Brussels, 18/04/2016 (Agence Europe) - The European Commission would like YouTube to contribute more to the remuneration of right holders. During an international press briefing on Friday 15 April, Vice President Ansip explained journalists that "There is no question of imposing a YouTube tax but we want to make the rules clearer. This is a question of a level playing field".
The Commissioner is unhappy with the different treatments operated by musicals platforms such as Spotify, which finance themselves by way of subscriptions and "those such as, YouTube, which operate by way of advertising but which do not remunerate the musicians in any way". He asserted that the Google subsidiary, which had 1 billion users and paid itself by way of advertising revenues, does not finance the music industry apart from around €600 million a year, whereas this Swedish musical streaming service Spotify, which has 30 million paying subscribers, contributes around €1.6 billion.
As we previously indicated (see EUROPE 11530), the Commission is shifting towards sectoral online platform regulation. Commissioner Ansip tweeted that, "The policy approach for online platforms in Europe will not be horizontal but based on specific problems". On 15 April, he confirmed to journalists that he wanted to maintain the provisions from the directive on e-commerce (2000/31/EEC) on the responsibility of intermediary providers. Section 4 of this text includes derogations for intermediaries playing a passive role, with storage service providers said to be "caching" or those providing accommodation. The Commissioner indicated that "No one wants to change the 'safe haven' principle in the directive on e-commerce. We have two respond to all the problems separately".
The Commission is expected to publish a communication on the economic and social role of online platforms in June. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)