Thursday, February 23, 2012

ACTA : cut the techno-crap & call me a judge

The 1 billion $ question, "Is ACTA incompatible with freedom of expression and information or data protection and the right to property in case of intellectual property?", will finally be addressed by a judge this year.

Where that? In US? in Japan? In Luxemburg, where the European Court of Justice sits.

This initiative from the EU Commission results from... citizens, more precisely, from the scratching pain-in-the-brain protesters who never cease to complain about ACTA's negotiations and their discreet encroachment over civil rights. Until now, the objectors to ACTA have somehow been the noisy wastes of the official doxa regarding the "objective need of a protective ACTA", they have been the unwanted civil side-effects of the official sermon on property rights.

(to read opposite views and endorsement of the sermon, click on the click to glance at the industry's advocacy letter addressed to MEPs)

The reference of the protesters' question to the European judge is not only and obviously a legitimization of their concern.

It also is a new qualification for the judge : since the governments and the Commission were not ready to include their concern into the negotiations of this international treaty, the EU judge in charge of law's protection get a new promotion : he has also to include the civil waste of the ACTA's official doxa into the law's protection.

Another reason for governments to despise independent judges?

Wednesday, February 8, 2012

Fast & furious : the summary of today's news but in a Platonic style




(XXIst century's icons & myths mapping our daily roaming en el Laberinto de la soledad #46)

Monday, February 6, 2012

Happy stones to throw (Epiphany is hard labour too #60)


Hirotoshi Ito - Laughing Stone that Henry Michaux would have found excessively demonstrative, René Magritte overly perfect, Mai 68 unduly 'bourgeois', Vladimir Poutine typically American, & Marquis de Sade unreasonably soft.
What about the Arab Spring? Iran? Senegal?

Sounds of Brussels

For a teleportation to the urban & Belgian & Euro-zone's sounds of Brussels, click on the click.

Selon Thomas Baumgartner :
"Bientôt l'Atelier du Son mettra Bruxelles à l'honneur, à travers quelques rencontres faites sur place. La capitale belge & européenne est un lieu artistique sonore bouillonnant. Il en fut question (...) justement lors de ma dernière visite j'avais entendu parler d'un festival de "Field recording" (ce qui pourrait se traduire par "paysage sonore", mais je crains d'être approximatif sur cette traduction, car il existe aussi le mot "soundscape"...).

En préparation de ces entretiens belges, je suis tombé sur le projet Sounds of Europe. C'est une tentative en cours de mettre en réseau des artistes sonores de l'Europe entière (et même au-delà, si l'on fouille dans le site), qui partageront leurs expériences, leurs productions... Derrière Sounds of Europe, il y a l'idée de mettre en place des résidences d'artistes dédiées au projet, des productions adaptées...

Sounds of Europe est né de la constatation suivante : le field recording devient un genre en soi, avec ses styles, ses variations, et ses artistes. Ce qui est assez beau, c'est que l'Europe se retrouve ici terrain de jeu sonore, voire terrain unifié par le son. Il y a une part d'utopie dans ce projet, et ce n'est pas le moindre de ses attraits. Faites du son, pas la guerre ! Etant donné la période, qui est plutôt au morcellement/ cloisonnement, Sounds of Europe met du baume aux oreilles. C'est à suivre, et normalement on devrait en parler dans les prochaines semaines dans l'Atelier du Son. "

Wednesday, February 1, 2012

Reminder : Facebook may lead to democracy, not ipso facto to a republic State of Rights

As demonstrated in Tunisia, Libya or Egypt, electronic social networks may accelerate the sharing of undesirable information and of justified anger without guaranteeing the upheaval leads to a republic State of Rights.

At the other top of the democratic spectrum, lies the old system of formal petition that has been recently extended to Europe.

Its virtue is to address societal issues that a remote legislator ignores.

Petition can be addressed to the EU legislator once it gathers one million of European signatures.

At the time of the negotiation of this principle by Member States in 2010, negotiators sincerely believed that collecting such an amount of signatures would be difficult and would de facto create a filter on the number and the seriousness of petition.

Electronic social networks in the meantime changed this reality. The creation of a genuine "European public space" -that has so many times been called by citizens, politicians and intellectuals for years- is now in the hands of petitioners.

Clich here to read recent comments of the vice-president of the EU Commission on this issue.