So let me let me first welcome you this Wednesday morning to the New America Foundation My name is Sasha Meinrath. I'm the director of the Open Technology Institute Here and our focus is more on sort of the tech telecom side of New America's work and I'm particularly excited to have this joint event with the Heinrich-Bohl Foundation Transatlantic Dialogue, so we've got a number of key players from the EU the German scene Here to discuss some of their thoughts and perspectives on what's happening with regards to online privacy and security and We're going to start with a keynote address From a Danny Weitzner who will be introduced momentarily I think you will agree at the end of his talk that he's probably one of the most knowledgeable people in the u.s. Government today working on these issues, and I'm very thankful That he is here there inside the belly of the beast holding the line often and I'm also excited that we'll have a pretty amazing panel of folks that are Incredibly knowledgeable, you know, I think about Congress critters here in the u.s. Versus MPs over in the EU, and I'm like yeah, they hold their own in a way that perhaps in the u.s There's the staffers know a lot, but They will I'm sure have a lot of interesting things to say. I'm going to turn it over right now To Patrick who is where is Patrick right there? Patrick Lucy who's a recent addition to the open technology Institute team, but definitely a rising star Amongst us he also does a mean Bernie Sanders impression if you can catch him on a good evening and over pints But he's done phenomenal work He's actually the wizard behind the curtain that's helped pull all of this together And also happens to be a joint u.s. German citizen and fluent in German and a soccer affection auto He may be more German in fact than American, but no he will introduce Danny and get us started today So thank you very much for coming Thank You Sasha Again, my name is Patrick, and I'm a policy researcher here at the open tech Institute And I've been the one helping coordinate events for the DC portion of this German delegation's visit here, and it's a big honor to introduce Daniel Weitzner He is the deputy chief technology officer for internet policy in the office of science technology policy at the White House He was centrally involved in the Report the consumer data privacy and networked world that the administration released earlier this year Also known as the consumer privacy bill of rights In addition to that his areas of responsibility include online privacy cyber security internet copyright protection and the global Free flow of information on the internet Part of joining the White House He was associate administrator for policy at the Commerce Department's national Telecommunications and Information Administration Prior to his service in the Obama administration Mr. Weitzner founded the MIT C-sale Decentralized information group whose mission is to reach to research Social and technical aspects of the world Wide Web He taught internet policy at MIT's electrical engineering and computer science department and was policy director of the World Wide Web Consortium Daniel mr. Weitzner co-founded and was the deputy director of the Center for Democracy and Technology And was deputy policy director at the electronic frontier Foundation Mr. Weitzner Thanks so much Phil. I'm really so grateful to be here. Thanks to Sasha for the very kind pre introduction I don't think I'm often introduced twice But but I appreciate it It's wonderful to be here with colleagues from the Heinrich Boehl Foundation and I Actually had the privilege of attending the opening of the internet The Internet and Society Institute in Berlin at the von Humboldt University So it's great to see the the flourishing of Research into these issues in Germany and across Europe and around the world You have a wonderful panel and what I thought I would do is just try to give a bit of a Framing view of how we as an administration look at the broader questions of internet policy I'll focus on our privacy approach, but want to try to give you a sense of a broader approach, you know Having been work having worked on these issues for probably too long My frame of reference is really very much the internet policy of the the mid 90s when the internet first kind of came On the scene it was this sort of cool new thing and everyone was very excited about it And the question was what was the approach and the approach of course in the US Especially and even to a large extent in Europe was a very much a kind of a hands-off the internet approach That was the bumper sticker for for approaching Regulation or the legal issues associated with the internet and I think in many ways that approach served The goals of innovation serve the goals of making sure that the the internet could develop and and spread around the world Which is of course happened incredibly rapidly, but I think we recognize now Some some 15 almost 20 years later that The internet has gone from as my friend Karen corn blue the US ambassador to the OECD Says it's gone from a exciting side show to the main show It's obviously at the center of so much in our society It was certainly at the center of the administrations Thinking about a number of public policy issues so for us the the internet was not just a Kind of a sector that we had to make sure to pay attention to it was really an enabler for a huge number of Core public policy goals that we have it was an enabler of health care reform through health information technology. It's an enabler of Energy conservation through smart grid initiative. It's an enabler of education reform Through personalized learning and new delivery of educational services just to name a few It's also, you know, we've come to understand Central to to to our economy overall the internet doesn't actually get counted in Economic statistics anywhere as a sector, so it's a little confusing and for researchers out there I'd suggest that's a great task for you all to to pick up How do we actually measure and understand what's going on in this environment? But if you took the internet as a sector it ends up It's about three and a half percent of GDP in the top of 15 OECD countries That's a really big part of our economy. It's somewhere between Little bit larger than the education sector a little bit smaller than the transportation sector So this is not this is not a small deal and and I think you can notice just looking at the US government We have a department of education. We have a department of transportation. We don't have a department of the internet And I think that's actually a good thing. I think it's very consistent with the with the horizontal nature of the internet Environment, but it it it raises a number of challenges for us in how we approach public policy questions And has for us at least required that we work very deliberately Across a number of agencies across a number of traditional public policy issues To make sure that we're addressing the internet with seriousness, I Want to just identify three Key attributes of the internet environment that we've that we've kept in mind if we as we've approached a variety of internet public policy issues and those are scale speed and reach we I think we've understand understood from the beginning that the genius of the architecture of the internet both technically and socially in many ways is that it's been able to scale up Really extraordinarily rapidly from something that was a kind of a small little research and academic exercise In the 80s and 90s to to a global Infrastructure Part of that scale is reflected in the fact that just in the US we know that we now have literally hundreds of thousands of small application developers who were who were making a living Engaging an entrepreneurial activity all around the country the assumption by the way is that those those Those small businesses are somehow Concentrated maybe in Silicon Valley, maybe a little bit in New York, maybe a little bit in Boston, but they're actually Why quite widely distributed around the country? We even have a tech sector kind of an independent apps development sector here in Washington, DC, which is an extraordinary thing So we very much want to be able to maintain that that aspect of the the scalability of the internet environment you know when when the US courts first looked at the internet in the context of Free speech questions in in in looking at a first amendment challenge to the Communications Decency Act and Internet censorship law One of the things that the Supreme Court that the US Supreme Court noticed was that applying traditional regulatory approaches that Might have made sense in the broadcasting environment where you had a relatively small number of of actors with a relatively consistent set of business models that applying That set of rules to the Internet environment was really not going to work and the Supreme Court found that it would actually end up restricting expression