Judith Pretty On behalf of the European Commission eContent European Digital Content on the Global Networks

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

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

EU Actions for digital content è Regulatory framework: Copyrights in the Information Society Access and exploitation of public sector information è Research: IST Programme, FP 6 è Audio-visual and Culture: Media Plus programme Framework programme for Culture è eContent: Digital content and language diversity on the global networks

improving access for all to high-quality digital content on the global networksimproving access for all to high-quality digital content on the global networks in a multiplicity of languagesin a multiplicity of languages supports the increased availability, use and distribution of European digital contentsupports the increased availability, use and distribution of European digital content The objectives of the eContent programme Market orientated programme

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

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 4 €29 million %-45% 10%-15%

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) PSI Directive now adopted Action line 1Public sector information

Action Line 2 Producing Content in a multilingual and multicultural environment 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 1Public sector information What the Commission is looking for? 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

Who can participate? Countries (31) –15 EU Member states –EFTA Countries: Liechtenstein, Norway, Iceland –Candidate countries: Czech Republic, Slovakia, Estonia, Latvia, Lithuania, Poland, Hungary, Slovenia, Malta, Cyprus –Accession countries: Bulgaria, Romania, Turkey Other countries and international organisations can participate without funding Organisations –Public, Private, Non-Profit Call 4 Year 2004

What eContent is not: No technology research & development No eGovernment No pure translation eContent keywords: Business dimension – close to market Partnerships –Public-private –Content – language industries Readily available technology

Name of the game Candidate Countries a political priority In proposal submission and selection Candidate Countries on equal footing with Member States No particular measures undertaken towards participation in running projects High subscription rate: fair competition and excellent quality promoted throughout Europe

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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