealt setbacks. You may recall that the EU Parliament rejected a proposal to institute a "three strikes" law favored by the entertainment industry, that would kick people off the internet if they're accused (not found guilty, just accused) of unauthorized file sharing three times. The EU Parliament correctly noted that such a law would interfere with individuals privacy and civil rights. However, some academics have noted that another set of laws focusing on telco reform may backdoor in nearly identical three strikes language, requiring telcos to adopt such policies. The fear, obviously, is that this issue, buried in a big telco bill may not get very much attention and may be put into law without much debate, despite the EU Parliament's earlier rejection of such an idea.

Filed Under: eu, europe, telco regulations, three strikes