to apply these very These these restrictive sort of one-size-fits-all rules But I think and and and the Supreme Court actually focused in a way that I think we should really pay attention to that If rules are not very clearly stated, but also flexible the Supreme Court worried that it would chill expression And and chill innovative activity from amongst all these hundreds of thousands of apps developers Amongst all these hundreds of millions of speakers on the internet all around the world So keeping in mind this aspect of scale we think is critical second I think we're all aware of the speed of innovation in the internet environment both the speed of the development of new business models the speed of the development of new Technologies and we are very aware of the fact that we have to make sure that as we approach the development of New rules of new laws that that we may well need in the internet environment We have to make sure that the rules are able to develop flexibly to be able to keep up with the speed of innovation both in New businesses and and and new technologies if we don't do that Consumers suffer because they remain unprotected and businesses in innovation suffer because they're they're uncertain about what their obligations are finally, I Think we can see that the internet obviously has a global reach It's had that from the very beginning in principle, but I think it's fair to say that it's only In the last five to ten years that we've actually see that realized in practice I think that we understand that any Business that operates on the web is by definition a global business any individual who speaks on the web is by definition Speaking globally any organization that engages in political activity is by definition Operating on a global stage now and I think this is one of our central challenges In internet policymaking and I think especially appropriate to the discussion with our visitors today Is that on the one hand? I think we understand that We are not likely to have a Grand treaty that answers all questions of internet public policy arrive on the stage anytime soon It's not clear it would be a good idea to do that at all But it's pretty clear that even if we all thought it was a good idea. We probably wouldn't get there And personally I think that's probably just as well But what it does mean is that we have to work very hard to make sure that we Even though we understand we're not going to have a single Set of precise rules that can apply to all activity on the internet that we try to build The legal systems that are developing around the world in response to the internet that we try to build These systems based on as much as possible based on a common set of principles I want to talk in particular about how we apply these these three requirements scale speed and reach in in the privacy the consumer privacy work that we've done in the administration and I'll very quickly just just highlight what our approach has been and Illustrate how how it connects with this model As Sasha mentioned back in February we released the administration's consumer privacy bill of rights at the White House it was the product of several years of of work across a number of agencies in the US government a number of cabinet agencies Product of very close consultation with the Federal Trade Commission and actually a product of quite a bit of dialogue with our allies and partners all around the world It was product of quite a bit of dialogue in particular with with the European Commission and with with European member states Because of the fact that we recognize that any framework we would develop here in the US Needed to make sense in a in a global context as well Our framework the consumer privacy bill of rights really has two key components It starts off with a broad set of of principles based on the traditional fair information practices But updated to address what we think are some of the challenges and the opportunities of the online environment It emphasizes in particular the importance of individual control over how Information is collected and used and also it emphasizes the importance of establishing respect for context I think we all understand in our daily lives that that we Engage in quite a bit of sharing of personal information in the creation of quite a bit of personal information that we make very widely Available, but at the same time I think we also understand that that we have Expectations about how that information will be used about whether the context in which it was originally created is respected in subsequent uses so we think that That that consumers really have a right to have respect for the context in which their their personal information is Used all of these principles are based on the the globally recognized fair information practice principles on the OECD Privacy guidelines that have been a guide for the world since 1980 and in that sense We've really tried to to address this requirement of the reach of the internet to make sure that when US companies Look at the consumer privacy bill of rights comply with it We hope as much as possible that they will be actually also complying with a global set of norms that Where I think this framework is is is somewhat different from what we've had what we've seen before in traditional Regulatory frameworks is that we've said it's very important that we be able to implement the consumer privacy bill of rights in a flexible rapid and scalable manner so For us these these seven principles in the consumer privacy bill of rights Right away Are serving as a guide for the development of what we have called enforceable codes of conduct We would also like to see these seven principles enacted in statute. We've called on Congress to pass Consumer privacy protection legislation as far as we can tell we are the first White House at least in modern times ever to call on on on Congress to do this Of course administrations have supported sectoral privacy Legislation in areas such as health privacy and financial privacy, but we're now calling for a comprehensive consumer privacy protection statute But while Congress is is figuring out how to do that We have asked the Commerce Department to convene industry groups Privacy advocates federal and state regulators and academic experts To take the consumer privacy bill of rights and implement them in enforceable codes of conduct and let me just unpack what that means So that means number one And the Commerce Department has already started to do this the Commerce Department has identified Mobile Services as an area in which it's important to develop a clear code of conduct The Commerce Department is taking the principles working with a number of stakeholders to Understand how to express those general principles in the context of mobile services Secondly, we think that this this this set of this code of conduct that will come out of this this process of a stakeholder dialogue should be enforceable at The Federal Trade Commission under their traditional section 5 authority Meaning that that companies or industries that take on the obligations of the of the code of conduct developed through the Commerce process Will then be accountable to those principles Individuals or organizations will have the ability to complain to the FTC if they see a violation of those principles and just as you've seen The FTC act against a number of major Internet services Internet platforms in the last few years the FTC has the authority today to Make sure that the promise is made by companies in the context of these codes of conduct are enforceable and actionable This is what gets called a multi stakeholder policymaking process I want to say and it's it's called that Obviously because of the range of stakeholders that we think must be involved in developing Any kind of internet policy, but I do want to say very clearly what multi stakeholder Policymaking is not it is not a code word for deregulation. We've done that. We've tried that When when the Commerce Department Secretary Gary Locke now our ambassador to China Released the initial administration consumer privacy proposals. He said very clearly We need more than just self-regulation We believe on the one hand that that the the energy behind self-regulation the flexibility of self-regulation can be a valuable Component can be a valuable strategy in developing flexible internet policy But it is very clear to us that we need to do more than just say the market will take care of all these problems all by themselves That's why we put out this code of conduct of this this consumer privacy bill of rights as a set of expectations For for all companies and as a set of rights that we believe Consumers are entitled to and that's why we have called on the Commerce Department to use its convening Authority, it's bully pulpit authority to make sure to actually begin implementing This consumer privacy bill of rights quickly I Think that for the purposes of this discussion There's one