European Commission Looks to Bolster Online Content Market

BRUSSELS, January 4: The European Commission is encouraging
content owners, telcos and Internet service providers to work together to
enhance the availability of audiovisual offerings online, while at the same
time protecting intellectual property rights.

The Commission wants European Union citizens to have “easier
and faster” access to TV shows, movies, music and games via the Internet and
mobile devices, and is encouraging rights holders and platforms to come
together to facilitate this goal. The Commission is stressing a “single market”
approach, with online content licenses that will cover several or all of the EU
member states. According to the Commission, “a truly single market without
borders for creative online content” in a consumer-friendly environment would
boost Europe’s music, film and gaming sectors and allow retail revenues from
those products to quadruple to 8.3 billion euros by 2010.

“Europe’s content sector is suffering under its regulatory
fragmentation, under its lack of clear, consumer-friendly rules for accessing
copyright-protected online content, and serious disagreements between
stakeholders about fundamental issues such as levies and private copying,” said
Viviane Reding, the EU Commissioner for the Information Society and Media. “We
have to make a choice in Europe: Do we want to have a strong music, film and
games industry? Then we should give industry legal certainty, content creators
a fair remuneration and consumers broad access to a rich diversity of content
online.”

Reding says the Commission will release a proposal on ways
to achieve this “single market for online content,” in the middle of this year.
“I ask in particular Europe’s consumer associations to take a very active part
in this debate,” Reding continued. “Because for online content, the demand and
preferences of 500 million potential consumers are the strongest arguments for
achieving new solutions at EU level.”

The conditions limiting the online market at present, the
Commission notes, include the limited availability of content, partly because
of piracy concerns. As such, the Commission is encouraging the development of
innovative rights-protection systems. It is also promoting multi-territory
licenses for online content, as well as interoperability and transparency of
Digital Rights Management systems.

—By Mansha Daswani