Brussels, 17/03/2010 (Agence Europe) - On Wednesday 17 March, the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) forwarded proposals for a modernisation of the system whereby copyright licences are granted for audiovisual media. It is worth noting that the European Commission is currently working on setting in place a legal framework favourable to consumers, allowing digital content to cross internal borders within the European Union whilst guaranteeing solid levels of copyright protection and fair payment to the creators of the content. The public service media organisation stressed the need to set in place with rights and facilitated access, to allow the public legally to access media content on all new digital platforms for which the opportunities (especially the Internet) cannot be fully exploited as yet. "The European public is increasingly calling to be able to access content on new media platforms, but the current regime of copyright does not include the necessary rules for copyright licensing to be effective. This situation leads to pointless administrative costs, which goes against the interests of copyright users, be they consumers or creators", stresses Ingrid Deltenre, director-general of the EBU (our translation).
The public service media recommend the creation of a coherent framework for all audiovisual media communications, so that the systems for copyright licensing already in place for radio and television also cover on-demand services (streaming video on demand, podcasts, etc) in the same way as for broadcasting. In the view of EBU President Jean-Paul Philippot, the granting of collective licences is the ideal solution for the copyright licensing throughout the EU. "If the processes (...), which are complicated and expensive, were rationalised, greater sums of money could be invested in quality European content", he said.
The proposals of the EBU can be broken down into three points: 1) the process for copyright licensing must be simplified and speeded up for all of the audiovisual media service providers. In this way, the "country of origin" rule (the law applicable to a service provider is that of the Member State in which the business providing the service is based), which applies to satellite broadcasting, should be extended to cover all audiovisual media service communications, on all platforms, including the Internet. Additionally, the granting of obligatory collective licences for cable retransmission should be extended to cover all third retransmission platforms (including mobile networks and IPTV - Internet Protocol Television), not just cable; 2) the modernisation of the principles for copyright licensing should go hand in hand with the creation of a legal framework for the granting of collective licences. The Member States should be allowed to adopt systems for the "granting of extended collective licences" similar to those which exist in the Nordic countries, particularly for broadcasting-style on-demand services; 3) facilitating access to the archives of broadcasters and simplifying the granting of music licences. For the broadcasters' archives in particular, the Member States should be obliged to ensure, by means of appropriate resources, (extended collective licences, for example), that the broadcasters are authorised to use their archives in the framework of new online services. Additionally, it is particularly important to find solutions for the use of music by broadcasters. Collective agreements concluded for the use of musical works in the broadcasters' programmes should be extended to cover on-demand use as well. Where it is not possible to reach voluntary extended collective agreements, this system should be made obligatory. Info: http://www.ebu.ch/copyright. (I.L./trans.fl)