thing that really ought to be clear that while occasionally There's but there have been suggestions that somehow The United States cares less about privacy Europe cares more about privacy I think it really ought to be clear based on this administration's actions over the last several years That while it is the case that we certainly have different approaches to privacy between the u.s. In Europe that that that the commitment to to strong privacy protection in the United States is is absolutely clear And that and that we all U.s. And Europe of many other countries Face what I think is a common challenge in making sure that in this global internet environment. We have clear enforceable, but flexible Privacy rules that can be complied with all around the world by new services as they develop I Want to Briefly just touch on the way in which this model That we've developed in the case of consumer privacy this model of broad principles Implementing flexible codes of conduct Applies in other in other cases. There was a lot of attention obviously to the copyright debate the online copyright debate in the United States We had a big Debate about the SOPA and PIPA legislation as an administration We've made it very clear that we think that the problem of global Piracy is a critical one. It's one that needs to be addressed. It's one that we are working very hard on We work very hard with our allies to make sure we have strong enforcement efforts around the world But I think the motivation behind this legislation was to make sure that the gaps that exist around the world The fact that there are Refuges really for privacy is something that we think is is is not a tolerable situation That and that we need a stronger We need stronger mechanisms for enforcement Of intellectual property rights in the online environment that said we also took very seriously these principles that I articulated of Scale speed and reach and said that we would not support legislation that reduces freedom of expression That increases cybersecurity risk or that would undermine the dynamic of innovation in the internet environment we we we called on Congress to Try to find a more targeted Legislative model but in the meantime again just as we've done with privacy We've been working very hard with a variety of industry groups and other stakeholders To make sure that we can that we have good best practices that are complied with by US companies And we hope by companies all around the world to make sure that we have specific and effective ways of addressing issues such as The problem of counterfeit pharmaceuticals online And the problem of other kinds of infringement that we think in many cases can be addressed By through a voluntary set of best practices that companies can adopt that they can adopt We think very importantly in a transparent fashion with input from from all the stakeholders So we're applying this model across a range of Environments We're also very interested in how this model can apply in the trade context There's been a lot of discussion obviously About the need to extend Some of our free trade commitments into the internet environment. We did this quite Effectively I think in the telecom services environment in the 90s we really Again recognizing the global reach of the internet environment Commitment to free flow of information commitment to freedom of expression online and to to Limiting barriers to market access for internet services and cloud computing services is a critical Priority for us we began a discussion of this issue With our allies and trading partners at the OECD Last year the 34 OECD member states came together in support of a set of internet policy making principles And and some of those principles we are now taking and applying particularly principles on the free flow of information We are taking and applying In the context of trade agreements that we are that we're now negotiating In the in the OECD principles We also looked carefully at some of the other questions of internet governance in particular the role of what we think are the Critically important internet institutions such as the internet engineering task force the worldwide web consortium I can and many of the other bodies that really Function globally to make the internet actually work as as I think some of you may be aware There are discussions now in various parts of the United Nations that would That raised the question of whether the UN should perhaps assert Some kind of formal multilateral control over the over the operation of these of these internet institutions We've said very clearly that we think this would be an enormous mistake. It would be harmful to Both the the innovation environment in the internet We think it would be harmful to the free expression environment in the internet if we subject the free flow of information that currently exists on the internet to a UN kind of one country one vote style of governance, and we're very much engaged in this issue I Want to just close by saying that for us We very much view the internet as a work in progress It has been developing as you all know quite rapidly over the last several decades But what we know is that only about 30% of the world's population has access to the internet in any form About two billion users That leaves by today's population measure another five billion people who are not yet served who are not yet participating in the The the information at the open information environment that that is so important in the internet and and we think that in many ways Much of the innovation that is necessary to be able to make sure that the internet can reach those people can serve them can provide the Kinds of applications they need the kinds of services they need the kind of support for democratic institutions and and and open economies Is only just beginning so there's a tendency I think at this moment to say oh well we have this thing It's all kind of done It all works well. It's in our homes. It's in our businesses It's on our our mobile devices but I think it's a mistake to look at the internet as a as a as a completed Platform I think we ought to look at it as something that's just getting started that still has tremendous potential to to extend the benefit It already offers to parts of the world and More important than anything else we have to make sure that that in the next phase of the internet's development It's based on the same principles of openness and free expression And and rapid innovation that has been so successful in the past. So let me thank again, New America and I think I'm happy to take a question or two Sasha depending on how your timing is Ryan Berry Washington correspondent for Euro politics just on the The bill of rights and the multi stakeholder process if I understand rightly that The idea is that there's a voluntary but enforceable code of conduct But if it's voluntary then a company doesn't have to sign up to it So if a company was to choose not to sign up to it then the FTC couldn't enforce anything because it hadn't promised anything So have you sort of recognized that potential loophole and what are you going to do about that? It's a good question Good morning. I'm dr. Susan Aronson from GW I wanted to ask you if the United States is out there negotiating also to provisions and trade agreements Do you I'm having a little trouble. I'm sorry. That's great. I'm dr. Susan Aronson from George Washington University Thanks for your comments The United States and other countries are negotiating also to provisions related to the internet in their trade agreements and the language is Similar but not the same and I wonder if We might before we do all this start looking at what are the Actual barriers like have GAO or the ITC do a study of the actual barriers to flew free flow of information on the internet So that we know that our language in these trade agreements actually meets the problem That's a good question. Let me address the the privacy question first. So the gentleman's it is exactly correct today No company is obligated to implement the consumer privacy bill of rights in any fashion however, and and and because of that we've called on Congress to enact a privacy protection statute that would in fact Make this set of rights Actional bought by consumers and binding on companies. We think it's time to do that We think we've articulated a framework that has a clear set of rights and that provides business Adequate flexibility to make sure that they can continue to innovate and grow in the meantime, however we believe that number one there are many companies who have come forward and expressed an interest and a willingness to developing these codes of conduct and are prepared to be bound by them the the vast majority of The major commercial entities in the US on the internet in fact Do have privacy policies today and in fact are bound to whatever their provisions are Under the the Federal Trade Commission Act What we're proposing to do what we're