After an extensive stakeholder dialogue, report by 2012 on the need for additional measures beyond collective rights management allowing EU citizens, online content services providers and right-holders to benefit from the full potential of the digital internal market, including measures to promote cross-border and pan-European licenses, without excluding or favouring at this stage any possible legal option. What is the problem? Europe lacks a unified market in the content sector
Public and stakeholders must be consulted to see which measures would best enable the building of a digital single market. At the moment the Commission does not exclude or favour any particular option or legal instrument.
In particular, the stakeholder dialogue will look into current copyright law and see whether the current level of harmonisation is sufficient for the development and free movement of content services across borders. Is there a need for further integration of copyright exceptions and limitations? Or are other internal market mechanisms needed, such as the country of origin principle, to eliminate fragmentation and improve access to and creation of content?
Why is EU action needed? To create a true digital single market.
Consumers expect, rightly, that they should be able to access content online at least as effectively as in the offline world. Unlocking this part of the digital single market would help Europe's economic recovery, one of the key aims of the EU 2020 strategy.
What will the European Commission do? The Commission will:
In 2010
- Prepare a Green Paper on the distribution of audiovisual content and other content.
In 2011
- Decide, depending on the Green Paper, whether and which further measures are necessary to achieve the specific objectives of the DAE.
In 2012
- Assess whether further measures like legislative proposals are needed.
Contact:
michael.niebel@ec.europa.eu