EFF to fight for digital rights in Europe

Consumers in Europe have another group looking out for their digital rights with the opening of a Brussels office by the U.S. nonprofit group the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The EFF has battled the U.S. government and corporations to protect the rights of consumers and technologists in such areas as free speech, data privacy and digital rights management. It has brought or helped to defend cases against the U.S. Department of Justice, Apple, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, AT&T and others.

On Monday it opened an office in Brussels, home of the European Commission and the European Parliament, and said it would play a more active role in shaping European law and advocating on behalf of European citizens.

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Consumers in Europe have another group looking out for their digital rights with the opening of a Brussels office by the U.S. nonprofit group the Electronic Frontier Foundation.

The EFF has battled the U.S. government and corporations to protect the rights of consumers and technologists in such areas as free speech, data privacy and digital rights management. It has brought or helped to defend cases against the U.S. Department of Justice, Apple, Sony BMG Music Entertainment, AT&T and others.

On Monday it opened an office in Brussels, home of the European Commission and the European Parliament, and said it would play a more active role in shaping European law and advocating on behalf of European citizens.

The office was funded partly by Mark Shuttleworth, the South African dot-com billionaire who launched the Ubuntu Linux distribution, and by the Open Society Institute, a U.S. grants foundation chaired by George Soros.

Erik Josefsson will be the EFF's European affairs coordinator. He was previously the head of the Swedish chapter of the Foundation for a Free Information Infrastructure, which helped overturn the proposal for a unified patent system in Europe.

The EFF didn't say which issues it would pick up in Europe. Areas it could potentially get involved with include the battle under way against Apple to force it to open its DRM system, so songs bought from its iTunes Store can play on music players other than Apple's iPod.

The IDG News Service is a Network World affiliate.