able to do absent action from Congress, which is not a body that we control is is to is to continue the kind of of of discussion that has happened about what these Voluntary policies are that companies take on but to provide a greater sense of of structure and a clearer sense of rights that we Think ought to be reflected in those privacy policies again. No one has to listen to us but we do We do feel that it's our responsibility to establish what we think are the set of rights that consumers are entitled to And we are working very hard with companies to make sure that they're actually prepared to implement them and and and offer them And then once that happens, we're very confident that the Federal Trade Commission Will be able to enforce them because I think they've shown over the last few years in particular a Very real willingness to to hold large global companies account for any violations of their privacy policies to Professor Aronson's question about how much we know about trade barriers. I think certainly There is always more to learn about about evolving trade practices, I will say that Really beginning Quite some time ago the The the the ITA at the Department of Commerce in the USTR have been keeping careful track of the Barriers that emerge in in in countries around the world Companies come and and Tell us about problems they're having often those problems show up in the in the news We had a dialogue over a period of years at the OECD which led to these internet policy making principles that did identify some barriers such as requirements in certain countries that Data had to be kept in any given country the the local storage requirement We've identified as a real barrier to the development of internet services I have no doubt that there's more to learn and I think it's a very important research exercise But we we know a fair amount now about today's barriers and are committed to being able to address them So thanks All right, so if I could get Patrick to come on up here We I know we're standing room only there's going to be a couple seats in the front if the panel can come up as well Some of you that are standing up right now. There's seats right up here Hello again As I mentioned earlier, I'm a German-American dual citizen, which is why I think he asked me to introduce people to help with the correct pronunciation we Have Konstantin von Nutz who is a member of the German Parliament the Bundestag From the Schleswig-Holstein region of Germany. He is a member of the the German Green Party He is a spokesperson on internal affairs and internet policy We also have Marcus Becadal who is founder of the netspolitik.org blog ten years ago and has been blogging there since He is also co-founder of new thinking communications and the new thinking store and he also hosts Republica, which is one of Germany's largest blogging and social media conferences We have Jeanette Hoffmann She is director and co-founder of the Alexander von Humboldt Institute's internet and policy Research Center and she's also a research fellow at the Wissenschaft Zentrum Berlin Social-Forschung or the Social Science Research Center in Berlin And lastly we have for the American perspective. We have Gigi zone In DC she almost needs no introduction. She is internationally known communications attorney and telecom policy expert She is the president and CEO of public knowledge She's frequently quoted in the New York Times watching the post in Wall Street Journal She's been published at the Washington Post variety Seen at in legal times and she's appeared on numerous television and radio programs including the today show C spans Washington Journal NPR is all things considered morning edition PBS news hour and she is a has testified at many congressional hearings in the past and I Guess I'll reintroduce our fearless leader here at OTI Sasha All right, so to get us started. I thought I'd give everyone a few minutes just to give us perspectives on sort of the Lay of the land how you view kind of things that are happening around online rights and piracy piracy privacy Copyright and etc Just give a feel for Some of the issues that you're dealing with on a day-to-day basis some of the conundrums or tensions that you see In the work and the work of those that you are collaborating with We'll follow that up with a few questions from myself Which will lead directly into the highlight of the morning, which will be audience and Q&A for the panelists, so why don't we just start here we can work our way down and Konstantin if you'd like to begin. Thank you. Thanks Sasha. Good morning everybody Thanks for the introduction Patrick and thanks for the possibility To share some thoughts this morning I just want to give you a short input on the current discussion in Europe and Germany on private privacy issues Connected with the internet and mobile communication To start with the one question. I always get asked many Germans get asked In those discussions about privacy and the view on that subject in Germany the question So why is it? Such a sensitive subject in your country, but you always discuss the Supposed problems first and not the chances and the profits of the whole development is that the German angst the German fear And I actually think there are two main reasons for that Sensibility that is actually there I guess The first it has indeed an effect on our legislation and the whole approach to the subject that Germany has Confronted two different totalitarian regimes in the recent history and Second, I think there is some kind of cultural different approach But I'm convinced that the US debate on privacy and the fundamental changes and problems just started And I assume that it is going to be a very intense discussion also over here So I think we will be actually very close on that subject in the end the whole concept of privacy in Germany is Based on the understanding that the only player on the field able to threat the privacy of the individual by ability to actually collect Massive data to scan it to evaluate it to praise it is the government Well, obviously today new technologies have absolutely changed that Today single companies even with just a few employees can collect massive amounts of data and algorithms help algorithms help to administrate and utilize these data an Example for that fundamental technical driven change to the discussion is the whole good old debate on how many video Observation in public space or how much video Observation in public space we can take before the privacy is Destroyed all these old arguments get absolutely irrelevant In times that because of movement profiling through smartphone All our movements get tracked to the meter I get tracked and profiled where I stand where I go where a shop where I sleep and Where I go on vacations or on a business trip like this without a single camera in the public space Another area for the fundamental change is the relation between the employee and the employer There are today technical Possibilities and ways to control and to scan employees that led in Germany to a very strong discussion about Employee data data protection to protect that very sensitive relation between Those who work and those who give work to make it short. I Think the key to the whole discussion on privacy in times of the internet digitalization and mobile communication is trust The trust of the individual not to be scammed to the bone Evaluated in any way tracked everywhere controlled and watched around the clock But all this is technically possible today and privacy does not care if the data is collected For governmental control and security or for private economically reasons But it contradicts our free society fundamentally and privacy is not something nice to have it is I think in the U.S. As well as in Germany a fundamental constitutional right The government has to protect So I believe we need strong legislation on privacy. It is absolutely no political subject So we agree on that You can leave to self-regulation We need a very clear frame for dealing with data and win the sustainable trust of the people For technologies that actually our society can benefit from immensely as I'm convinced one last thought in Europe especially in Germany. We have a very strong political dispute About what we call I hope you to mandatory data suspension Here the legislator in Europe and in Germany is doing the exact opposite of what I have described What we actually need the government government wants to use Private companies to collect very relevant very very sensitive Data about people for the case it could use these informations for various reasons in 2010 our Supreme Court has overruled the data suspension law from 2007 but there are still Relevant political parties and people in Germany and Europe that are trying to restart This whole approach They are on the very wrong track of the autobahn instead of protecting Individual rights through law and regulation. They delegitimize Techniques and business