Audiovisual works made available to the public in one or more EU Member States must be available in all Member States under similar conditions. This is especially important for works that have received public support for their production or distribution. The widespread practice of geo-blocking access means that audiovisual works that are legally available in one part of the EU aren’t available in another. This goes against the goals of European integration and cultural diversity.
This week, COMMUNIA made a submission to a call for evidence on the evaluation of the Geo-blocking Regulation (available as a PDF file). The European Commission is set to review the rules for geo-blocking, including for audiovisual services and copyright-protected works, this year. After the stakeholder dialogue on access to and availability of audiovisual works […]
A fair and modern copyright framework is essential for an enabling European research environment. However, researchers often find that their access, use and reuse of resources essential to their activities is still limited by copyright and related rights. While, thanks to the 2019 DSM directive, they now benefit from a EU wide text and data […]
Yesterday, the European Parliament voted against a review of the geo-blocking rules for audiovisual (AV) content. Parliament adopted an IMCO own-initiative report on the implementation of the 2018 Geo-blocking Regulation, but also passed a number of amendments to effectively exclude AV content from the scope of a review. While the result isn’t binding, this is […]
Today, we are publishing an open letter from civil society organizations to members of the European Parliament ahead of the plenary vote on the IMCO own-initiative report on the implementation of the 2018 Geo-blocking Regulation scheduled for Tuesday, December 12, 2023. The letter refutes a number of grossly exaggerated claims made by rightsholders in an […]
Somewhat out of sight of the public eye there is another fight about EU copyright rules going on. This time it is about cross border online access to audiovisual works, and the widespread practice of streaming platforms to block access to customers from other member states – aka geo-blocking. Over the past weeks, we have […]
Last October, COMMUNIA was invited by the European Commission to a stakeholder dialogue to improve cross border access to audiovisual (AV) content. As part of the stakeholder dialogue, the European Commission organised a series of three meetings during which it invited stakeholders (predominantly organisations representing various parts of the audiovisual media sector) to agree on […]
Earlier this week, COMMUNIA was invited to participate in a high-level roundtable on access to and availability of audiovisual content across the EU hosted by Commissioner Thierry Breton. This round table which took place today marks the beginning of a stakeholder dialogue with the audiovisual industry to agree on concrete steps to improve the access […]
