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Get rid of 'digital handcuffs', says European commission vice-president Get rid of 'digital handcuffs', says European commission vice-president
(6 months later)
The openness of the web needs to be protected and "digital handcuffs" need to be removed, Neelie Kroes, the vice-president of the European commission with responsibility for Europe's digital agenda, has said.The openness of the web needs to be protected and "digital handcuffs" need to be removed, Neelie Kroes, the vice-president of the European commission with responsibility for Europe's digital agenda, has said.
Speaking at the World Wide Web (WWW2012) conference in Lyon on Thursday, Kroes examined the idea of an open web and spoke of its benefits. "With a truly open, universal platform, we can deliver choice and competition; innovation and opportunity; freedom and democratic accountability," she said.Speaking at the World Wide Web (WWW2012) conference in Lyon on Thursday, Kroes examined the idea of an open web and spoke of its benefits. "With a truly open, universal platform, we can deliver choice and competition; innovation and opportunity; freedom and democratic accountability," she said.
Holding up a pair of handcuffs sent to her the previous day by the Free Software Foundation along with a letter asking if she was "with them on openness", she said: "Let me show you, these handcuffs are not closed, not locked. I can open them if and when I want. That's what I mean by being open online, what it means to me to get rid of 'digital handcuffs'."Holding up a pair of handcuffs sent to her the previous day by the Free Software Foundation along with a letter asking if she was "with them on openness", she said: "Let me show you, these handcuffs are not closed, not locked. I can open them if and when I want. That's what I mean by being open online, what it means to me to get rid of 'digital handcuffs'."
In her keynote speech, she stressed the value of an open web, adding that Europe was "only beginning to discover what openness means". The benefits, she said would affect consumers and help boost the economy as well as informing voters. Privacy was another key thought on Kroes' mind, believing that openness should not come at the price of privacy or safety, "When you go online, you aren't stripped of your fundamental right to privacy," she said.In her keynote speech, she stressed the value of an open web, adding that Europe was "only beginning to discover what openness means". The benefits, she said would affect consumers and help boost the economy as well as informing voters. Privacy was another key thought on Kroes' mind, believing that openness should not come at the price of privacy or safety, "When you go online, you aren't stripped of your fundamental right to privacy," she said.
The commissioner also spoke strongly about copyrighted material and the complex licensing systems, explaining that "these guarantee that Europeans miss out on great content, they discourage business innovation, and they fail to serve the creative people in whose name they were established."The commissioner also spoke strongly about copyrighted material and the complex licensing systems, explaining that "these guarantee that Europeans miss out on great content, they discourage business innovation, and they fail to serve the creative people in whose name they were established."
Kroes stressed that people should become more open to online models, allowing creators to make their work accessible but also recognising the price of a product or a service, "Whatever you're producing, whether it's a scientific experiment or a new video mash-up, making it isn't free. It is legitimate and right to reward and recognise creation and innovation."Kroes stressed that people should become more open to online models, allowing creators to make their work accessible but also recognising the price of a product or a service, "Whatever you're producing, whether it's a scientific experiment or a new video mash-up, making it isn't free. It is legitimate and right to reward and recognise creation and innovation."
"If we are too rigid or too constraining in our approach, we will put artificial limits on innovation and discovery. And that's not being open." Kroes echoes comments made by web founder Sir Tim Berners-Lee who delivered his speech at the event on Wednesday."If we are too rigid or too constraining in our approach, we will put artificial limits on innovation and discovery. And that's not being open." Kroes echoes comments made by web founder Sir Tim Berners-Lee who delivered his speech at the event on Wednesday.
"Human discourse depends on an open internet" said Berners-Lee. "I want you thinking about what you're leaving behind for the next generation after this." He was also present at the panel that followed Kroes's speech and expressed once again his concerns over surveillance of the internet."Human discourse depends on an open internet" said Berners-Lee. "I want you thinking about what you're leaving behind for the next generation after this." He was also present at the panel that followed Kroes's speech and expressed once again his concerns over surveillance of the internet.
The WWW2012 event srun until Friday at the Lyon Convention Centre in France and is aimed at bringing together developers, business, media and analysts.The WWW2012 event srun until Friday at the Lyon Convention Centre in France and is aimed at bringing together developers, business, media and analysts.