models So it is a in my point of view a political obligation to stop those kind of political approaches and I'm Very convinced together with a stronger growing civil society movement. We can Take have a very positive effect on these fast developing issues Thanks so much Thank You Constantine. Let's turn it over to Marcus who I saw you just put on a a Hoodie which in the United States is a dangerous undertaking But please if you could give sort of some of the some of the things that you're working on as well Thank you. It's a bit cold for me as a European We are not we don't have so much air condition So I was asked to talk about Akta you might know Akta is an international trade agreement The United States already signed We haven't or the European Union tried to but the whole process failed in Europe and I Could speak for ours how it failed, but I just have five minutes. So I Shall be short you know so by people a debate in As the United States, it's your country we were blogging about Akta since 2008 the Agreement or the debate started in 2006, but it was totally invisible. It was intransparent and Nobody knew that there was happening something in 2008. There were the first leaks of the Akta agreement and It was the whole horror List of the entertainment industry what they demand a bit of so far, but it was a bit more horrible So over the next three and a half years there was a debate within some organizations within some Yeah Circles around internet policy, but nobody took care and then the so paper people debate started here in the United States then there was the black witness day or the 17th of January where the Wikipedia Went offline and this was a very big story in German media because Wikipedia was gone Not in Germany, but in the United States and we tried to spin to tell the press. Okay our So paper is Akta you have to take care about and in the beginning it didn't work But then something happened what nobody had expected in Poland Poland is the next country to the right side of Germany and you might know In Poland lots of Protesters started jumping in the evening against Akta They jumped because it was very cold minus 20 degrees or something like that but they feared that Akta would Would control their online lives and then something strange happened The opposition in the Polish Parliament They started to use the anti-akta protests to be against the government and lots of other things, but In the next days and weeks more and more Polish people were jumping and after Two weeks German media started to report about it because the pictures were nice jumping Polish people something with internet Nobody knew it some anonymous masks and nice story for TV and We thought about doing our own protests in Germany and there was With lots of partners in other European countries. We started the first international action day against Akta on the 11th of February and we expected in Berlin 600 people we told the police so we hope maybe there will be 600 people because it was very cold minus 10 degrees And it's a day. We had 10,000 people in Germany in Berlin We had up to 100,000 people in 60 cities all around Germany and all the youth were on the street to fight for a free internet So nobody of us expected it. There are lots of parameters why this came But I don't have the time but this day changed everything. It was a bit like a revolution for us Mainstream media started to report about Akta. We were in the in the TV news we were on the front pages of all the newsletters newspapers and magazines and it took one or two weeks until the counter revolution started Starting from the newspapers where Our demand was we need to reform copyright and the counter revolution was oh we need a stronger copyright and since then we have a debate on copyright reform in Germany and We waited 10 years for such a debate in the moment. The debate is very heated. So we all hope it will be come down but it was our chance to to demand something to demand that we need something like a right to remix a Bit similar to your fair use. We don't have fair use in Europe. Everything is forbidden. What makes fun When it comes to remix so we are allowed to do remixes on our computers in our home But we are not allowed to share our remixes with you or with other people online. That's a big problem We also have since 10 years only one way dealing with sharing dealing with file sharing. It's only more control more surveillance and Yeah, it doesn't work even in a police state. You can't forbid sharing We need to develop develop other models. So this is a debate which started in Germany I think it will take the next generation to solve the problem It's always a problem with international treaties and the United States must be our partner in finding new solutions, but at the end in the beginning of july We won actor in the european parliament This was a very short way to beginning of july a lot of things happened before and this was The Battle against actor had similar dimension. It was so many people young people went on the streets So the members of the european european parliament just started to think about what is actor Oh, we have to vote on what are the arguments they listen to our arguments and we had good arguments and then there was another dimension in the actor debate because It might be similar to united states our european commission as the state department or something like that they Did the deal on actor and it was totally Intransparent even to the members of european parliament and the european parliament is strong now It's stronger than two or three years ago because of the lisp on treaty So they have much more power, but the european commission didn't understood that they have more power and they felt like in the past They are the kings and the european parliament just have to say yes to everything And the european parliament or the members of the european parliament They decided to vote no on actor because our arguments were strong and it was a Yeah situation of showing their power against the european commission that in the future they can't Do a behavior like this anymore and just was my short overview. Thank you Thanks marcus. You crammed a lot of info into a relatively short period of time Let's turn it over to janette who's coming out of sort of more of an academic framework But weighing in on probably one of the most contentious political issues entertaining Um, I'd like to get back to danie whitesner's keynote He mentioned the fact that in that the regulation of the internet was for a long time something almost forbidden We all started in the 1990s with a strong Handoff approach and it perhaps only changed when we got this debate about net neutrality when people Came to realize that the market perhaps is not the best guarantee to keep freedoms on the internet I since then came to realize that the whole debate about internet regulation Is somewhat schizophrenic because there has been strong regulation for a long time. It's not related to the internet architecture, but to content Copyright laws do represent a for a strong form of regulation That in fact governs more and more of what we do on the internet So there is already regulation But when we think of internet governance and internet regulation We think of icon as opposed to un and similar things and as danie mentioned We come to think of this in terms of mighty stakeholder dialogue and how to include civil society, etc Etc soft regulation is also a key word in this In this realm, but I think we it's about time that we apply such principles also To the field of copyright regulation. We do need to open this field Of copyright regulation to civil society Interests and concerns the very fact that we still have trade negotiations that are completely secluded open only to intergovernmental arrangements And the few lobbyists that is just not acceptable anymore because it affects everybody's Daily life. So these principle of mighty stakeholder approaches more transparency Really needs to be applied to future negotiations of trade agreements in general and copyright legislation in principle Now a few words to the domestic situation in Germany as you might have heard We've got a new party the pirate party which claims to be the sort of representative body of the generation of digital natives Whether that will whether that is so and remains so is an open question because it's a very young young party growing fast at the moment being very Successful at state level elections They got between seven and eight percent and three state level elections recently And they do have as it seems a major impact on sort of established politics Danny mentioned the fact that the internet has Evolved from a sort of exotic or interesting sideshow to the main show And this is also going on in Germany right now And that is thanks to the pirate party as you may know the way politics work The only thing relevant is that might affect their power and the pirate party to some degree is Challenging