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October 5, 2005

felzmann@cox-orange.at

  • To ensure ongoing innovation, DRM development and deployment must remain voluntary and market-driven. Government-mandated technologies quickly become outdated, depriving consumers of new features, increased functionality and potential benefits from new products. Similarly, interoperability among DRM technologies must develop through industry leadership‹as is happening already. Compulsory licensing or other such government imposed standards in this area, whether through administrative decree or via legislative enactments, would be counterproductive and freeze innovation. A free and unfettered market will help DRM technologies flourish by allowing the private sector to do what it does best: innovate, develop and enhance consumer choice. To increase DRM uptake in the EU, national levies regimes must be adapted to reflect the application of DRMS‹as required by the EU Copyright Directive.

or:

  • Despite this mandate, levies regimes in many Member States have not yet been adjusted to reflect the application of DRMS. We encourage the EU to address this issue; the ongoing review of rights management in the EU provides an ideal opportunity. As former European Commissioner for Information Society, Erkki Liikanen, previously stated, ³Levies should be seen as a temporary solution, pending better alternatives in the form of DRMS. This is in the long-term interest of the Information Society and eEurope. DRMS are a better deal for right holders than levies². Carina Felzmann Abg.z.NR Carina Felzmann Vorsitzende creativ wirtschaft austria Cox Orange Marketing & PR GmbH 1070 Wien, Schrankgasse 12/3 T:++43-(0)1/895 56 11-0 F:++43-(0)1/895 56 11-20 felzmann@cox-orange.at www.cox-orange.at www.creativwirtschaft.at www.carina-felzmann.at

Reflection and comments onThe Vienna Conclutions the June/August 2005 version

Thank You for an interesting conference in Vienna.It could seam that most parts of the conclusions are about what we can do, what and how we can and use the ICT, and which resources to put into the ICT, and the resources we can get out of the ICT. But where are the protection of the innocent, the naive and the use of the human natural resources as talents?´

Originality must be innocent, actual and relevant. Originality must be authentic in its presentation, without interference of strange elements, censorship, omits, editing, use of parts of the original and possibly be free from cultural, material and ethnical reductions, so the communication in any expression can or will be able to appear as naive in its entirety and presentation, to provide diversity and the special which someone regards as unique originality in its totality, and therefore a contribution to the diversity.

There are not many talents or infant prodigies, as for instance Wolfgang Amadeus Mozart. But could we not be aware of talents or infant prodigies also in the world of ICT? Let us be aware of, value, develop and bring these unique humans forward without hesitation, maybe without consideration of recourses, so these humans get challenges and maybe can participate creatively and develop a better ICT for the benefit of us all.

Now approximately a week before closing, I also have the following suggestions and comments:

