NSFW

This week's song is from Element of Crime. It's strange that it took them so long to appear here, but this week it's, finally, the right time.

It fits well here, fo many reasons, one of them is to see them trying to age with dignity (as all of us do). Another one might be that they played the song at a concert in Vienna 3 years ago (that I missed), as Die Presse tells me. I also found a nice text from Lukas Heinser on social media, using a metaphor from Himmel über Berlin (Wings of Desire) - where the angels can hear people's thoughts - that was inspired by the song (the text, not the song).

Actually, the whole album that is 10 years old already, is great. Give it a chance.

Retrospect

Top 100

UNIVIE has reached the top 100 category in the Times Higer Education Ranking (place 95).

UNIVIE's LinkedIn page has a post on this with a nice video of some members of UNIVIE (including me) celebrating this.

The UNIVIE-website has more information on the ranking(s).

I am (well) aware of all the methodological issues of such rankings, but still - this is important and it's the outcome of a lot of work of many people for many years - and it makes me proud to be allowed to be part of this. Here's UNIVIE's result page. The law school, by the way, is placed on rank 45.

Brussels

I spent te week in Brussels evaluating project proposals.

Unfortunately, a lot is confidential here, so let me share with you some of the leisure related parts such as this photo of the royal palace taken on Sunday morning

and a picture of Bourse Brussels that was on my commute to the office.

I saw quite some VUB-students graduating on Grande Place

and Manneken Pis being dressed accordingly.

I visited the Jacques Brel museum and learned a lot about his personality and lifestyle. The latter has changed so significantly: You can hardly see him without a cigarette or a pipe (tragically but not astonishingly he died young from lung cancer) and he's almost always wearing suit and tie.

The societal change becomes even more significant when one listens (as I do at the moment) how different someone like Telegram-founder Pavel Durov presents himself in this - very noteworthy - long interview with Lex Fridman.

They talk so much about endurance, physical exercise, discipline, drug avoidance, longetivity and so on that it's hard to believe that they are only one or two generations away from Breil. Durov constantly emphasizes the importace of freedom and explains that first thing he does every morning is 300 push ups and 300 squads. Oh, the irony.

On a content side, he very explicitly criticises European plans to introduce chat control (next steps due later in October, here's the Commission's view on this) and announces that Telegram would leave the EU if that happened. He is also outstandingly critical with France - due to his own case (watch #arsboni #522 for more on this) - and European legislation and burocracy. It's very bad PR for the European Commission, Europe and France and I wonder whether anybody will deal with these allegations 'officially'. TagesAnzeiger has a good (German) text on his statements.

The chat control debate is currently getting (again, and again and again) quite some momentum.

and I admire some of my (ex) colleagues for ther patience and persistence.

Dark Patterns

The Austrian Ministry for Social Affairs (State Secretary Ulrike Königsberger-Ludwig) announced that a consumer protection organisation, VKI, was mandated to sue Temu for an (alleged) breach of DSA and unfair competition rules by dark patterns.

I was interviewed twice on this, for ORF ZIB and Frühjournal and for Servus TV.

I had two - very simple - main points: The European Commission is quite active against TEMU based on the DSA with a preliminary opinion, based on a quite solid looking study that TEMU is in breach of the DSA (and other laws) and the money at risk there is 6 % of the yearly worldwide turnover so that VKI might not be top priority for them. Second, most people talking about the case (including, in particular, me) haven't seen the VKI-lawsuit yet which makes it rather useless to speculate about its success chances.

Prospect

Law of the Digital Economy

I will give a (kind of) opening keynote at this programme founded and organised by Prof. Dr. Thomas Hoeren from ITM at University of Münster.

My session is scheduled for Tuesday at 10.00 am and I will give a critical overview on the current state of the Union when it comes to digital legislation.

Richtervereinigung

The Austrian association of judges ("Richtervereinigung") organises a seminar on AI in the justice system. I am invited to give he opening keynote on Wednesday.

LLP

On Monday, October 13th, at 19.00 I will have the privilege to host (technically) the 13th episode of this podcast run by the Legal Literacy Project.

Here's a (machine) translation of its content: What can I do if I buy a broken cell phone? What are my rights, and what is the difference between a warranty and a guarantee? Ms. Vetter, a judge at the Vienna Higher Regional Court, answers all these questions and many more in the 13th episode of the podcast “Recht neugierig” (Curious about the law) on the subject of guarantees.
Clara and Hannah guide you through the episode and look forward to an exciting and practical discussion. Stay curious!

Later that evening we will try (again) to do episode 10 that needed to be postponed for technical reasons.

This will be about what it takes to become an attorney in Austria and how the profession looks like today. Mag. Andrea Zinober LL.M. (Brussels) is the interviewee.

Look and Feel

Ne me quitte pas

This iconic song is provided in, I don't know, 100 versions in different languages in the Brel museum. I therefore had the privilege to hear it in languages such as Finnish, Arabic or Esperanto. Some nice ones are also on this Spotify Playlist:

Peter Hochegger

Die Dunkelkammer has a series with Stefan Kaltenbrunner and Michael Nikbakhsh interviewing Peter Hochegger. Athough this is rather long it is worth the time spent - in particular for people like me who are old enough to remember the political discussions mentioned (Hainburg, foundation of the Green Party, Grasser etc.) and the statements/claims that made it somehow into Austria`s general subconscious (such as that mineral water was safer after Tschernobyl than tap water).

The podcast launched a YouTube channel recently so that one can also see video now with the interviews. Th einterviews promote Hochegger's (and Kaltenbrunner's) book: Die Schattenrepublik.

Here's episode #1 (Shure SM7B microphones, once more):

Daisy

finds balls and toys in almost every meadow she strolls through an is very proud of this skill and her findings.

Have a wonderful week!

Kind regards

Nikolaus (Forgó)