In a major turnaround in the situation on the copyright dossier, the European Parliament's draft report published on 22 December proposes to include certain copyright-protected works in the scope of application of the draft regulation on unjustified geo-blocking.
This provision was initially put forward by Vice-President of the European Commission Andrus Ansip, who has always been highly in favour of the free movement of European works. However, it was not retained in the final proposal, due to a lack of support at the Commission.
The legislative proposal on geo-blocking which was presented on 25 May (see EUROPE 11558) requires traders to make their goods and services available irrespective of the nationality, place of residence or place of establishment of the consumer. It covers only the goods and services listed in the Services Directive (Directive 2006/123/EC), which excludes social, transport and audiovisual services. Nor does it require merchants to supply their products in countries other than the one in which they are established.
In her report, MEP Róża Thun (EPP, Poland) supports the broad principles of the Commission's proposal. However, she rejects the exclusion of services provided electronically from the scope of application of the regulation: she argues that European consumers should be able to access e-books, online music, online games or software without discrimination in terms of price, access or payment conditions, as long as the vendor has the required rights for the territories in question. In so doing, she returns to Ansip's initial idea. At the end of October, incidentally, Ansip said that if anyone wished to reintroduce online music to the scope of application, he would support them.
The other major change proposed by Thun concerns the applicable law and court of jurisdiction. She takes the view that vendors clearly expressing their intention of selling in several member states should apply the law of the country in which they are established. The Council of the EU was more conservative: in its general approach dated 28 November, it simply stressed that vendors not seeking to sell their goods or services beyond their own borders could apply the law of their country. In the case of directed activities, on the other hand, vendors would be required to comply with the Rome I and Brussels I regulations as well as the law of the country of the consumer.
For the remainder, the parliamentary report provides a number of clarifications: for instance, it stresses that the discrimination ban concerns not only nationality and place of residence, but also the temporary location. It does not support the idea of explicitly asking the consumer to give consent before being redirected to a national interface, going no further than an information obligation. In addition, the report clarifies that operators may continue to apply general conditions of access which differ between the various member states or within a single member state offered to consumers on a specific territory or a specific group of consumers. (Original version in French by Sophie Petitjean)