stories filed under: "eu"
EU Telco Chief: Business Model Failure Leads To Piracy... Not The Other Way Around
from the could-they-be-getting-it? dept
Could it be that some politicians are actually figuring this out? Reader Arhac alerts us to the news that the EU's telecommunications chief, Viviane Reding, gave a speech where she noted that it wasn't "piracy" that was destroying the recording industry's business model, but it was the failed business model that was leading to "piracy":"In my view, growing internet piracy is a vote of no-confidence in existing business models and legal solutions. It should be a wake-up call for policy-makers."Of course, it's not clear what sort of solution she's proposing -- and it sounds a bit like she's suggesting putting in place a universal licensing fee for online music, which isn't much of an improvement. Luckily the Pirate Party's Christian Engstrom points out the problem with where that thinking leads, by noting that citizens shouldn't just be thought about as "consumers":
"We are citizens... and we do have certain human rights according to the European convention on human rights which includes the right to information freedom."Still, given where things are in the US, it's impressive enough to find multiple politicians who aren't just buying the major record labels' story that it's "piracy" that's killing their business models, rather than the other way around.
Filed Under: business models, eu, europe, piracy, viviane reding
EU Says No To Three Strikes On Accusation Only; Requires Court Order
from the that's-a-start dept
One of the biggest problems with most of the proposed "three strikes" laws out there (the entertainment industry likes to call them "graduated response laws," but I prefer Bill Patry's recent description of calling them "the digital guillotine") is that it works based on accusations rather than actual conviction. This is a pretty significant issue if you believe in innocent until proven guilty -- combined with the rather long and detailed history of the entertainment industry falsely accusing people of file sharing. The EU Parliament has rejected the various three strikes laws as civil rights violations in the past, but the issue keeps coming up again (especially considering France is still insisting such a law is necessary. However, in the latest vote, the EU Parliament has said that no one should be kicked offline without a court order, meaning that a court would need to review any accusation, rather than just the ISP being told to kick those accused of file sharing offline.No restriction may be imposed on the fundamental rights and freedoms of end users, without a prior ruling by the judicial authorities … save when public security is threatened...Your move, France.
Filed Under: eu, three strikes
EU Reaches Draft Deal That Would Make Three Strikes Provisions More Difficult
from the good-for-them dept
Over in the EU, they've been battling back and forth over telco reform, that has been hung up on the issue of ISPs and three strikes regulations, with countries like France wanting to make sure such things were allowed, and other countries worrying that cutting people off from the internet violated their basic human rights. However, it appears that a "compromise" of sorts has been worked out, whereby countries will be able to enact three strikes laws if they involve an independent and impartial tribunal, rather than the ISPs themselves or copyright holders. So, basically, France can continue down its path (since it was going to establish a gov't bureaucracy anyway).Filed Under: eu, france, three strikes, tribunal
EU Rejects Copyright Extension... For Now
from the good-news dept
Following the recent debates on copyright extension, there's a bit of good news. It appears that the Council of the European Union rejected yet another attempt to extend the copyright on sound recordings from 50 to 95 years. Unfortunately, it doesn't sound like this is (by any means) the end of such proposals. In fact, it's been made clear that this rejection is just a step in the process towards copyright extension. Of course, a bunch of recording industry lobbyists are complaining about how unfair this is, but they fail to explain how it could possibly be seen as fair to retroactively change the deal made with the public to take away the public domain. The entire purpose of copyright is to put in place a limited-time monopoly to act as incentive to create new works. Obviously, that incentive worked, or the content wouldn't have been created. Unfortunately, the recording industry now wants people to believe that copyright is some sort of welfare system for musicians, whereby they should continue getting paid for work they did over 50 years ago. It's a total distortion of the purpose of copyright law -- and one that will cost consumers dearly, and pay musicians little, but enrich the recording industry tremendously. Yet, because of some sob stories about how musicians need this, politicians across Europe have been leaping on board.Filed Under: copyright, copyright extension, eu, europe
Google So Dominant That A French Town Might Need To Change Its Name?
from the or-hire-some-better-seo? dept
Apparently, the French coastal town of Eu is so upset that people can't find the town via a Google search, that it's considering changing its name. The mayor of the town is quite concerned about how this is impacting the town's tourism business -- which does show the cultural dominance of Google, these days, on some things. Of course, as the article notes, a search on Eu french town turns up plenty of results -- though, even those are currently dominated by stories like this one about the name search. Perhaps the town just needs to hire better SEO experts...Filed Under: eu, france, search engines, seo, tourism
Companies: google
Google, Too, Chooses Lobbying Over Competing
from the is-that-so-googley? dept
Microsoft's increasing regulatory headache from the European Commission concerns its Internet Explorer browser that comes standard with Windows. We've said before that this investigation is prima facie silly given the vibrant and increasing competition in the browser market, but it looks like things are just going to get worse for Microsoft. First, it was Mozilla deciding to complain that Microsoft was creating an unhealthy browser market by bundling IE with Windows. Now, Google is jumping onto the bandwagon and arguing that Microsoft's policy limits competition and harms innovation.This is primarily problematic because the browser market is anything but uncompetitive. Firefox has created what is widely considered a better product, and, wouldn't you know it, gained considerable market share around the world (as high as 30% in some regions). More recently, Google introduced its own browser, Chrome, that launched to accolades and much user adoption. By introducing regulators into the browser market, these companies will all be distracted from providing users with the best possible product.