  1. Regarding the Introduction: "….The role of creativity has been magnified by the explosive developments in Information and Communication Technologies — ICTs. ICTs are perhaps the most powerful means to produce, preserve, and communicate the fruits of human creativity, including information, know-how, knowledge, and works of art." Is it necessary to mention that ICTs are the most powerful means - if ICT is that? "Perhaps" maybe a much better word to use?
  2. Regarding ICT x CREATIVITY=QUALITY CONTENTS: "….The challenge for creative people is to match the powers of ICT tools with their imagination and minds. Generally, technologies can do more than most creators and users require, know about, or even might want to have available to them. This capability surplus constitutes a key challenge to creators; it can dwarf them or open new horizons for expression….." ICT tools are developed by people for people, many times for solving problems, or for other purposes. Therefore one may not say that ICT tools are difficult to match for creative people, it is up to the producers of ICT tools to match the human minds, their dreams, and their imaginations, not to get decline as, quotations: "...know about, or even might want to have available to them…". Since the interface for ICT tools and communications is so easy to produce now and in the future, there may be a problem to recognize and appreciate, and one could even risk stagnation in development and quality, when the ideas and talents or "angels" are not recognised as one of the pillars of the development of the ICT. Therefore what are Quality contents - the content quality most people like best at this present time? Let us hope that diversity is allowed, and even obscene things are presented in the future, so mankind, as history many times has shown, do not miss the diversity of the Quality contents because we do not like what we now see, hear or experience, by using the ICT in all it's forms.
  3. Regarding: eLearning and eScience: Workshop on Best Practices: "To allow for these developments to take place, the UN is needed minimum to ensure that the technical standards for the Internet as such, as well as technical standards for e-Learning solutions, are developed in an open and public process together with the respective industries. This level of future interoperability must not be controlled by single players, as it directly affects communication and access to information, which are basic human needs. Only the further elaboration of funding mechanisms will allow for sustainable e-Learning projects in the future." Instead of, quotation: "......the UN is needed to ensure that.....", perhaps it would be a better formulation that: ".....the UN is needed minimum to ensure..."? 3.1 "Communication technologies should be adapted to make the general public understand (and then critically interact with) the scientific community, as many scientists work in military research - in the "laboratories of death", as Pope John Paul II remarked. Their agendas should be neither a secret nor sacred." With all respect to the late Pope John Paul II, why use the remark "laboratories of death" in the Vienna Conclusion? The quotation and use of Pope John Paul II as remarks and reference, may not be relevant or universal for the Vienna Conclusion. We ought to appreciate the variation, purpose, and the content of research all over the world, but not to emphasize one type of research before another, all though military research, as one may claim has a bad side effect - that people get killed - maybe there are also positive effects of military research? I hope that the reflections, suggestions and comments mentioned above are actual and relevant for the Vienna Conclution. When the final document is finished, I would appreciate to know where, and when to find it, or to receive a copy of it. Thank You. With best regards Designinvest Alex Bruun Christensen - Dreyer

September 27, 2005

Comments from Microsoft Corporation

In the light of the upcoming knowlegde-based economy it appears of paramount importance to ensure a strong protection of intellectual property of digital products, no matter if it concerns content or other intangible goods as software. Besides cultural aspects and at best provision of public access to public owned goods there have to be maintained all necessary prerequisites to ensure a flourish and competitive content & software market which ultimately safeguards a continued path of innovation and not only room for replication. High quality content and high quality software needs an unbroken “4i”-cycle of investment, invention, innovation and – income, in order to finance the next 4i cycle.
Having introduced our basic notion let me now come to some particular change requests of the most recent draft of the Vienna Declaration:

p5/2. Digital Rights/Creative Commons
While we largely agree on the point that more choices should be given to creators and users (and the subsequent conclusions on Creative Commons or Wikipedia) we explicitly disagree on the notion that “increasingly, revenue is generated not by selling content and digital works, as they can be freely distributed at almost no cost, but by offering services on top of them. The success of the Free Software Model is one example” and propose to delete this text part completely, as it contains only an one-sided perspective on the ICT industry. The rationale for this is, that the aim of free software is not to enable a healthy business on software but rather to make it even impossible to make any income on software as a commercial product. We don´t see this neither as a viable not as a desirable path for the future economy of Europe.

P6/ Digital Rights/Creative Commons
Second sentence on the page “The challenge is to create an economy of sharing, collaboration, and service that will [..] coexist with the traditional economy of scarcity, control and technological restrictions” let us miss the important role of genuine innovation and engineering in order to maintain supply of innovative goods to fulfill the demand of 21st century customers. It is not only about sharing and collaboration or service but also about commercial products which bring innovation to the mass of consumers all over the world.

Further more we fundamentally disagree with the statement “Software must be understood as the cultural technique of a Digital Society” as this poses the notion of everybody should be a kind of software developer. While there may some desire of certain groups and activists to claim software as whole as a kind of public domain space we want to propose in contradiction to that, that “Practice and easy making use of software must be understood as the 4th cultural technicque of a Digital Society, besides reading, writing and calculating”. Therefore we can´t agree on the closing sentence of the section that demands “technological freedom [..] in order to ensure access to the cultural heritage of mankind for present and future generations” as it is only to be read in context to the political manifesto of the free software movement (which is only a – rigid – part of the mostly rather liberal open source universe).