Comments
32 comments, displaying first
19 April 2012 5:37PM
If the web isn't open, then some of us will just operate behind closed doors in small tight knit groups.
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19 April 2012 6:11PM
What is Neelie Kroes geetting at with her cryptic ' digital handcuffs' ? Previously she was in favour of enshrining 'net neutrality' into european law (good idea imho). Then lots of big telecoms firms lobbied , complaining net neutrality would stifle investment in infrastructure, their argument being they couldn't raise the money for that and she appeared to wobble, hinting at dropping opposition to the ending of net neutrality in return for easily ended (short notice) ISP contracts- is this what her ' digital handcuffs' now represent?
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19 April 2012 6:21PM
Plus: make national barriers for internet commerce UNLAWFUL
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19 April 2012 6:33PM
It's all well and good these people coming up with rules. But what exactly gives them the right?
And why should we follow them?
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19 April 2012 7:03PM
Perhaps she should turn her attention first to the host country, France, who have said they will sanction any publication on the web of exit polls before the end of voting in the presidential elections this weekend.
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19 April 2012 7:36PM
Seriously, don't take away my porn.
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19 April 2012 7:47PM
That is because under French law, it is illegal to publish such polls.
Whether or not the legislation is reasonable or even necessary can
be discussed, but if its publication is prohibited in normal media, it
should also be in digital and social media.
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19 April 2012 7:48PM
If the web isn't open, then some of us will just operate behind closed doors in small tight knit groups.
Quite. They want to monitor dissent. Of course the nature of dissent is that it is brewed in secret places. If the www does not provide that any more then other secret places will be found. I imagine.
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19 April 2012 7:49PM
"The commissioner also spoke strongly about copyrighted material and the complex licensing systems, explaining that 'these guarantee that Europeans miss out on great content, they discourage business innovation, and they fail to serve the creative people in whose name they were established.'"
Yeah, just like Glass-Steagall stifled banking "innovation" in the U.S.A. for 60 years.
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19 April 2012 8:38PM
We know where tptb are headed with the 'interweb'; a big telly service that you have to pay a licence fee to get onto the faster lane. Five channels, with five other micro channels embedded.
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19 April 2012 10:34PM
The commissioner also spoke strongly about copyrighted material and the complex licensing systems, explaining that "these guarantee that Europeans miss out on great content, they discourage business innovation, and they fail to serve the creative people in whose name they were established."
This is exactly why we need to prevent large media corporations from owning or controlling anything they didn't actually create or invent directly. Creators are NOT protected by large media corps stranglehold on copyright or restrictive licensing, they are abused by it.
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19 April 2012 11:04PM
The trouble is that the entire discussion around copyright is constantly framed in terms of what big corporations do.
Anyone who creates anything is protected by copyright and it only belongs to a corporation if you are either employed or have signed over your rights. In fact most creative work these days is probably produced by individuals who own the copyright (think of the all photos).
I don't believe that individuals being protected by copyright in any way stifles business innovation. If you think small creative people have been abused by large corporations then just wait and see what happens if the laws are changed. Maybe no mistake, it will be Google, the BBC and Murdoch who will profit from that, exploiting it to the max. In the same way that YouTube exploited the safe harbour loophole in US copyright law.
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20 April 2012 1:19AM
The powers that be are just scared shitless there could be a 'Western Spring'.
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20 April 2012 1:37AM
All of these acts have little to do with copyright protection and everything to do with stifling descent and freedom of speech and expression. It the same old noise coming from the people who sold the world globalisation and with it expanding the 3rd world economic model around the globe. If the political and ruling class want to survive this intact they need to adapt to the new dynamic. Otherwise, it is they who will find themselves out of a job and entrapped in poverty.
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20 April 2012 1:50AM
Get rid of 'digital handcuffs', says European commission vice-president
Neelie Kroes echoes comments made by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, backing open web and saying rigid approach can limit innovation
What and have our "libertarian"government unable to spy on us?
That will never do!
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20 April 2012 1:51AM
If the web isn't open, then some of us will just operate behind closed doors in small tight knit groups.
I do that anyway. Right now I'm in a small tight knit group of one, sat at my PC in my underpants, eating a pot noodle as I type. Wish the ma's dog would stop growling at me though.
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20 April 2012 6:53AM
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20 April 2012 8:42AM
There is a little fable about copyright.
