From left to right: Roberto Viola, Androulla Vassiliou, Neelie Kroes, Norman Jardine, Michel Barnier
© European Union, 2013

TV archive licensing issues and the cross-border flow of audiovisual content in the EU were up for discussion as the EBU took part in the final plenary meeting of the “Licences for Europe” stakeholder dialogue initiated by the European Commission. The process is part of an ongoing review of EU copyright law.

Launched in December 2012 by Commissioners Michel Barnier (Internal Market and Services), Neelie Kroes (Digital Agenda) and Androulla Vassiliou (Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth), the Licences for Europe process aimed to bring consumers, copyright holders and users together to find industry-led solutions for the use of copyright-protected content, with focus on cross-border access and online content. The EBU and several member organizations –ARD, BBC, Channel 4, ITV, RAI and ZDF – have participated in a constructive and active manner throughout the process, despite its complexity and a certain lack of transparency.

EBU Head of European Affairs Nicola Frank emphasized the needs of public service broadcasters, putting forward solutions to open up their archives and enable cross-border access to their content.

Speaking about broadcasters’ archives, she said: “It was recognized that facilitating the distribution and accessibility of broadcasters’ archives – or in other words, a huge part of Europe’s audiovisual heritage – is in the public interest. And that licensing solutions for the large scale clearance of rights remain to be found in order to achieve that objective.”

 The EBU has constructively collaborated with the Society of Audiovisual Authors and Danish collective management organization Copydan to establish a set of principles to facilitate such archive licensing:

• Collective licensing solutions appear to be particularly suitable for the large scale clearance of rights wherever individual licensing would not be feasible or disproportionate ;
• Collective licensing agreements shall aim to enable any relevant type of use while adequately remunerating the rightholders ;
• Collective licensing agreements should be sought for entire audiovisual works as well as extracts or clips.

Regrettably though, audiovisual producer organizations’ involvement in developing these principles was lacking for the conclusion of discussions on this subject in the Licences for Europe framework.

Regarding the portability of audiovisual content in the EU market, Nicola Frank underlined that the solution drawn up by some stakeholders only covered subscription-based services and failed to address the broader interest of European audiences to access free-to-air content across borders. She said: “In order to make the legal environment future-proof, we have highlighted the need for a technologically-neutral approach to the legal rules that are still limited to cable retransmission.

The EBU can now look ahead to a public consultation on the EU legal framework for copyright and possible options for modernisation according to the findings of the current review.  

For Internal Market Commissioner Michel Barnier, any requests for legislative changes will need to be backed by concrete justifications, while Digital Strategy Commissioner Neelie Kroes says that the legal review track will be followed where a consensus in the Licences for Europe process could not be found. For Culture Commissioner Androulla Vassiliou, copyright policy should support cultural diversity and give users more clarity and transparency on their rights and responsibilities.

Presentations, speeches and documentation about the Licences for Europe process can be found on the European Commission’s website.