Further more we propose following changes:
P5/1. Creative Contents… Deletion of “hack” in the sentence “Creative acts strenghten communities and these include the following actions: collect, …”

P6/3. eLearning and eScience … Deletion of “…like the linux project” as this is only one particular – anti-commercial – specificity of the open source landscape. You could use instead of “Linux” the more broader term of “open source project”.

Best regards,
Thomas Lutz

Thomas Lutz Manager Public Affairs Mitglied der Geschäftsleitung
Microsoft Österreich GmbH
A-1120 Wien, Am Euro Platz 3
Telefon: +43/1/610 64-145
Mobil: +43/676/830 64 145
Telefax: +43/1/610 64-200
www.microsoft.com/austria

August 17, 2005

Discussion Version for the Living Document Process

Dear conference participants,

We are pleased to announce that the latest version of the Vienna Conclusions is now available, taking into account your comments and suggestions for changes made at the Vienna Conference on ICT & Creativity.

At the conference, a “living document” process was established, of which this version of the Vienna Conclusions is the first (of four) steps.

Details are:

  1. Publication of new version (= latest version) of Vienna Conclusions, made available to all participants of the ICT & Creativity conference.
  2. Agreement on final version of Vienna Conclusions for WSIS at Tunis.
  3. Creation of “Executive Version” of Vienna Conclusions, to be presented at Tunis WSIS by Head of Austrian Delegation.
  4. Report on Tunis activities and results.

We are looking forward to your comments on the latest version of the Vienna Conclusions!

Click here to download the Vienna Conclusions.

June 30, 2005

Invitation to take part in completing the Vienna Conclusions

Participants of the Vienna Conference on ICT & Creativity (2-3 June 2005) are welcome to give their input on the Vienna Conclusions. A ‘living document’, these conclusions shall be presented to delegates during the Second Phase of the UN WSIS in Tunis (16-18 November 2005) as Austria’s official contribution.

This blog will be closed on 30 September 2005. Afterwards, the Drafting Committee will complete the Vienna Conclusions, taking into consideration the views that have been given.

Please note:

  1. Anonymous posts cannot be accepted, and participation in discussing the ‘living document’ is restricted to invitation only. If you would like to be invited or have any further questions on the process of completing the Vienna Conclusions, please do not hesitate to contact the conference secretariat at .
  2. The document has two parts: (a) the chapeau, giving an overview and background information on different forms of creativity and innovation of mankind in modern times, and (b) the annex, consisting of what participants agreed on in 10 conference workshops. For the chapeau, input is restricted to comments only, whereas comments as well as new ideas or suggestions for texts can be posted for the annex part.

Individual chapters of the annex are:

  • Creative Contents & Community Building
  • Digital Rights / Creative Commons
  • eLearning and eScience
  • eGovernment and eDemocracy
  • eBroadcasting and eMonopolisation
  • eCulture, Creative Content & DigiArts
  • Youth for Youth: Creative Web Contents from Young People
  • Creative Business Ideas / Incubator for Entrepreneurship
  • Economic Framework for IT Corporations
  • Disruptive Technologies, Broken Business: Winning with creativity in the new e-music business

Members of the Drafting Committee are:

  • Peter A. Bruck, Chairman of the World Summit Award (WSA)
  • Carina Felzmann, Member of the Austrian Parliament, General Manager of Cox Orange, President of the Austrian Platform for Creative Industries
  • Paul Hoffert, Chairman of the Bell Broadcast and New Media Fund Canada
  • Sergei Kambalov, Deputy Executive Coordinator of the UN ICT Task Force
  • H. E. Janis Karklins, President of the WSIS Preparatory Committee for the Tunis Phase
  • Abdul Waheed Khan, UNESCO Assistant Director-General for Communication and Information
  • Walther Lichem, Ambassador for the Austrian Ministry for Foreign Affairs
  • Christian Rupp, Federal Executive Secretary for E-Government in Austria
  • Matthias Traimer, Officer at Austrian Federal Chancellery