But what's even more confounding is Google's involvement. Obviously the company desires control of most browsers so it can set the defaults in its favor, but it is increasingly obvious that Google should not be bringing regulatory attention to the Internet -- especially when it comes to antitrust questions. Although claims of Google's "monopoly" are as specious as Internet Explorer's, making noise about antitrust is likely to come back and bite Google, especially given the rising number of political enemies they have.
Filed Under: antitrust, browsers, bundling, eu, internet explorer, regulators
Companies: google, microsoft
EU Committee Ignores All The Research; Approves Copyright Extension
from the stealing-from-the-public dept
Who needs evidence when you have bogus emotional appeals? That seems to be the reasoning behind the EU Parliament legal affairs committee's decision to approve a plan to extend performance copyrights from 50 to 95 years. This despite a coalition of intellectual property experts who pointed out that such extension harms innovation and only serves to help the record labels. It also ignored plenty of research on the harm done by copyright extension. There is, once again, simply no good reason to retroactively change the deal that was made between the musicians and the public at the time of creation. This is nothing more than defrauding the public, by going back on a clear deal that was made. And, for what? The money (despite the slick marketing campaign) isn't going to musicians for the most part. It's going directly into the coffers of (you guessed it) the major record labels. None of this appears to have been addressed by the committee -- which seems to have fallen for the "we must keep paying those poor session musicians for a single performance they made 90 years ago" marketing campaign. This still isn't final -- it still needs to be approved by the Council of Ministers, but the fact that it's even gotten this far is troubling.European Parliament Study Finds Video Games Are Good For Kids
from the put-away-your-moral-panic dept
For the past decade or so, the press and certain politicians have been somewhat successful in building a moral panic about video games and the supposed harm they do to children. The problem is that there's almost no evidence that this is true -- and almost all of the evidence that claims this is true doesn't hold up to scrutiny. Often, the moral panic-inducing results are actually either the researcher or (more likely) the press coming up with a conclusion that does not match with the actual study results.However, in just the last year, we've finally been seeing prominent researchers and politicians start to push back on this notion of video games causing harm. Last year, two Harvard professors came out with a book reviewing all of the research and adding some of their own, all of which showed no evidence that video games made kids violent (in fact, it found that it was the kids who didn't participate in video games that you should be worried about.
Perhaps even more surprising, though, is that some politicians are now pushing back, as well. A study done in the EU Parliament is now noting that video games are actually good for kids, noting that they can help "stimulate learning of facts and skills such as strategic thinking, creativity, cooperation and innovative thinking, which are important skills in the information society." The report does, unfortunately, still claim that in some cases violent video games may stimulate violence (though, without much proof), but it's still surprising to see a political report on video games that sees them as being useful.
Filed Under: eu, eu parliament, kids, studies, video games
Disappointing: Mozilla Siding With Bogus EU Antitrust Action Against Microsoft
from the just-go-out-and-compete dept
Last month, it seemed silly that EU regulators were pursuing Microsoft for antitrust violations in the browser market for bundling IE. It was clear that some of the initial complaints had come from Opera -- an also-ran in the browser market. However, it seemed silly because there is vibrant and growing competition in the marketplace. Firefox has continued to grow its market share, and in the past few years we've seen new entrants in the browser market from Apple and Google -- both of whom have established small, but significant footholds.So, it's especially disappointing to read that the Mozilla Foundation appears to be siding with the regulators, complaining about Microsoft's actions. Obviously, Mozilla is competing with Microsoft in this space, so at a first pass it may seem in their best interests to lobby the EU to punish Microsoft. But it's disingenuous to say the least. Mozilla got where it did because it competed effectively. It built a better, more secure browser that many people made the choice to support over IE. In fact, Firefox's chief architect, apparently unaware of what his "bosses" were cooking up, seems to have recently contradicted the Mozilla Foundation's new position, where he admitted that he couldn't see how anyone with a straight face could claim that Microsoft's ability to bundle created a monopoly, noting that Firefox's success in growing marketshare showed that making yourself "demonstrably better" worked. Oops.
Filed Under: antitrust, browsers, bundling, eu, firefox, internet explorer, regulators
Companies: microsoft, mozilla
