The KEA Blog

The meaning of Europe? The meaning of a European Cultural Forum?

The European Cultural Forum has just taken place in Brussels on 19 and 20 October 2011.  Every year the Forum gathers institutions and organisations involved and interested in the making of cultural policy at European level. The themes of the Forum are linked to the EU 2020 strategy of the European Commission.

The near collapse of the financial system and the sovereign debt crisis are testing the limits of Europe’s solidarity and as a consequence the essence of the European project.  The cultural movement at the Forum was behaving as if nothing was happening to Europe, or worse that it did not care.  

This was the opportunity for the Cultural Forum to calls on Head of States and Governments to work towards Europe’s unity[1] and keep the European utopia alive.  Culture activists have a special responsibility to keep alive the perspective of a Europe where all Europeans, despite their cultural differences and mental barriers, work for a common destiny and for the promotion of shared values such as democracy, human rights, social solidarity, cultural diversity and tolerance.

Premier League EU Court’s decision set new limit to contractual freedom in copyright

In its awaited decision on the Premier League case rendered on 4 October the EU Court of Justice has concluded the following:

1. The sale, import or use of conditional access devices cannot be restricted unless the devices are illicit.

2. The restriction of the freedom of services can be justified by the protection of intellectual property rights, the subject-matter of which is the right to exploit commercially the marketing or making available the protected content by granting licences in return for payment of remuneration. Accordingly as soon as rights holders are appropriately remunerated, the Court states that they cannot prohibit the use of foreign decoding devices in the Member State not covered by the licence and thus restrict the freedom of services.