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Estonian President Expresses Desire For More Digitally-Integrated Europe (arstechnica.com)
In a wide-ranging interview with Ars Technica, Estonian President Toomas Hendrik talked about European Digital Single Market (DSM), an ambitious goal that seeks to make commerce flow as smoothly across the 28-member block as it does in the United States. He cites the example of iTunes. From the report: What Estonia and Finland are doing is a step towards the DSM -- but there remain all kinds of national-level laws that stop Europe from being truly unified. "Take iTunes," President Ilves continued. "iTunes are based on credit cards. Credit cards are national. I cannot buy an iTunes record for my wife who has a Latvian credit card. I cannot buy her an iTunes record because I have an Estonian iTunes. This is true of virtually everything that is connected to digital services. And certainly this is why Estonia is at the forefront of the European Digital Single Market. As I like to say, it's easier to ship a bottle of Portuguese wine from southern Portugal in the Algarve and sell it in northern Lapland, than it is for me to buy an iTunes record across the Estonian-Latvian border."The report is worth a read in its entirety.
Western culture creeping in and taking over the whole world, only because some exec guy in a suit gazing out from his 100-storey office building sees your country as another "untapped market" that might yield a few dollars/euros if squeezed hard enough
The huge move from analog to digital for media should have made it easier to cross national boundaries. Instead, the media companies have chosen intentionally to make it more difficult, slicing and dicing territories to optimize profit regardless of the effects upon ease of use.
The US has a protection on its market on cotton, because otherwise African countries would be competitive.
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
Eliminating barriers for labor crossing borders is what the EU does, it is one of the four freedoms.
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
Not sure if...
~ People that think they are better than anyone else for any reason are the cause of all the strife in the world.
At least if we are talking Swedish Lapland, customs will intercept the shipment of wine, an hold it for weeks, and tax it so it is more expensive than locally bought (very expensive) wine, and also force you to pay for the joy of being taxed, a taxation fee of around €13 last time I got taxed.
1. Quit using the DEC logo for DRM stuff.
Apparently they're using it for items tagged "digital", because it has the word "digital" in it (the "D" in "DEC" being "Digital"), and if DRM stuff is tagged "digital" it's presumably because the "D" in "DRM" also stands for "digital".
Not that this means it makes sense. I suppose a better icon might be something with 1's and 0's in it, but maybe they decided that wasn't an obvious icon, so they used the logo of a computer company because it had the word "digital" in it.
Actually, you got this backwards. American culture is taking over the world, in part, because America is digitally unified. America has a huge internal market for software, movies, music, etc. That gives American media and tech companies a huge headstart. Nearly all technology and media giants are American. The only other country that comes close is China, but Chinese companies like Alibaba, Baidu, and Xaiomi, have difficulty competing outside China.
If other countries, including EU members, become more digitally unified, it will help them stand up to American cultural homogenization.
The biggest surprise from this story is that it turns out Estonia is a real place. Who knew?
Educated people? Or were you thinking of Elbonia?
Irony: Agile development has too much intertia to be abandoned now.
Why do we need restrictions on moving physical and digital goods across borders?
To respect freedom of contract. A lot of works of authorship are subject to decades-long exclusive territorial distribution contracts that date to before the EU common market. The model was supposed to be that a publisher would enter into a contract with a publisher that understands the Estonian market under the condition that no other distributor would be allowed to distribute the same work in Estonia. Break these contracts, and the work goes out of print everywhere.
Restricting trade and commerce at international borders results in a suboptimal economy
Prisoner's dilemma.
Spoken like a true contrarian, anti-everything. Thanks for sharing, though, and you're entitled to your opinion, however moronic or contrarian. It's a free country, dissidents will not be murdered by anonymous thugs next to the presidential palace. That's how *they* roll.
Maybe I'm thinking of Freedonia.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/...
You are welcome on my lawn.
https://www.washingtonpost.com...
NB: The message above might reflect my opinion right now, but not necessarily tomorrow or next year.
I'm an Elbonian^W Estonian and I find this offensive. Actually, no, I really don't care. I like both Elbonia and Estonia.
