Surfer heaven is on the way
Tomás F. Serna
January 14, 2008
The title used for this post is not mine. You’ll be able to find it at the European Commission’s official website. Seriously.
After a public consultation on ‘Content Online’ launched on 2006, the European Commission has come to the conclusion that (…) “multimedia content is big business” and that (…) “if Europe really wants to harness the potential of the online content industry (…) there needs to be more certainty and consumers should have more choice”.
A Communication to the European Parliament, the Council, the European Economic and Social Committee and to the Committee of the regions –as well as an accompanying staff working document–, were issued on January 3rd. unveiling a bold strategy towards the above stated goal.
A press release was also issued on the same day. Please find it here.
Four challenges have been identified by the Commission in order to foster the development of what is touted as “innovative business models” and the deployment of some sort of “cross-border delivery of diverse online creative content services”:
.- Availability of creative content
.- Multi-territory licensing for creative content
.- Interoperability and transparency of Digital Rights Management systems (DRMs)
.- Legal offers (this seems to mean: legislative steps), and piracy
All four identified challenges tackle real and very interesting issues present in today’s Europe.
While initiatives within EU bodies in this on-line new services/technologies arena always seem to me to come as half-hearted reactions without real consequence against the incontestable superiorness of the US, I find that this time we might actually gain something (if only awareness), within the EU as a result of this one.
The four above outlined challenges, as described in the Commission’s Communication, seem to overlap a bit among one another. Piracy and licensing issues seem to be the major sources of disappointment here.
Piracy and fear to piracy are identified by the Commission as key reasons of the lack of creative content available on-line. Confusing and obsolete copyright provisions don’t seem to help here either. The Communication summarizes very well some of the most recent efforts undertaken in the EU both in the music and audiovisual sectors towards overcoming these challenges. It even references efforts from individual states within the EU such as the MOU reached in France last november among film producers, Internet service providers and the French Government against illegal file sharing.
As a conclusion the Commission announces its intention to set-up a “Content Online Platform” which apparently will be a “framework for discussion at the European level” of every issue related to on-line distribution of creative content. I’m looking forward to that.
A second initiative within the conclusion of the Communication will be the preparation of a Recommendation of the Parliament and the Council on ‘Creative Content Online’. This will be aimed at transparency and interoperability of DRM systems. [Note: DRM, short for 'Digital Rights Management' technologies, were discussed on another post from March 2007 here at BlogEuropa.eu]
This brings memories of news from recent years over declarations and even somewhat strong criticism coming from the EU, targeted against various issues –DRM being one of them– around a very popular on-line store, that in some instances were quickly taken back.
Now that we’re talking about Apple (formerly known as Apple Computer), come to think of it, none of the above four challenges seem to have deterred them from building and operating what apparently has been for the time being the most successful on-line audiovisual store, which, by the way, is filled with content coming from the US but also from european artists.
Should this hint something to the Commission or even, I might add, to the music and audiovisual industries in Europe? These kind of efforts and initiatives are always welcome, but isn’t Apple already teaching us Europeans something? Where there is a will, there is a way… they say.
As a side note, it might be worth noting that last week was a fruitful one for the Commission in the on-line distribution realm… as a second announcement on January 9 made public that an agreement had been reached with Apple over the competition (antitrust) probe that it had been conducting over the price difference that within the iTunes music store had been established for different countries among the EU. This apparently has resulted in immediately available lower prices for UK customers, which is, I suppose, a good thing for them.
All the best, TFS
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