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Comment It's the beginning (Score 1) 59

I think you are reading the document wrong. The European Commission is not a legislator, it just proposes laws.

First for all there will the Digital Fairness Act presented and MEPs are free to put into it whatever they feel is suitable to protect consumers including stopping kill-games language.

Also, the MEPs could use the Cloud and Development Act to strengthen reverse engineering and interoperability rights for game servers.

The interesting aspect is here:
"Rightsholders remain in principle free to determine whether and how their protected works may
be used, including by imposing temporal limits or other conditions on the uses authorised under
licences to third parties in accordance with Union copyright law."
While that is true the limit was not announced upfront.

The European Software Directive states in Recital 13:

"(13) The exclusive rights of the author to prevent the unauthorised reproduction of his work should be subject to a limited exception in the case of a computer program to allow the reproduction technically necessary for the use of that program by the lawful acquirer. This means that the acts of loading and running necessary for the use of a copy of a program which has been lawfully acquired, and the act of correction of its errors, may not be prohibited by contract. In the absence of specific contractual provisions, including when a copy of the program has been sold, any other act necessary for the use of the copy of a program may be performed in accordance with its intended purpose by a lawful acquirer of that copy."

The EC itself will proceed with a CoC style approach:
"While a legislative initiative to establish an obligation for publishers that sell or license video
games to consumers in the European Union to keep them in a playable state, as requested by the
ECI, is not envisaged, the Commission intends to initiate stakeholder exchanges by the end of
2026 to explore the possibility of elaborating a self-regulatory/industry-led code of conduct to
improve the management of video games’ end-of-life and strengthen transparency to consumers.
In addition, the Commission plans to present its report on the application of Directive (EU)
2019/770 by the end of 2026, covering also its application to the discontinuation of digital content
and services. "

This is not the end of the road.

Comment Re:I'm still in awe (Score 1) 18

One should keep in mind how Microsoft hehaved in Brussels in the past. It has a legacy of worst lobbying. Now we see the likes ot BSA and CCIA prepared to go after the Tech Sovereignty Package. These policies have strong acking from MEPs, get involved in dirty lobbying, hire tobacco lobbyists again and you will end like the toacco industry. Brussels politicians are completely fed up with Microsoft. There is nothing Lisa Monaco can do.

Submission + - BSA lashes out at mandatory open-source licensing (bsa.org)

Elektroschock writes: The American Business Software Alliance (BSA) does not consider mandatory open-source licensing to be an appropriate indicator of sovereignty. This is among the "pointed messages" they sent to the French government consultation (closed) today. "What protects Europe is the ability to govern, audit, and mitigate risk, not where a company files its corporate papers," said Thomas Boué of BSA.

Comment Solutionism (Score 1) 86

The journalist was able to retrofind her using undisclosed facial recognition software after she had been found.

It would not surprise me if that was simply a use of semantic tagging of the Google image search engine of fotos found after her whereabouts were revealed.

Also, Germans strongly politically oppose surveillance software as does their legal system. If there is a national able to generate a movement to break free from BigTech, Germany is a good candidate.

Anyway, if you want to put such software to good use, we still don't know where her terrorist colleagues are, Nr Staub and Mr Garweg
https://www.lka.polizei-nds.de...
If you find these using such software, that would make a convincing sales argument.

Submission + - How to turn a 0day into a PR disaster: bully security researchers (heise.de)

Elektroschock writes: Microsoft bullied the publisher of BlueHammer (CVE-2026-33825), RedSun (CVE-2026-41091), UnDefend (CVE-2026-45498), YellowKey (CVE-2026-45585), and GreenPlasma/MiniPlasma (CVE-2020-17103 derivatives). A GitHub account was deleted, another account locked down, threats of international legal charges were made, and public law enforcement tipped off. That is a really unpleasant way to deal with a security nightmare of one’s own making. According to Microsoft, the courtesy of informing the Microsoft Security Response Center (MSRC) in advance was not extended. The researcher refutes that claim and speaks of layoffs of competent security staff, blocked accounts, and broken communication channels. There are also rumours of new formality requirements concerning video attachments.

Comment digital market war declaration. (Score 2) 38

The city of Berne in Switzerland just commissioned a study concerning switching to Open Desk from M365. According to the text of the study practically all topics are met, according to the press release and the news reporting we are not ready yet. In any case, the Netherlands has the capacity to change the market, if it costs a few billions, it costs a few billions to get things ready and close the gap. We need to wind off our public service from Microsoft. The actions taken here clearly cross the line. This is the equivalent to a declaration of digital market war.

The Background is that the US Congress harasses European regulators with made up allegations against their Digital Services Act. We cannot accept these transgressions. The task is to break free from the Microsoft dependency, quickly.

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