Introduction
Our previous article From
the Old Normal to a New Normal: Why Europe Must Reclaim Control of the Internet
ended with a cliff-hanger.
We argued that the
current digital Old Normal feels exploitative because it is structurally
coercive. We showed that Europe had to help enforce this normal — but that it
does not have to.
We identified Repealing Anticircumvention Laws (ACV;
origined in USA, DMCA$1201) as the power lever that could make a
New Normal possible. And we concluded that a window exists to act — not
forever, but now.
Which leaves the
obvious question:
If the lever exists, and the window is open, why hasn’t Europe pulled
it?
The answer is not
political hesitation, nor lack of awareness. It is that pulling the ACV lever -
Repealing Anticircumvention Laws - is not a necessary beginning of the
transition from the Old Normal to a New Normal — it can also be a
late-stage move in a process that is already underway.
After Pulling the Lever: What Needed to Come Next Anyway?
Repealing Anticircumvention
Laws is often framed as a
decisive act — a switch that, once flipped, would immediately unlock a New
Normal.
Thát framing is naive.
Pulling the ACV lever
does not automatically produce a New Normal, with alternative products,
repair ecosystems, migration tools, and interoperable services. It just removes
a legal barrier that currently prevents those things to develop.
What opens up after removal is not instant transformation, but a transition
path that must still be travelled.
That transition has
three broad phases, each with different requirements and risks.
The Transition Path to a New Normal
Phase 1: Contestability (≈ 0–2 years)
This phase is about
removing fear and legal paralysis.
Key characteristics:
- Staying with a service becomes a choice,
not something people are forced into
- Dominant actors lose the ability to
retaliate freely.
- Switching between products and services,
and making them work together, is recognised as a right — even if it is
still costly or imperfect in practice.
What this phase does not
yet require:
- Mass user migration.
- Mature alternative ecosystems.
- A level of ease and reliability comparable
to what people are already used to.
Contestability is
about restoring the option to leave, not m Staying
with a service becomes a choice, not something people are forced intoaking everyone leave.
Phase 2: Ecosystem Formation (≈ 2–5
years)
This is the slow,
unglamorous phase where a New Normal either stabilises — or fails.
Key characteristics:
- Alternative services, clients, and
providers emerge.
- Migration and switching tools improve.
- Repair networks and aftermarkets become
viable.
- Trust infrastructure develops (security
audits, certification, support).
This phase requires
time, investment, and learning. It cannot be rushed by decree.
Phase 3: Structural Alignment (≈ 5–10
years)
Only in this phase
does it become both safe and effective to remove legacy privileges.
Key characteristics:
- Old legal protections no longer fit market
reality.
- Contradictions between laws become
untenable.
- “Cleanup” reforms align legacy law with
lived practice.
This is where
anticircumvention privileges can be removed without destabilising the system,
because the system no longer depends on them.
Where Europe Actually Is on This Path
Europe is not waiting
at the starting line. It is already well into Phase 1 and beginning Phase
2.
This is visible in
concrete, recognisable measures.
Phase 1 actions already in force
- Digital Markets Act (DMA)
The DMA directly constrains dominant digital “gatekeepers.” It mandates interoperability, bans self-preferencing, and lowers retaliation risk for competitors and users. This is a textbook contestability instrument. - Data Act
The Data Act makes exit economically viable by mandating data portability and eliminating switching charges (including cloud egress fees). This turns exit from a theoretical right into a practical option. - Right to Repair framework
EU repair rules restore practical repairability by guaranteeing access to parts, information, and tools. This enables aftermarkets and longer device lifetimes — essential conditions for a non-coercive digital economy. - Digital Services Act (DSA)
The DSA reasserts public authority over platforms that had become private rule-makers. It does not dismantle business models, but it ends the assumption that platforms govern themselves.
Taken together, these
measures establish contestability without requiring immediate ecosystem
replacement.
This is exactly what
Phase 1 is meant to do.
Walking Around the Elephant: Progress
Without Pulling the Lever
Anticircumvention
law is often described as “the
elephant in the room.” That metaphor is accurate — but incomplete.
Europe is not ignoring
the elephant. It is changing the room.
As DMA (EU Digital
Market Act) obligations meet technical lock-ins, as repair rights meet firmware
restrictions, and as switching rights meet proprietary controls, ACV law
increasingly appears not as a foundation but as an obstruction.
This matters because
pressure is building from within the system:
- DMA enforcement cases begin to collide
with technical protection measures.
- Repair obligations expose where software
locks still block lawful activity.
- Switching mandates reveal how TPMs
frustrate exit in practice.
Each of these
conflicts weakens the justification for ACV privileges without requiring a
frontal assault.
EU walking around the
elephant is not avoidance. It is how Europe is learning how to change the
room making it possible to move the elephant out.
Europe: Yes: Aware, Concerned, and Progressing
The evidence is in the
sequencing.
Across all major
digital initiatives, the EU now assumes:
- staying with a service becomes a choice, not something people are forced into,
- having the right to switch between products and services and to have them work together, even if not perfect (yet),
- repair must be practical,
- and dependence must be treated as a risk,
not an efficiency.
ACV law increasingly
contradicts those assumptions. That contradiction is not hidden; it is
surfacing through enforcement, litigation, and implementation.
As Cory Doctorow
[The
Post-American Internet (01 Jan 2026)] has pointed out, external conditions
now make it easier to complete this transition. Trade enforcement is less
uniform, digital dependency is reframed as a resilience issue, and global legal
alignment is no longer treated as an absolute good.
That does not force
Europe to act — but it lowers the cost of acting when the time is right.
Why Not Pull the Lever Now?
Because timing
matters.
A premature repeal of
ACV protections risks:
- fragmentation without durability,
- alternatives without trust,
- and backlash without payoff.
A sequenced repeal —
arriving after contestability and early ecosystem formation — is far more
likely to be progressing irreversibly.
Europe’s restraint is
not hesitation. It is a way to ensure that when ACV privileges are finally
removed, they stay removed — because the system no longer relies on them.
What Comes Next (Realistically)
Over the next 2–5
years, if current policies are enforced:
- Switching and migration services will
mature.
- Repair ecosystems will stabilise.
- Interoperability will become a procurement
expectation.
- Users and businesses will gain confidence
that exit is survivable.
At that point, ACV law
will no longer look like “protection.” It will look like an anomaly — the last
rule propping up a structure that has already moved on.
That is when pulling
the lever becomes both effective and safe.
Conclusion: The Lever, the Timeline,
and the Road Ahead
The lever exists. The
window exists. The destination is clear.
But Europe is not
parked in front of the lever. It is already on the road, in the EU way.
It is progressing
through the transition phases in a way that reduces dependency, restores exit,
and rebuilds digital markets around choice rather than coercion. In doing so,
it is steadily depriving the Old Normal of the conditions it needs to survive.
When anticircumvention
privileges are finally removed, it will not feel like a revolution. It will
feel like a cleanup — the removal of a legal exception that no longer fits the
system it once supported.
The point is no
longer whether Europe should pull the ACV repealing lever, but whether EU’s already
running approach for the Transition to the New Normal is going to be
persistently continued, finally in the Third Transition Phase turning the
Elephant out of the New Room.
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