the political landscape the established parties in Germany since they are so successful at elections The topics they have Come to be associated with Really rapidly enter into the sort of central field of politics and all parties Nowadays have to have their experts on Digital politics they have to sort of Twitter have to Twitter Sort of organize conferences workshops and meetings to show how Concerned they are about Development of the internet and it's regulation. So there is really a change going on in the political discourse in Germany and What we hope whether we are sort of Sympathize with the pirate party or not is that they do also have an impact on how we understand that we develop political Principles that Danny referred to and who is actually getting involved in Developing these principles the the main hope is that Voters will have new avenues and means to express their concerns except for Voting once every so many years. Thank you So to bring down that cleanup we have gg son copyright acta online rights Do you have anything to say on these topics? So good morning everybody. I just want to say I want to take her home I want I want you to come work for public knowledge and I also want to thank marcus for the great work that he's done on acta you really Is amazing and that's the first I want to make three points the first point I want to make is that the last 10 months In the political sphere, you know, the digital rights issues have just exploded. I've been working on this type of These type of issues first media communications policy now internet policy What 23 24 years and the last 10 months it's like it's been unbelievable Uh digital rights issues whether they be access openness Balanced copyright and patent and trademark and privacy are now sewn into the political fabric not only of this country But obviously overseas as well And it's funny that Danny mentioned the sideshow Quote because that's exactly what I had written. It's not a sideshow anymore It is it is really the main event and politicians and industry have to beware I mean we are not yet at the point in the united states where people are voting people out of office based on their vote on sopa pippa But we're getting darn close I mean lamar smith, uh, who's the the the chair of the judiciary committee I mean there were billboards in his district and he didn't get voted out at the primary But maybe the next time in two years he runs he better beware So so the fact that people are now actually saying Oh, how did my member vote on sopa pippa? How are they going to vote on the trans pacific partnership agreement when that comes before the congress? That is a major sea change. Uh, that's really only just happened in the last 10 months So I think that that's critically important. The second point I want to make is about The love affair with multi stakeholderism and it's our government's love affair and it's other government's love affair But before I do that I want to make absolutely clear that what I say about multi stakeholderism has absolutely nothing to do With my organization's position on whether the itu should get jurisdiction over the internet We agree with the u.s. Government heartily And we we agree with our friends and industry people We normally knock the living daylights out of every day a tnt horizon that the itu's Jurisdiction should not expand so lin stanton I hope you will report that to everybody because the last time I said these things about multi stakeholderism The chair of the in-house energy and commerce committee got up and mentioned my name and took my quote out of context in the middle of a hearing And I was like emailing his staffer saying what the hell are you doing? That's not what I said And finally apologized, but um, so I want to make that absolutely clear It was interesting what danie said what multi stakeholderism is not it's funny that nobody actually really articulate what it is But people could say what it is not He says it's not a code word for deregulation I can assure you as somebody who is currently the co-chair Of a multi-stakeholder group called the broadband internet technology advisory group Which looks at reasonable network management and sort of the net neutrality context I can tell you that that is not a universal definition, particularly among industry players And the b-tag actually was set up so that the fcc would not adopt network neutrality regulations I'm quite confident of that. Why am I the chair? We can have another conversation about that. I still think it's an important body There's really nobody looking at these issues from an engineering perspective Uh, and this is actually this body has worked out But but the fact that it is a code word for deregulation for some And while I I do think that in some instances Multi-stakeholderism can be good is not the magic feather. You need to have strong government backup I'm glad this administration believes that I don't know if the next administration if we have a change Will believe that but that's critical peter swire has written about this in the privacy context The other thing that concerns me about the love affair with multi-stakeholderism is Civil society involvement and the lack thereof the resources for groups like mine and groups like sasha's and Epic and cdt and eff are not unlimited And if the only way we're going to make internet policy is through multi-stakeholder groups, there's just not enough of us Worldwide there's not enough of us. So somebody's going to have to solve the resource problem Yeah, I don't know, you know, I think in europe tell me if i'm wrong There's there's more of a tradition of government supporting civil society groups There is okay great. So i'm wrong Just makes matters worse And there are just some questions that government need to decide The only thing I disagreed with you on was when you talked about net neutrality as as internet regulation It is not Okay, it is is regulating the on ramps to the internet and that's different And and I do think in some of the conversations around the itu There's this meme that oh, you know, we don't want to regulate the internet like we regulate the telephone And that is code for we don't want to regulate internet access The way we regulate the telephone and we really have to We have to kind of split that off because it really is very different on the other hand I agree with every single thing you say about copyright My last point and that's transparency And that is where this I will say my country, which I love very much has been Grossly disappointing Particularly, uh, I see Susan Aronson who I spoke to on the phone for a long time nodding her head up and down And the issue of trade it's untenable And and and what is really hypocritical is that on one hand The us government is doing the right thing and pushing the itu to be more transparent And the itu just came out with this faux transparency Uh proposal Going forward, which was very very disappointing in which we criticized heartily So on the one hand, they're pushing the itu to be transparent on the other hand I don't know what else My organization and the organizations working on tpp need to do to convince ambassador kirk To be more open with trade agreements the answer I get from them is this is the way we've always done it That is no longer acceptable In a multinational environment in an internet world for international policymaking So I am concerned that what the us is doing over here at the us tr is hurting our advocacy over here at the itu Thank you g g all right I have a quick question for each of the panelists and then we're going to open it up for audience q&a And i'll just start here again and go down so constant and you'd mentioned in your comments The need for a clear framework for dealing with data and i'm curious You know, do you see Movement towards sort of a digital bill of rights or some something that would enshrine that in terms of consumer protections Either in germany e you writ large Well right now we have the debate about the Um Data's protection Directive yeah, which is a Which is going to be a very huge discussion because pretty much every Company is affected by by what is going to be Uh Ruled in there. They have a very short time frame and my colleague and friend Jan-Philippe albrecht in the european parliament Green party colleague is actually Dealing that whole issue and it is The attempt to get at least for 500 million europeans one frame and um We said in the political debate around that subject that it is worth trying I see a lot of problems because of many many different interests trying to get their Interests into that debate and we will see how strong This legislative act will be in the end, but in times of a global internet it makes Not very much sense anymore to to just have a national perspective on Especially subjects like Data protection or net neutrality or whatever So, um, I think we're trying that Safe harbor is an example from our point of view That international