Brussels, 24/01/2006 (Agence Europe) - The European Audiovisual Observatory, under the aegis of the Council of Europe, has published a report in the “IRIS Plus” collection entitled “Media Regulation in the Interest of the Audience”, composed of five reports. The common thread running through each of these five articles is the direct bearing of media legislation on the rights and interests of the audience or consumer of the various audiovisual media. The first report deals with legislation, which guarantees citizens' access to information on state activities, a freedom enshrined in the European Convention on Human Rights, without interference from public authority. The second covers advertising legislation, a source of income for television and electronic media in countries of the former USSR. Under the Soviet regime, the need for such legislation was not recognised and this study states how the situation has evolved. The third report deals with advertising legislation in the electronic media, which has become a major way of relaying advertising information to potential consumers. The report compares the different European legislations in force. The fourth study is on Digital Rights Management Systems (DRMS), which can allow or restrict access to content such as music or films. The report looks at how such technical protection measures can bring into conflict the interests of rights-holders and the interest of content consumers. The fifth study examines application of EU competition law to audiovisual agreements and State aid, assessing how the attribution of State aid to such audiovisual content, to the benefit of consumers, can be affected by the boundaries of EC competition law.
The European Audiovisual Observatory has also published the third volume of its “2005 Directory - Cinema, Television, Video and Multimedia in Europe”, which covers six main themes: production, distribution and exploitation, new cinema arrivals, video and DVD, the economy of the European film sector, public subsidies to the film and audiovisual sector in Europe. Two volumes have already been published and two are to come to complete the directory.