FCKGW 09F9 42
Why do we need restrictions on moving physical and digital goods across borders? For that matter, eliminate barriers to labor crossing borders, too......[this] results in a suboptimal economy
How about : money isn't everything.
Estonian President Toomas Hendrik talked
In other news, Barack Hussein is the way Slashdot editors refer to their president.
Escher was the first MC and Giger invented the HR department.
So he is the president of Estonia yet his wife does not have an Estonian credit card. What is her problem exactly? Her credit score too low? Husband has only temporary employment? Or what?
And so his solution to the problem of his wife not having an Estonian credit card, despite living in Estonia, is to re-organise the European economy.
Funny, I have the opposite problem. I have about 8 credit cards and keep getting letters and phone calls egging me on to have more. Perhaps unknowingly I am a bigger celebrity and regarded as more credit-worthy than the Estonian presidential couple.
What are you talking about? We are sacrificing red tape on the altar of the people. The national ID card is tremendously helpful. It cuts the latency of most of your government interaction down to mere minutes, the time it takes you to click through the user interface of a service. This is unheard of In most of the civilized world, where it can take months to get your random papers done. The crypto on this is open source, and anybody is free to implement their own. I cannot figure out what better 'clear goals' you could ask for.
Do you know how long it takes for me to prove my legal existence and identity? A few seconds.
Do you know how long it takes for me to file my taxes? About a minute.
Do you know how long it takes for me to start a business? A few hours.
I could go on.
The meat of your comment seems to be the all-too-common American hate towards the government. Well let me tell you, do not make the mistake to assume that a government per se is bad. A government is what you make of it. You can not exist without one more than you can exist without the division of labor. You might also remember a certain revolution in which you replaced a bad one with a good one so you have options, you know.
Ours government might not be the best, but it's also not the worst, and we trust our everyday lives with it. The fact that your government is the worst is your own fault and your own fault alone, and until you fix it or replace it you deserve all of it.
FCKGW 09F9 42
a lot of their problems stem from protectionism of national economies and cultures. the protectionist rules in place are actually partitioning each country from one another which makes it impossible to have unified anything. to have a unified marketplace, you need a unified government.
Anons need not reply. Questions end with a question mark.
I thought we settled that nonsense 70 years ago.
"how will he create a single digital-services market, after the fact?"
By using examples like the one he gave: I want to buy this but because of these barriers, I can't (easily). Look at all the revenue you're losing. Join our European Digital Single Market and make more money.
I think he understands about the credit cards.
If it works well for public services (see korgitser's comment) the private sector will see the advantages and may have to join in anyway to gain government contracts. The key is to make it more attractive than the current walled gardens.
If that happens, problems with copyright agreements etc will melt away.
See https://ec.europa.eu/prioritie...
* Czechoslovakia (1993)
* East Germany (1990)
* Yugoslavia (1992)
And when a country enters the EU, and all contracts are now subject to new, overriding law which may negate these contracts?
Protoplasm. Quiet Protoplasm. I like quiet protoplasm.
Contracts that granted exclusivity in Czechoslovakia would probably be interpreted as granting exclusivity in both of its successor states, namely the Czech Republic and Slovakia. Likewise with the successor states of Yugoslavia. Cases of unification, such as absorption of the DDR (East Germany) into the BRD (West Germany), pose a more interesting legal challenge. Have you read about any cases where different companies ended up with exclusivity in BRD and DDR at the time of unification?
... and I would really like to buy them extended iCloud storage. Well, tough luck there. Even if I had a local credit card, their particular country does not even have iCloud. I ended up switching my mother to US iTunes Store and re-downloading all the apps that are in both stores and telling her she might never be able to update those that are in the EU store only. Why is this even a problem? WTF?
Not even mentioning the fact, as written in the article, that if my parents tell me about a new record by a local popular artist, I am out of luck, because I am locked into the US iTunes Store. Just fix it, damnit.
If programs would be read like poetry, most programmers would be Vogons.
Given the coming Brexit referendum, and other nationalistic movements on the rise, what we will get is a more dis-integrated Europe...
Not really. What happens if some clerk gets a bug up the bum and... refuses to issue a new card?
I don't think this is even possible. It's mandatory by law.