Month: April 2016

The e-Government Action Plan includes 20 initiatives to be launched in 2016 and 2017. Several of them aim to accelerate the implementation of existing legislation and related take-up of online public services. The Commission will notably support the transition of Member States towards full e-procurement, use of contract registers and interoperable e-signatures.

The European Commission has informed Google of its preliminary view that the company has, in breach of EU antitrust rules, abused its dominant position by imposing restrictions on Android device manufacturers and mobile network operators.

All sectors of the economy increasingly rely on digital technologies, while cross-sector applications bring value to digital systems. ICT standards ensure that digital technologies and systems have a common language and work seamlessly together. The Commission has identified five priority areas where improved ICT standardisation is most urgent to create a Digital Single Market: 5G, the internet of things, cloud computing, cybersecurity and data technologies. The Commission will focus on these priorities when asking industry and standardisation bodies to work on standards.

“Implementation of internet technologies should be made an aggravating circumstance if they have been used at commitment of crime” – believes Elena Mizulina, the member of the Russian council of federation. But how to prove that the person has used internet, so to say, has implemented internet technologies, is still not clear.

The European Cloud Initiative will build on a trusted, open environment for the scientific community to store, share and re-use scientific data and results: the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC). Underpinning this, the new European Data Infrastructure (EDI) aims to deploy the super-computing capacity, fast connectivity and high-capacity cloud solutions required by the EOSC. This initiative will bring together existing and new data infrastructures.

The European Commission is inviting (de) comments from interested parties on commitments offered by Paramount Pictures to address competition concerns relating to contractual clauses preventing the cross-border provision of pay-TV services.

Digitisation of industry would create an additional €110 billion of revenue for industry per year in Europe over the next five years. Companies will be able to develop new products, processes and business models that can provide improved safety and greater comfort for users. They will be able to sell personalised products at mass production cost, and they can optimise the use of energy and other resources. Digitisation can help to solve issues related to an ageing society (people can stay longer at home), use less energy (for instance, city lightning that only switches on when it is needed), monitor the environment, etc.

Russian Union of Right holders (RSP) is authorised by Russian State to collect private copying levy on an exclusive basis – so called accreditation. RSP takes 1% from price of taxable equipment and media. Russian business ombudsman Boris Titov proposed to give such exclusive authority to collect private copying levy to relevant state authority – Federal Custom Service (FCS) or Federal Tax Service (FTS).

Deputy of Russian state duma from political party “Fair Russia” has proposed new system of taxation for foreign films. The rates of “progressive profits tax” would depend on quantity of cinemas where foreign films are showed. In case if film is showed in 80-100% of cinemas in country the rate would be 20%, in a case of 60-80% the rate would be 15%, in a case of 40-60% the rate would be 10%, in a case of 20-40% the rate would be 5, in a case of less than 20% the rate would be 0%.

Russian IP ombudsman Anatoly Semenov has accused Russian accredited CMOs – Russian Authors Society (RAO), All-Russian Organisation of Intellectual Property (VOIS) and Russian Union of Right holders (RSP) – and Russian Ministry of Culture (MinCult) of conflict of interests. Ministerial officials are affiliated with CMOs.