I spoke on July 2 in Berlin at a conference organized by the German Standards Agency (DIN) on “Data protection in the EU and Germany – Impediment or basis of our digital future.”  SIIA was one of the sponsors of this important event.  DIN put together a terrific program with a good blend of proponents of European data protection approaches and perspectives from industries in the forefront of data-driven innovation.

A new Congress and a reinvigorated Administration mean legislation of interest to SIIA’s members is likely to pass in 2015.  We intend to be pro-active and vigilant to ensure that this legislation responds to the broad public interest, including preserving and advancing the business interests and opportunities of SIIA’s member companies.

“I fully agree with that,” was the response by Antonio de Lecea, Minister of the EU Delegation to the United States.  IBM’s Steve Stewart had just expressed the view that an EU –US trade agreement resulting from the negotiations on the Transatlantic Trade and Investment Partnership (TTIP) would be an effective place to create a good template for binding rules on cross border data flows.

: BIG DATA, EUROPEAN PARLIAMENT, INTA, PATENT TROLL, PCAST, PTO, TROL ACT, TTIP more

SIIA Submits Comments on U.S. Department of Commerce Green Paper On Friday, SIIA submitted comments to the Internet Policy Task Force in response to its request for public remarks on its Copyright Green Paper. Addressing a majority of the Task Force’s questions, SIIA’s response focused in on the Task Force’s examination of the first sale defense in the digital environment. In summary, SIIA is concerned that potential application of the first sale doctrine to licensed material, or other undue restrictions that may be placed on either the ability of publishers to license or the manner in which publishers license, will make it more challenging for publishers to recoup the investment they have made to develop new products and update existing ones and to widely distribute their products and services to the public in the manner that consumers enjoy today.