wise transatlantically it doesn't work that well. Yeah And um But but I think as the debate speeds up In germany as well as in the u.s. There will be A higher pressure To find international working frames for those subjects Great. Thank you Marcus I You know it's interesting in the dc context I looked at groups like public knowledge some of the work that we're doing a lot of our allies That are in the space is kind of the watch dogs for government and industry malfeasance in a lot of these spaces I love the idea. I would love to see sort of a jump-a-thon for the people like in front of congress I think that would be amazing But i'm curious about the roles that like some of the organizations you're a part of net politic or republica are playing How this intersects kind of with the protests themselves and their role In being a watchdog on what's happening right now in terms of acta in particular but beyond acta as well Oh So the question was what net politic and republica Which role they are playing all that these organizations are playing right now in terms of their impact on politics and policies That's a bit complex. So net politic is my block. It's a multi user block now So around 10 or 20 friends are blogging there about internet policy and we try to cover most of the topics around germ national politics european politics a lot of us politics because it affects us and everything else net politic is one main Note within the new network public sphere Which is rising in germany So you have always to say we are a german block we block in germ I think most of you are not able to read us So we have our language island So only around 100 million people are able to read us theoretically Most of them don't do it I mean How many followers do you have? It's really a big thing Yeah, but um our goal at net politic is to cover most of the issues and to inform and educate our readers And we always do it in a form like We report about something and we mostly give options how to be active against something and We are still in the grassroots level. We found that a come an organization one year ago Digital economic saleshaft a role model was public knowledge So we cover similar topics like net neutrality and it's A bit hard to found such an organization because we have another fundraising culture in germany We don't have governments spending our money on NGOs they have their own state organizations like the data protection agencies or consumer protection agencies but Which are not really NGOs like public knowledge or us But we know we have to develop lots of new organizations like you have done in the united states and it's a long step and we try to build up such a movement and we also try to Yeah to develop tools to be able to Fight for digital rights better in the future. We need campaigning tools and stuff like that and we are building a big Coalition around europe We have 27 member states in europe with 20 different languages or even more I don't know, but it's even hard. Um, but there's european digital rights I don't know if you know it etri.org And on etri.org, um, we have a coalition with around 30 member organizations from all over europe and we try To share resources and it's a hard way because most of the organizations have only people Being Activists in the spare time. We don't have resources, but it's a good way We think we are and the fight against akta showed that We are able to Start a transnational trans european movement Lot of people didn't accept it that it would be able because of all the language barriers But we won akta and we hope that we will win further future Challenges too Great. Thank you. And for those that might be interested and german reading What would be the url? They should point their browser to to check this out our nets politic.org and digitalegesellschaft.de and etri.org. It's english And now you're saying we have to be at a spell too, right? Very good. Jeanette, uh, right right before actually, uh, we got on stage We were having what i find a fascinating conversation kind of about empirical analysis the role of sort of copyright optimization the econometrics and this balance that needs to happen in copyright and i was hoping that you might Talk very briefly about some of that work Okay, as zasha asked me about our newly founded research institute and particularly he wasn't he was interested in what i'm going to focus on And i told him that my contribution to this copyright war that we that now also has reached germany I want to escape it By doing empirical research research on copyright. My idea is that the discussion we have on copyright sort of over emphasizes the importance the relevance of copyright and regulating Um our exchange of cultural goods and i want to show Through case studies what kind of norms actually regulate the trade or the circulation the exchange of information goods And there are indeed quite a lot of areas where copyright doesn't play Isn't as isn't the center stage or might not even play any role fashion. It's an important area Um recipes jokes stand-up comedy comedy Then there are areas like TV formats like big brothers There is no copyright that actually regulates the exchange of and the sort of migration of these formats across the world There are nonetheless licensing agreements that Allow companies to sell such tv formats So what are they based on and what kind of other norms play into this market and in fact regulate this market? so what i want To do is challenge the central assumption that copyright is necessary to prevent market failure I'm not saying that copyright is completely irrelevant. I'm saying it isn't always necessary And it might sometimes have effects not Originally intended and that is one what I want to look at on an empirical basis instead of just adding to the normative debate That in my view ends really leads nowhere Can I just I just want to actually if I could tag on to that The kind of research that I've never seen and it is kind of hard to do is show What innovation has not happened because of copyright. It's kind of it's hard to prove a negative I remember being in a room with a bunch of economists. I don't know. It was like eight nine years ago trying to figure out how you would actually Create a study that would show what what hasn't happened. What's the chilling effect? I mean you have things like, you know, wendy selzer, you know has sort of the chilling effects project But to actually show what innovation doesn't happen You know what licensing doesn't happen except I think it's very very difficult to do Now some of the work you're talking about has been done like chris sprigman who's a professor at university of virginia law Just put out a book about fashion copyright And you know how well the lack thereof and how you have this unbelievably vibrant fashion industry That hasn't stopped people like diane von firstenberg from trying to get copyright protection I almost say let them do it and let them like kill each other in court and see what happens But it is a great example of how Of how you don't need copyright to innovate to make money And I do think there are places where copyright is important But you don't need the maximalist vision of of copyright and copyright enforcement So gg I want to bring this out on perhaps a lighter note I want you to think about What it's like on the other side right so acta Down in flames sopa peepa Massive blow up in public backlash So pretend you're an old white guy smoking cigars in the back corners of the senate social club And I want you to like channel chris dodd and maybe remind people who he is And tell us what if you're on the other side of this, what do you do now? So if people don't know who chris dodd is he is the the president of the motion picture association of america I just have to tell a funny little story or at least I think it's funny So I was at that world supreme court all argument for a case called golon versus holder Which had happened had to do with retroactive copyright rights And I saw chris dodd there and I went up to him and I said hi My name is gg son and the president of public knowledge. He looked at me like I was you know, nobody which of course I am to him And I said and he kind of looked at me and shook hands and I said, well, you'll know who I am soon enough and And I was he I was having lunch the other day at a restaurant Downtown and dodd walked by and he saw me and he's pretty white to begin with but he turned even wider than his hair Is so it's pretty funny. I think he knows who I am now So here's what they're thinking what they're thinking is oh my god These crazy misinformed net roots. They didn't know what they're talking about google, you know had them transfixed by hypnotism They have no minds of their own We can't get what we want right now So what but you know, but we're We're motion picture industry lobbyists So we've got to do something we have to show our bosses in los angeles that They're we're worth the multiple hundreds of