CIISE Distinguished Seminar: Promoting the digital contents in the European Union

Dr. Annie Blandin, Institut Mines-Télécom/Télécom Bretagne

Date: Oct 28 (4:00 pm)
Location: EV3.309

Abstract

The contents, especially those available on the Internet, are the engine of the new digital economy and the information society. In the framework of its Digital Agenda, the European Union encourages the creation of different types of works and the opening up of the access to contents. At the same time, a fight against piracy is led, even if in this field, it is the Member States who play a central role at the moment.

The objective of this seminar will be to present the key policy initiatives, putting the accent on the most discussed and criticized.

First of all, we will analyse the way the European Union encourages the creation of digital contents. Here, it is the diversity of the used instruments that must be underlined. While dealing with works, we will choose two cases: the creation, in answer to Google Books, of the European digital library, the so-called Europeana, and the promotion of the user created contents on the basis of the proposal for a new exception to copyright. In so far more and more contents are based on the processing of personal data, the current reform in Europe will also be presented because it asks the question of the valuation of data and the question of the level of protection of the concerned persons.

In a second part, we will show that the question of access to contents is related to the protection of net neutrality, which is a very sensitive issue in Europe. No discrimination to access to the network is one of the objectives to be followed. The other one is the protection of the fundamental rights and in particular, as it was shown by the Court of Justice of the UE Scarlet Decision, the free expression.

In a third part, after having presented the issues related to the achievement of the digital internal market (and in particular the problem of licensing), the international dimension of the market related initiatives will be examined in the light of the relations between Canada and the European Union. This is a good example of the stakes and opportunities in the context of globalization which favours in particular the free movement of innovative services.

Biography

Annie Blandin is Professor of law at Institut Mines-Télécom/Télécom Bretagne, Jean Monet Chair in "European Union and Information Society" and member of the European Research Centre of the Western Institute of Law and European Studies, Rennes, France (UMR CNRS 6262). In addition to her teaching at Télécom Bretagne, she intervenes in various masters in Rennes (European Union law and the WTO, EU policies) and in Paris at the Law School of Sciences Po.