A child wrote a story for homework for school. She had garnered the idea for the story from a comic book and carefully embellished the tale in her own way so that it fitted the required outline for the homework. The whole story was two and half pages of foolscap school paper, just enough words to meet the minimum. A few days later the child received an A minus for the story. She was pleased and had only been marked down for grammatical errors. The teacher had commented as to how imaginative the story was.
Many, many years later the child, now a married woman with children, went to the cinema to see the latest movie with her son and two daughters all of school age. She was amazed at what she saw for it was her story almost word for word. In the credits she noted the writer's name which she didn't immediately recognise. Was it her teacher writing under another name? Was it someone else who had seen her story? Was it a result of a conversation at a dinner party where people swapped ideas? Or had someone else seen that same comic book and embellished it in the same way?
There is nothing new under the sun.
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20 April 2012 9:22AM
The net is allowing true democracy and globalisation by allowing freedom of information and expression without boundaries. The powers, only want a democracy that allows people to vote which dictator they would like for the next five years or so, or, in the case of the UK, which dictator you would not like, but who will trash your country anyway. In those countries that don't even allow a vote, the powers just want to be left alone to exploit and suppress their fellow beings.
Let all the people of the world know that they were born to be free, and to enjoy this life.
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20 April 2012 9:42AM
I fully support a free and open internet. I also support the fundamental idea of privacy. What I am concerned about though is the perceived idea of a right to anonymity. That children and adults can post offensive and vitriolic comments with no sanctions, putting hateful things on websites dedicated to someone who has died is clearly wrong. I would vote for and support any legislation wherein anyone posting anything online has to be traceable and accountable for their actions. Panorama on the BBC did a report on this and some of the matters raised were of grave concern. Freedom comes with responsibilities. Far too many people have a deep grasp of their rights and not the slightest notion of their responsibilities.
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20 April 2012 9:51AM
I cant vote for freedom of expression WITHOUT BOUNDARIES. In my country, wearing or displacing a swastica in public is illegal. I support that law. I DO NOT want an internet wherein Youtube is full of videos of kids bashing other kids just so that they can add further hurt and humiliation by posting the video online. True democracy you say. True democracy demands that everyone is treated equally. What is democractic about the right of someone to write disgusting comments on public forums. What about my democratic right to visit youtube without having to see this nonesense. Im not looking for a flame argument here, just stating that a totally free internet with no boundaries may not be such a good idea.
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20 April 2012 9:53AM
This comment was removed by a moderator because it didn't abide by our community standards. Replies may also be deleted. For more detail see our FAQs.
20 April 2012 9:53AM
Sounds good to me . . .
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20 April 2012 10:35AM
The www started as open and should stay open.
Give people what they want, when they want.
That said could we have some joined-up EU thinking.
The new cookie regulations will do nothing to stop ad networks overusing cookies and tracking, (though this is anonymous tracking). But they will damage and hinder EU companies and websites.
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20 April 2012 10:38AM
Great to see someone at the European Commission can brush off the intense lobbying of those with vested interests in extending copyright. It is a shame that Peter Mandelson as Trade Commissioner and those negotiating ACTA weren't so resolute.
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20 April 2012 10:43AM
Perhaps she should turn her attention first to the host country, France, who have said they will sanction any publication on the web of exit polls before the end of voting in the presidential elections this weekend.
Freedom is never unconstrained. It's just a question of who does the constraining and for what reasons.
The French Republic long ago decided that the freedom to publish polls should be constrained by the freedom to conduct elections without press polling interference.
Preserving free elections from that kind of interference on the web is perfectly consistent and legitimate.
It's about time this country legislated to robustly protect its elections and the legislative process from interference by the likes of Murdochs and Ashcroft.
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20 April 2012 10:48AM
The kind of freedom we're advocating gives YOU the power to connect with anybody on your own terms including the people creating content you disapprove of. It's like apartment dwelling, if you don't connect with your neighbour how can you expect him to take you into consideration? How do you know you are not harming him?
The things you are complaining about are the product of the alienation inherent in the status quo that you want to keep but noone ever said the creation of an alternative was going to be easy.
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20 April 2012 10:50AM
Artists need to leave their record labels en masse, as a sign of protest. A new worldwide agency should create a new platform, bringing artists directly to their listeners, for a price that is right. That's one hurdle gone. Then there's only Hollywood left. A pity the two industries who completely missed the whole internet can now sway governments into implementing backwards laws. But the power is in our hands, as usual. To stop buying crap music and paying cinema to watch atrocious hollywood films is a way. But a long way.
