European Commission: Communication on Access to On-Line Content

IRIS 2013-2:1/4

Catherine Jasserand

Institute for Information Law (IViR), University of Amsterdam

On 18 December 2012, the European Commission published a communication “on content in the Digital Single Market” with a view to creating an effective single market in the field of copyright. The communication follows on from a preliminary discussion on the subject in December 2012 and a certain number of initiatives adopted since 2010 (see IRIS 2010-7/4, IRIS 2011-7/4, IRIS 2012-9/6 and IRIS 2012-10/1).

While considerable progress has already been made in the field of neighbouring rights, the Commission intends to work on two parallel tracks of action regarding copyright. The first consists of organising a structured stakeholder dialogue (under the name of “Licensing Europe”), while the second involves reviewing the European copyright legislative framework.

Licensing Europe will bring together representatives of the stakeholders in the form of working parties to come up with proposals for practical solutions in four areas:

- cross-border access and the portability of services (issues connected with cloud computing, the transfer of rights, and the geographical cover of licences);

- user-generated content and licensing for small-scale users of protected material;

- ways of facilitating the on-line deposit and accessibility of films;

- promoting text and data mining for scientific research purposes.

The results of the working groups will be presented at the end of 2013.

In parallel, the Commission will continue its review of the EU copyright framework. The topics broached will include territoriality in the internal market, the harmonisation of copyright, limitations and exceptions to copyright in the digital age, fragmentation of the European copyright market, and how to improve the effectiveness and efficiency of enforcement of the monitoring measures. The Commission’s aim is to reach a decision in 2014 on whether to table the resulting legislative reform proposals.