[Advocacy Advisors] Quick notes on Andrus Ansip

Tue Oct 7 09:41:36 UTC 2014

Hi all,

just to let you know that the second "digital" Commissioner had his hearing
last night and to share some impressions with you. Adrus Ansip from Estonia
is designated as Vice-President for the Digital Single Market.

Overall he appeared well prepared and knowledgeable on the issues he was
asked. On copyright reform, the three main points he made were clear enough:

*Remove territoriality within the EU (meaning: harmonisation)
*Current copyright is prohibitive for text and data mining (meaning: new
exceptions/limitations)
*Geo-blocking goes against the core of the digital single market. I will
work to abolish it. (meaning: again harmonisation)

Other interesting points he made included:

   - *Net Neutrality is important (comment: but then he spoke about search
   neutrality so I am confused)
   - *Right to be forgotten must remain an exception (meaning: unclear)
   - *Access to internet is a human right and we need an internet rights
   charta (comment: sounds great)
   - *Data protection is very important (comment: avoided clear wording on
   what this means)
   - *Software code produced for the EU must be open source or free
   software, coding must be part of school curriculum

Other than that he talked a lot about paperless administration. In relation
to Oettinger (Commissioner-designate for Digital Economy and Society) , he
sees himself as the "horizontal" commissioner, while his German colleague
is the "vertical" one. My favourite and most re-tweeted sound-bite was: "We
have to review our copyright legislation especially in regard to
territoriality. This is old-fashioned".

Cheers,

Dimi
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