Another would be to concentrate that effort, worldwide, in a non-buy / protest action day, a bit ala adbusters.
Support EFF and activists like http://www.laquadrature.net/en
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20 April 2012 12:39PM
It's a very exciting time to be creating. You can record a symphony on a laptop, you can make a monster movie with a Digital SLR camera and a PC, and you can distribute your work in glorious HD sound/vision anywhere in the world for almost nothing. What you probably can't do any more is sit back and watch cheques for eyewatering amounts of money land on the doormat. But then, that's always been the case for 99.9% of artists. What's REALLY bothering the record companies and the film studios and book publishers and rights organisations is that they may no longer get the lion's share of any money that's made from creative output. They couldn't give a shit about the artists. Time was, with a label deal, if your album sold 10,000 copies you might not make a penny. Now, sell 1,000 copies online direct and a few t-shirts, build a following and gig regularly, and you've got yourself a half-decent living, which is more than most artists have.
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20 April 2012 1:09PM
Very interesting. So tell me more...how do we go about this?
Link to this comment:
20 April 2012 1:51PM
Get real baby....
Gigging is very expensive and only profitable for a handful of high profile artists. Royalties are the only means of payment for producers, songwriters, engineers, session musicians and the like....
For example, some of my music uses orchestra and choir sounds which would cost milions to stage live...A good session singer or instrumentalist is about 250 a pop, or a grand per track... the rock bottom MU minimum is 80 quid fo two hours...
Do you really think I am going to make a profit on that on a Tuesday night 'open mic' night at the Dog and Duck in East Bumfuck ?
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20 April 2012 5:21PM
I've just been on to David Cameron and he tells me that this woman is quite wrong in her views. She should be censured for encouraging terrorists and hacking gangs by her ill conceived views. What she MEANT to say was that everyone who walks within three metres of a computer must be handcuffed to the minister for the interior. Or as we used to say, the Home Secretary.
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Neelie Kroes echoes comments made by Sir Tim Berners-Lee, backing open web and saying rigid approach can limit innovation
The openness of the web needs to be protected and "digital handcuffs" need to be removed, Neelie Kroes, the vice-president of the European commission with responsibility for Europe's digital agenda, has said.
Speaking at the World Wide Web (WWW2012) conference in Lyon on Thursday, Kroes examined the idea of an open web and spoke of its benefits. "With a truly open, universal platform, we can deliver choice and competition; innovation and opportunity; freedom and democratic accountability," she said.
Holding up a pair of handcuffs sent to her the previous day by the Free Software Foundation along with a letter asking if she was "with them on openness", she said: "Let me show you, these handcuffs are not closed, not locked. I can open them if and when I want. That's what I mean by being open online, what it means to me to get rid of 'digital handcuffs'."
In her keynote speech, she stressed the value of an open web, adding that Europe was "only beginning to discover what openness means". The benefits, she said would affect consumers and help boost the economy as well as informing voters. Privacy was another key thought on Kroes' mind, believing that openness should not come at the price of privacy or safety, "When you go online, you aren't stripped of your fundamental right to privacy," she said.
The commissioner also spoke strongly about copyrighted material and the complex licensing systems, explaining that "these guarantee that Europeans miss out on great content, they discourage business innovation, and they fail to serve the creative people in whose name they were established."
Kroes stressed that people should become more open to online models, allowing creators to make their work accessible but also recognising the price of a product or a service, "Whatever you're producing, whether it's a scientific experiment or a new video mash-up, making it isn't free. It is legitimate and right to reward and recognise creation and innovation."
"If we are too rigid or too constraining in our approach, we will put artificial limits on innovation and discovery. And that's not being open." Kroes echoes comments made by web founder Sir Tim Berners-Lee who delivered his speech at the event on Wednesday.
"Human discourse depends on an open internet" said Berners-Lee. "I want you thinking about what you're leaving behind for the next generation after this." He was also present at the panel that followed Kroes's speech and expressed once again his concerns over surveillance of the internet.
The WWW2012 event srun until Friday at the Lyon Convention Centre in France and is aimed at bringing together developers, business, media and analysts.