#140: Comparing EU and US Tech Policy

Tech Policy Podcast

TechFreedom

Technology

4.8 • 45 Ratings

🗓️ 16 November 2016

⏱️ 36 minutes

🔗️ Recording | iTunes | RSS

🧾️ Download transcript

Summary

The European Union (EU) and the United States have a lot in common. We share many of the same values, including free speech and the right to privacy. But despite our similarities, America and Europe often take different approaches to regulating technology. Does the EU prize privacy over free speech? Is the US too permissive when it comes to regulating Big Data? Does NSA surveillance pose a threat to the free flow of data across the Atlantic? What can the US learn from the EU, and vice versa? Evan is joined by Dimitar Dimitrov, EU Policy Director for Wikimedia in Brussels, and John Weitzmann, Legal and Policy Advisor for Wikimedia Germany.

Transcript

Click on a timestamp to play from that location

0:00.0	Welcome to the tech policy podcast. I'm Evan Swartz-Trobber. On today's show, tech policy in the EU and how it's different from the United States. We've often talked about tech policy issues in Europe before without actually having European guests on the show. And my good friend, Julia, who's German, rightly criticized me for that.
0:22.6	But now today we have an opportunity to actually get a perspective from across the pond about the
0:26.9	various issues that we debate here in the United States, similar issues over in the European Union,
0:31.7	and how the two continents approach these issues differently. So joining me to discuss this are
0:36.8	two great guests. I have
0:38.1	DeMe DeMittrov, EU policy director for Wikimedia in Brussels, and John Weitzman, legal and policy
0:44.2	advisor for Wikimedia, Germany. Gentlemen, thanks so much for joining the show. Thanks for having
0:48.4	this. Oh, my pleasure. So, listeners, just for your reference, the term Europe might be said a lot
0:54.1	today. We're probably
0:54.9	referring to the European Union, might use those two terms interchangeably, but we are talking
0:59.3	about the European Union and the member states under its jurisdiction. So to start off,
1:04.3	when we talk about how Brussels has certain authorities and the member states in the European Union
1:09.2	have certain authorities, when it comes to tech policy, what are the things that are decided at the Brussels level?
1:16.4	So maybe let's start off with the most obvious of all of the tech policies, copyright.
1:21.1	In this case, copyright limitations and exceptions are set out in a EU directive, but the directive just says that
1:30.0	member states may implement a certain list of limitations and exceptions and have to implement
1:36.7	only one mandatory exception. All the other ones are up to member states. So it varies widely.
1:43.7	They're member states that have introduced all of them and member states that are extremely restrictive member states. So it varies widely. There are member states that have introduced all of them
1:45.6	and member states that are extremely irrestrictive about this.
1:49.3	And that's a directive.
1:50.4	So the difference between that and maybe a more binding situation
1:54.6	is that the directive says to the member states,
	...

Please login to see the full transcript.

Previous episode | Next episode

Disclaimer: The podcast and artwork embedded on this page are from TechFreedom, and are the property of its owner and not affiliated with or endorsed by Tapesearch.

Generated transcripts are the property of TechFreedom and are distributed freely under the Fair Use doctrine. Transcripts generated by Tapesearch are not guaranteed to be accurate.