Roland Haber On behalf of the European Commission eContent European Digital Content on the Global Networks

The rationalThe rational The eContent programmeThe eContent programme The focus in The focus in Agenda

More and more people are connecting to the global networks According to Nua.com 605 million people have internet access ( Q3 2002) 190 million of those live in Europe, and the number is growing

The ability to deliver rich content over the networks is increasing

Even if the latest stock market downturns has slowed down the technology sectors

Europe has Rich content base Long publishing tradition Assets in linguistic and cultural customisation World ranking players...but it is Lagging in e-publishing

improving access for all to high-quality digital content on the global networks in a multiplicity of languages, catering for different cultures supporting the increased availability, use and distribution of European digital content The objectives of the eContent programme

? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? ? How will the eContent programme reach these ambitions?

Improving access to and expanding the use of public sector information Enhancing content production in a multilingual and multicultural environment Increasing dynamism of the digital content market Action Line 1 Action Line 2 Action Line million Euro Call 3 Call 1Call 2 Call million %-45% 10%-15%

Call 3 Action line 1 Improving access to and expanding use of public sector information Call 4

What is public sector information? –Legal/administrative data. –Financial/economical data, –Culture, archives, entertainment, information material –Geographical data including land and property information, traffic information, environmental data –Services at local level such at education, health etc. –Science and technical information –And more…………………………….. Action line 1Public sector information

Important for citizens: Bringing citizens closer to administrations Important in the democratic process Important for business: Essential to make business strategies Crucial for taking advantage of the internal market rights And in particular for the content industries: Source for new information products (aggregation) Action line 1Public sector information

(1.1) Cross-border information services based on public sector information. What the Commission is looking for? -The cross-border nature of the information service -The added-value nature of the information service -The business case, - Re-use aspect

(1.2) Establishment of European digital data collections based on public sector information What the Commission is looking for? Projects that will show: – Coverage of a considerable part of Europe -Scalability –Impact of the action on the digital content market; –Involvement of Candidate Countries where appropriate Action line 1Public sector information

Action Line 2 Producing Content in a multilingual and multicultural environment Call 3 Call 4

Action line 2 Multilingual and multicultural environment Objective To ease access to and ensure a wider availability of high quality networked content across markets and communities, by encouraging co-operation between the European content and language industries.

Action line 2Multilingual and multicultural environment What the Commission is looking for? (1) Partnerships for multilingual and multicultural content between various actors in the content and language industries: localisation of applications and services addressing multimedia content accessible through various platforms and devices

Action line 1Public sector information What the Commission is looking for? (2) Projects strengthening the linguistic infrastructure in Europe: -Networking of existing regional and national resources and their access and use by content actor -Development of new multilingual resources for less widely spoken languages -Covering an adequate number of languages Action line 2Multilingual and multicultural environment

Action Line 3 Increasing dynamism of the digital content market Call 3 Call 4

Action line 3 Increasing dynamism of the digital content market Objective To support the European content market by horizontal actions that increase the effectiveness of the main action lines of the programme.

Action line 3 Increasing dynamism of the digital content market (3.1)Exchange of good practices To stimulate the exchange of best-practices throughout Europe on the re-use of public sector information and the linguistic customisation of content. What the Commission is looking for? -case studies,print and electronic publications, and presentations at major public event. -Thematic networks to improve the learning processes and the exchange of good practices on the re-use of public sector information at European level

Action line 3 Increasing dynamism of the digital content market (3.3) Management of rights for digital content Stimulate an environment for the acceptance of right clearance solutions for digital content, with a special attention given to material originating from the public sector. What the Commission is looking for? Actions aiming at creating a dialogue between: - content creators, - collecting societies, - content industry players and - consumer organisations. Identification of emerging business models and pricing schemes.

Ideal eContent project eContent co-funded project = available technology + right partnerships + innovative idea with a business model Based on: Re-use of public sector information Linguistically&culturally customised content

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