It were assessed the baseline scenario, one non-legislative and two legislative options to facilitate licensing in order to enhance cross-border transmissions of TV and radio programmes online. The considered options are enabling options aiming to facilitate licensing of rights, in order to allow the market to respond gradually to legal and policy changes.
The first option is Baseline. No policy intervention. This option would consist in relying on market players to progressively offer cross-border access to TV and radio programmes distributed online as well as on the courts, and notably the CJEU, to clarify the application of the Treaty and of provisions of EU secondary law relevant to the free movement of services. It would also mean continuing to rely on the application of competition law to agreements including limitations on territorial exploitation of content.
All public service broadcasters, commercial radios and certain other service providers consider that the baseline option cannot solve the identified problems. They consider that a heavy administrative task and transaction costs linked to licensing rights across borders would remain. Rightholders, CMOs and the majority of commercial broadcasters support this option, arguing that the current framework already offers possibilities to license rights on a multi-territorial basis and that the limited cross-border supply is driven by a limited consumer demand and language barriers. Consumers’ representatives consider that the current regulatory framework does not sufficiently ensure access to TV/radio programmes available online in other MS and that market-driven solutions would not be sufficient to solve this problem.
Option 1 – Voluntary agreements to facilitate the clearing of rights for broadcasters’ online services ancillary to their broadcasts
This option would promote maximising a voluntary aggregation of the rights necessary to provide multi-territorial licences for broadcasters’ online services. It would build on the voluntary agreements between rightholders and broadcasters which already exist in the music sector and would aim to introduce them in other content sectors important for broadcasting (such as AV and visual arts) and also with regard to commercial broadcasters who are not party to the arrangements with authors’ CMOs. Based on such arrangements, broadcasters would be able to acquire from CMOs multi-territorial licences to aggregated repertoires.
It would focus on online services of broadcasting organisations which are ancillary to the initial broadcast, i.e. simulcasting (linear simultaneous transmission of a broadcast by the broadcaster), catch-up TV/radio services (on-demand transmission of a broadcast available for a limited period of time after it has been broadcast in a linear manner) and material related to the broadcast (e.g. previews).
In order to facilitate the clearing of the rights for cross-border transmissions of broadcasters’ online services ancillary to their broadcast, the Commission would assess the functioning of the existing voluntary agreements in the music sector and foster a dialogue between the parties (rightholders, CMOs and broadcasters) if there is a need to improve their functioning. It would also promote similar agreements at EU level for the AV sector and other content sectors important for broadcasting services (such as visual arts).
Public service broadcasters are likely to consider that this option is not sufficient to achieve the identified objective. Commercial broadcasters and some other service providers may favour this option as it would rely on industry-based solutions. Rightholders and CMOs are likely to support such option. However, in the case of AV stakeholders, the usual practice for licensing is individual agreements thus it is less likely that they would support voluntary aggregation of repertoires by CMOs, especially for the premium AV content. Consumers’ representatives consider that market-driven solutions would not be sufficient to solve the identified issues.