thousands of dollars or more If you're chris dodd that they pay us. So here's what they're trying to do They're trying to basically seed more and more copyright enforcement officials ip enforcement officials and every nook and cranny in government And we've already seen this I mean, you know this taupe is what six months dead, right? So just a couple weeks ago smith of all people and more smith introduces this ip attache act, right? Oh, this is benign Yeah, well, you know, it basically allows the the pilot and trademark office to hire as many people as they can afford To enforce copyright now. They already have people like that, okay And it would create a new deputy assistant secretary. It would create a new assistant secretary position. It would These these ip attaches would get promotions and my spouse who works for the state department is over there Knows a lot more about this than I do But would, you know, make them counselors and minister counselors whereas they have now lower positions So basically putting more and more money into ip enforcement and that's not benign Okay, because it says that this government is going to focus on, you know More and more and more ip enforcement the people that take those positions are not gg zone, okay You know, these are people who have drunk the kool-aid. They oftentimes Have come from industry if you look at who's at the pto the copyright office these ip enforcement Offices which are in the state department the comment. They're all over Okay, I wouldn't be surprised if the department of agriculture had an ip enforcement person We actually did a blog post on this which which lists the many people So this is what they're doing now until they can get back To the kind of dns blocking issues that we were talking about before one other thing I need to mention. So that was the first thing that happened in the last couple weeks The second thing that happened was senator stab now of michigan Try to basically put an ip enforcement coordinator in the treasury department This was just last week. So she had introduced an amendment to a trade bill that would have done that So this is the modus operandi Let's just spend more and more of your taxpayer dollars on ip enforcement before we have a national conversation And that's where i'm really jealous about what's going on in germany. We're still not having a national conversation about What is the right balance for ip? What is the right amount of of taxpayer resources that ought to be dedicated to essentially protecting a handful of industries? Great. Yeah, go ahead My expectation would be that The ipr industry will look for areas that look successful to them and merge these courses We see this in the field of security internet Security we can expect this with regard to terrorism and there might be others I'm lacking the fantasy of To sort of come up with examples But it will be sort of merging of agendas and what we saw with actor and this will certainly Go on as well is sort of expanding the network of international agencies that can be used for strengthening ipr enforcement Sort of border control is one of these fields They spend a lot of money on educating these people Sort of making them familiar with the language and the goals and the whole mindset I would expect this to go on as well Absolutely. All right, so let's open it up for audience questions. I'm sure there's many do we have the microphone? Yes We'll start right here the benefits of coming to the front Right here Hello Herr von Notz, thank you for your remarks. Just as interested about politics Why was a pirate party necessary in germany? How come that Movement did not come from within the green party and it's a sincere question I don't know and what are the major policy differences are their major policy differences on these issues between the greens and the pirate party in germany Well That's funny that this is the first question See I kind of have a little Different view on The pirate party story than janette has See the pirate party isn't the the driver of the development Yeah, it is a fruit of what is happening The main thing that is happening in europe and especially in germany is From my understanding that there's actually a civil society movement growing and Yeah, there were 10,000 people in berlin, but there were 600 people in mark the book that is the Quite more interesting number. Yeah That there are people in mark the book going on the street Demonstrating against akta 600 people that is remarkable and that's not something that the pirate party Does or moves they are You know, they they they are swimming on that on that wave. Yeah and I think of course you have a different through the different political system in germany because we have not only this Majority election system, but we get smaller parties too there's The possibility of more differentiating Your political opinions by going to vote And the interesting question for the green party will be Who is giving in the end the more interesting better working answers in in these issues connected to net politics And i'm you won't be surprised. I'm very convinced that this is our party But we will we will see how it how it works. I can't actually say There is some fundamental statement where The pirate party differs From from opinions the greens have see Now not making that to the big subject, but this party has um quite a A high While the public looks very close to them, but that brings good stuff and bad stuff the the party was pretty small They had a thousand thousand people in this party and over the last two years they gained I think now they're above 30 000 people Uh Members oh, sorry members and So so pretty much everyone who always wanted to do politics for some time Got a member of of the pirate party. So we will see in the end who is Able to give differentiated and good answers in this in this subject yeah, and The race is open. We have next year. We have a National elections and we will see how Who gives the better the better answers? This the greens failed like every other party in the uh Five six years ago. The greens had good positions on net policy, but nobody took care Konstantin wasn't in the bonus target that time and might have just started to become a politician but nobody took care about the topic in in every party and so A lot of people coming from this new Rising movement they thought about There's no party we can go into we need to build our own party and That helped To show the other parties that they should take care more on net politics and now There are lots of people experts in every party who try to develop and now Also the spokespersons Of every party they try to be more internet afine And so it helped The interesting thing is that the pirate party attracts lots of young voters first voters and also lots of non-voters So it seems to symbolize something very much anti establishment It's not only internet related topics. It's also that they Cultivate to be very dilatantic sort of The way they address the way they address political topics. They often say things like oh, I have no idea So I can't answer your question either because they haven't decided yet What their position is on an issue or because that individual person Just has not much of knowledge about that area. So they and people seem to like that They sympathize with this non-sleek very a Non-routine approach to politics. That's one thing I wanted to say and the other thing is that from a political science point of view political scientists think of new parties as an expression of a sort of social cleavage or conflict that isn't adequately addressed by The existing landscape of political parties. What we don't know yet is first if Internet related topics are important enough to sort of bring forward a new party And second whether the pirate party actually stands up to the challenge to Establish itself in the sort of party landscape in Germany right now It's even difficult to sort of say something valid about them because they changed so fast Not only because of a new membership a growing membership But also because they are themselves still very uncertain about important topics like copyright They change their opinion rather frequently on these issues also depending on who comes to the meetings And sort of raises his or her voice on such topics And I hate to do this, but we are actually past time and this always seems to happen where like I lose myself I end up with pages of notes. This is like Clearly the the tip of the iceberg on a lot of these issues. And yet I also feel like this is a panel that has Incredible depth of knowledge and where I'm leaving here with a whole variety of different areas that I want to explore some more And with that I'll just say, you know, thank you all for coming and participating in this Thank you all for staying a bit late come and and glob on to them before everyone leaves if you have A dying question that you need to ask, but please join me in thanking this remarkable panel