COMECON MEDIA

Committee on Legal Affairs - Committee on Culture and Education PUBLIC HEARING:  THE FUTURE DEVELOPMENT OF COPYRIGHT IN EUROPE 11 November 2014, 15:30 - 18:30 Brussels, Altiero Spinelli building (ASP) 1G3 DRAFT programme 15:30 - 15:50 OPENING 15:30 - 15:40 Welcome by Pavel Svoboda, Chair of the Committee on Legal Affairs, and by Silvia Costa, Chair of the Committee on Culture and Education 15:40 - 15:50 Maria Martin-Prat, Head of Copyright Unit, Directorate D, DG Internal Market and Services, European Commission 15:50 - 18:20 LEGAL ISSUES ON COPYRIGHT 15:50 - 16:10 Prof. Dr. Martin Kretschmer , Professor of Intellectual Property Law in the School of Law, University of Glasgow, and Director of CREATe. CREATe investigates the future of creative production in the digital age, and in particular the role of copyright. 16:10 - 16:30 Prof. Dr. Leonhard Dobusch , Assistant Professor at the Freie Universität Berlin - Presentation of a study on the Commission Report on

The Draft Act amends different provisions of the Gambling Act which mainly concern the protection of a gambler and the reporting procedure, the Media Services Act and the Advertising Act.  The objective of the Draft Act is to enhance measures intended for the protection of gamblers, by extending the coverage of the self-exclusion list to totos and classic lotteries. The objective of the Draft Act is also to reduce the administrative burden on the supervisory authority and organisers by cancelling the requirement for quarterly reporting as the Tax and Customs Board will receive the information earlier communicated through such reports in the future through an electronic recordkeeping and control system.  With the amendment of the Media Services Act, the sponsor announcements of organisers of gambling who have no activity licence or operating permit in Estonia will be restricted. The provision of the Advertising Act concerning advertising of gambling will be amended and establishe

Cross border e-Identification was a missing link in Europe's digital market (there are still too many cross-border issues in Europe). Now this shall change with a new approach: A new EU REGULATION (EU) (No 910/2014) will repeal a 1999 Directive (No 1999/93/EC) , introducing a Europe-wide - sorry EU-wide - e-Identfication framework.  Thereby, the EU Commission aims at: (1) Building trust in the online environment as such -- as a key to economic and social development. As the Official Journal states: "Lack of trust, in particular  because of a perceived lack of legal certainty, makes consumers, businesses and public authorities hesitate to carry out transactions electronically and to adopt new services."  (2) Enhancing trust in electronic transactions in the internal market by providing a common foundation for secure electronic interaction between citizens, businesses and public authorities, thereby increasing the effectiveness of public and private online service

The European Commission and Europe's data industry have committed to invest €2.5 billion in a public-private partnership (PPP) that aims to strengthen the data sector and put Europe at the forefront of the global data race.  A Memorandum of Understanding to set up the PPP on big data will be signed today by European Commission Vice President Neelie Kroes and President of the Big Data Value Association , Jan Sundelin, who acts on behalf of companies including ATOS, Nokia Solutions and Networks, Orange, SAP, SIEMENS and research bodies such as  Fraunhofer and the  German Research Centre for Artificial Intelligence. The EU has earmarked over €500 million of investment over 5 years (2016-2020) from Horizon 2020 which private partners are expected to match at least four times over (€2 billion). See also MEMO/14/583 . Source: IP/14/1129

Data protection Last Friday, the EU Council reached a partial general approach on specific aspects of the draft regulation setting out a general EU framework for data protection. The partial general approach includes chapter IV of the draft regulation (controller and processor). The Council also held a policy debate on the "right to be forgotten" principle following the European Court of Justice judgment in the Google Spain case. This judgment acknowledges the possibility for data subjects, on the basis of the existing directive, to exercise their rights to erasure of data and to object to personal data processing against online controllers such as search engines. Andrea Orlando, Italian Minister for Justice and President of the Council said: "The Council recognised the importance of the right to be forgotten and the right to object to data processing in particular in a digital environment. At the same time member states attach significant importa