Week 49/2025
Land gewinnen
NSFW (Nikolaus' Song For the Week)
I have been hearing this week's NSFW perhaps 100 times on repetition since last Saturday. It's an interpretation of a Falco song (in his, as Nino puts it, "Pre-Excalibur City phase") by Ernst Molden and Der Nino aus Wien that is remarkable in every detail: its simplicity, its intonation, its melody, everything.
Live:
Originally, I had planned to take another one of the best Austropop songs ever written, again in an interpretation from Ernst Molden and Der Nino aus Wien, but changed opinion when listening to Nachtflug more often. This one, however, would have derved to ba a NSFW as well.
A live-version (with some sound issues) is on YouTube.
Here's the original
The reason why I am so much into Molden/Nino aus Wien is that they gave a very nice concert in Mozartsaal of Konzerthaus on Saturday evening in which they performed both songs - and many more.
Don't forget to listen to Taxi Driver too!
If you missed it: They play again (in Stadtsaal) on April 2nd 2026.
Retrospect
AICI Forum
I was happy to participate at the Artificial Intelligence in Clinical Imaging - AICI Forum on the Villach-Campus of Fachhochschule Kärnten and to listen, inter alia, to Prof. Dr. Georg Langs.
Digital Sovereignty
Whether or not Europe needs more digital sovereignty is (somehow) discussed in public media. I was interviewed on the topic for OE1 Mittagsjournal
and for a 45 minutes program in ZIB Magazin Spezial (me appearing at 40' 10'') that is interesting.
The story has developed (yet again) significant further momentum in the second half of the week.
E-Evidence
The topic reappeared also in an event a Juridicum that was very diligently planned and executed by Dr. Lisa Rösler from the Department of Criminal Law
This was in particular dealing with the E-Evidence Regulation (Regulation 2023/1543 of 12 July 2023 on European Production Orders and European Preservation Orders for electronic evidence in criminal proceedings and for the execution of custodial sentences following criminal proceedings). Being somehow a "European Cloud Act", it's a very relevant law, unfortunately mostly flying beyond the radar screens of public debate.
Dr. Judith Herrnfeld gave a very interesting overview on the trilogue; I also learned from her that telecommunication providers will (most likely) be outside scope of the (national) implementation. Carmen Kainz provided insiders' perspectives on cybercrime prosecution and its obstacles. She also pointed to the German example and asked for further instruments like messenger surveillance.
I delt with the law from a data protection perspective and put the law in broader perspective first highlighting how clear it was already in 1996 that the link between territorial control and law enforcement was broken due to the internet - as John Perry Barlow stated rather pathetically in his famous declaration of the independence of cyberspace.
My summary was relatively positive, although I was very critical in three points:
- Special treatment of cybercrime
- Commission as software monopolist/single point of failure
- No clearly institutionalized, independent data protection control
Yet another AI Act Commentary
I am proud - and very grateful to Dr. Lukas Feiler and Dr. Michaela Nebel - that the English version of our Austrian AI Act Commentary finally made it to the market.
501 pages more on this piece of legislation.
#arsboni
Two relevant AI-innovations for legal professions were present.
Charlotte Kufus from flank.ai spoke about legal AI-agents,
Thomas Schreiber was in the laundry to speak about shrinkwrap legal.
GDPR in Liechtenstein
The Private University in the Principality of Liechtenstein hosted a one day seminar on GDPR that was a nice opportunity to meet relevant players of the data protection community - and old friends - again.
Dr. Carlo Piltz and Prof. Dr. Eva Souhrada-Kirchmayer on stage
It was my first stay in Triesen. I was reminded, again, how important (legal and technical) standards are: Liechtenstein is part of the EU-roaming area. However, my phone was (automatically) logged in at a Swiss-phone provider over night, causing more than 20 € roaming fees for nothing. (Wie ist die Rechtslage?) Charging my laptop was impossible as the power plugs don't follow EU- but Swiss standards (type J, not F) and I hadn't taken an adapter with me. I also learned that Liechtenstein has an international country code since 1999 only (+423) and profited from a split of a country code (+42) that was no longer needed as it had formerly been used for Czechoslovakia.
Also the language is quite different from (Bavarian) German.
I was, in particular, thrilled by a German labor law court decision on a very nasty mobbing case presented by Dr. Carlo Piltz.
As I needed to teach remotely in the evening, I enjoyed to do this on campus in a former textile factory ("Spoerry-Fabrik") with beautiful mountain view.
UFL from inside
I left via night train and learned that Feldkirch has a railway station dedicated to literature ("Literaturbahnhof"). While I was photographing some of the texts displayed there, another passenger, an elderly lady waiting for her train, addressed me and said: "I don't think this is legal". Isn't this beautiful?
Prospect
Fact Checking
On Monday, December 1st, at 10.00 CET, lawyer and journalist Dr. Katharina Zwins will speak on fact checking (on the internet). This is also part of my course on legal methods, research and legal tech.
Peter Thiel
On Tuesday, December 2nd, I will attend (in the audience) a presentation on Peter Thiel, given by one of his mentors, the Austrian theologist Wolfgang Palaver:
Free entry, registration required.
LLP
On Wednesday, December 3rd, at 20.00, The Vienna Legal Literacy Project will broadcast episode 18 of their series.
Look and Feel
Stefan Haider
Stefan Haider is an Austrian religion teacher, school principal and comedian. I had the pleasure to attend one of his performances in Casanova.
Very impressive (and busy and funny) person.
Anne Brorhilker - Cum/Ex
Freiheit de Luxe with Jagoda Marinić has an outstandingly interesting episode with Anne Brorhilker. Brorhilker is the former prosecutor in the Cum/Ex-crimes that caused billions of damage by fraudulant tax malversations. Being in charge of the prosecution, she ran into all kinds of obstacles, finally left office in frustration and speaks very openly about her reasons now.
Daisy
enjoyed the snow on Sunday.
On Tuesday, however, the weather was "back to normal" in Vienna
but beautiful again in Liechtenstein on Thursday.
Have a wonderful week!
Kind regards
Nikolaus
