EU Public Affairs Monitor - 27/11/08

France votes for 'three strikes' filesharing law
The French senate has voted overwhelmingly in favour of Nicolas Sarkozy's anti-piracy legislation that offers illegal filesharers two warnings before cutting off their internet access

This week, as ever, it's one step forward and two steps back for the recording industry's anti-piracy legislation. Even as France seems poised to pass a new "three strikes" law against filesharers, lobbyists in Denmark have given up on the chance of passing similar legislation.

On Monday, the French senate voted 297 to 15 in favour of a law that penalises illegal filesharers by cutting off their internet access. Under the legislation, internet providers would be forced to act as watchdogs, monitoring their customers' internet traffic for signs of copyright infringement. Anyone caught illegally sharing music, movies or games would receive two warnings before having their account terminated. [Guardian]

Call for clampdown on rogue online ticket sellers October 27 2008
Ticketing websites have called on the government to crack down on rogue online operators after a spate of high-profile examples of consumers being ripped off. Andy Burnham, the culture secretary, is believed to be close to launching an industry consultation based around proposals first floated this year in response to concerns about the booming online market in tickets for concerts and sporting events. [Guardian]

Last.fm Asks UK "Hackers" To Help Extend Reach: Contest Offers £1000 Prize 2008.11.27
Last_fm Last.fm will host “Hack Day” on December 14th at Corbet Place Bar, East London. At the event which is hosted in partnership with CodePlex, Microsoft's open source project hosting web site, developers will be invited to utilize Last.fm’s free open source web services in a one-day competition to build a new Last.fm application. The winning developer will receive a grand prize of £1000, with additional prizes for the competition’s runners-up including Xbox 360s.Available since the site’s inception in 2002, Last.fm’s web services, which developers can use to extend the Last.fm experience beyond the site, have been utilized by third parties to create a host of music applications showcased at Build.Last.fm. One popular application, a mash-up titled “LastTube”, utilizes listener data from Last.fm to recommend YouTube video clips. [HypeBot]

Europe's cultural heritage goes digital 21 Nov 2008
Europe's heritage went digital on Thursday when the European Union launched an online library putting famous works such as Dante's Divine Comedy and Beethoven's 9th Symphony just a mouse click away.

Europeana gives multilingual access to two million digitised books and other items of cultural and historical significance held in more than 1,000 institutions in the 27 EU states. [ZDNet]

EU Council Monitor - 21/11/08

Culture Council
"All the conclusions of the Culture Council can be downloaded on the Council website. The most important documents are already saved on available on the shared folder/EU Presidencies/French Presidency" [Consilium]

Christine Albanel a présidé aujourd'hui à Bruxelles Le Conseil des ministres en charge de la Culture et de l'Audiovisuel de l'Union européenne
"Ce Conseil a permis l’adoption par les ministres de plusieurs textes importants négociés par la présidence française lors de ces derniers mois. En premier lieu, les ministres soutiendront et assureront la pérennité et le développement du projet de Bibliothèque numérique européenne. Ce projet, lancé aujourd’hui à la suite du Conseil, en présence du Président de la Commission européenne, José-Manuel Barroso, rend accessible à tous (sur www.europeana.eu) 2 millions de documents, aussi bien livres, qu’archives écrites et audiovisuelles, et collections des musées européens." [Culture]

Clôture de l’année européenne du dialogue interculturel
"The complete speech made by Albanel at the Centre Georges Pompidou last Wednesday" [Culture]

Forum d’Avignon
"The complete opening and closing speeches of Albanel" [Culture]

Europe's cultural history goes digital
"Europeana, a new digital library intended to bring millions of examples of Europe's cultural heritage into homes across the world, went on-line today.
The multimedia library already contains more than two million digitalised books, maps, recordings, photographs and paintings, and the Commission envisages that by 2010 over 10 million works will be on-line." [EuropeanVoice]

EU ministers reject ban on free downloading
"EU culture ministers yesterday (20 November) rejected French proposals to curb online piracy through compulsory measures against free downloading, instead agreeing to promote legal offers of music or films on the Internet.

The EU Culture Council pushed yesterday (20 November) for "a fair balance between the various fundamental rights" while fighting online piracy, first listing "the right to personal data protection," then "the freedom of information" and only lastly "the protection of intellectual property".

The Council conclusions also stressed the importance of "consumers' expectations in terms of access […] and diversity of the content offered online". No mention was made of a gradual response to serial downloaders of illegal cultural material, as foreseen by the French authorities." [Euractiv]

EU Commission Monitor - 21/11/08

Now Online: "Europeana", Europe's Digital Library
"Europeana, Europe’s multimedia online library opens to the public today. At www.europeana.eu, Internet users around the world can now access more than two million books, maps, recordings, photographs, archival documents, paintings and films from national libraries and cultural institutions of the EU's 27 Member States. Europeana opens up new ways of exploring Europe’s heritage: anyone interested in literature, art, science, politics, history, architecture, music or cinema will have free and fast access to Europe's greatest collections and masterpieces in a single virtual library through a web portal available in all EU languages. But this is just the beginning. In 2010, Europeana will give access to millions of items representing Europe's rich cultural diversity and will have interactive zones such as communities for special interests. Between 2009 and 2011, some €2 million per year of EU funding will be dedicated to this. The Commission also plans to involve the private sector in the further expansion of Europe's digital library. In September 2007, the European Parliament supported, in a resolution voted by an overwhelming majority, the creation of a European digital library." [Europa]

Education, Youth and Culture Council (EYC), Brussels, 20-21 November 2008
"This Memo provides a brief overview, from the Commission's point of view, of the issues that were discussed at the "Education, Youth and Culture" Council on 20-21 November in Brussels." [Europa]

EU competition rules – part of the solution for Europe's economy
"Neelie Kroes, European Commissioner for Competition Policy Speech at European Competition Day, Paris, 18th November 2008." [Europa]