EC copyright consultation sparks debate

A consultation by the European Commission (EC) on possible areas for legislation on online copyright has sparked fierce debate.

The Publishers Association said it didn’t want more copyright laws: “The Copyright Directive prepared the ground for the digital marketplace and strikes a fair balance between the needs of all stakeholders. We consider that progress will be delivered by the evolution of new online business models.”

It called on ISPs to examine their copyright responsibilities: “Online piracy is a clear and present threat and one that must be dealt with if the potential of the EU market is to be realised. All stakeholders bear a responsibility for addressing this, and the role of ISPs in particular merits attention.”

Google outlined the advantages of multi-territory licences for online services such as YouTube: “It is currently not possible to obtain a multi-territorial licence from a single European recording rights society.” The search giant said gaining the agreement of the national recording rights societies was an “extremely inefficient and time-consuming process, requiring multiple individual negotiations”.

It called on the EC to support and encourage interoperability initiatives.

Michael Mabe, CEO of the International Association of Scientific, Technical and Medical Publishers, said the publishing environment remained fragile.

“Experimentation should be the order of the day, but not the casting in stone of legislation,” he said.

The UK government raised the complexity of the copyright landscape as a major issue: “There are clear dangers in legislating at the EU level at this stage in such a fast-moving environment. The experience of the UK market suggests that many of the issues the EC is seeking to address will be resolved by the market.”

The British Copyright Council said legislative intervention was not suitable as far as digital rights management and multi-territory rights licensing was concerned: “Premature intervention will only confuse the market and delay the development of content online.”

The EC has announced the Content Online Platform as a forum for debate on content, rights clearance mechanisms, multi-territory licensing, online copyright management and co-operation mechanisms to improve respect for copyright in online environments.