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Category: EU

A Digital Single Market Strategy for Europe

Published 14th July 2015

Preventing unjustified Geo-blocking (official)

Geo-blocking refers to practices used for commercial reasons by online service providers that result in the denial of access to websites based in other Member States or, where the consumer is able to access the website, they are still not able to purchase products or services from it. Sometimes the consumer will be re-routed to a local website with different prices or a different product or service. In other such cases, where the sale is not denied, geo-localising practices – where differing pricing structures are automatically applied based on geographic location – are often used to apply differentiated prices to consumers. Geo-blocking is one of several tools used by companies to segment markets along national borders (territorial restrictions). By limiting consumer opportunities and choice, geo-blocking constitutes a significant cause of consumer frustration and of fragmentation of the Internal Market.

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A Digital Single Market Strategy for Europe

Published 8th July 2015

What should DSM (official) mean for citizens and business?

Making the Single Market fit for a digital age requires rapid actions to remove the major differences between the online and offline worlds i.e. breaking down barriers to cross-border online activity. This is the first pillar of actions for the Strategy. Secondly, since all digital services, applications and content depend on the availability throughout Europe of high-speed, secure and trustworthy infrastructures, we need action to create the right regulatory conditions for investment, stimulate competition and ensure a level playing field between market players. Thirdly, breaking down barriers to the Digital Single Market is not enough if businesses in Europe are not in a position to be able to adopt digital technologies. The Strategy supports increased digitalisation of the EU economy, including investment in ICT infrastructures. The Digital Single Market Strategy will therefore be built on the three pillars:

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Padawan case: European court’s decision – third, fourth and fifth questions

Published 8th May 2015

Background, and first two questions were earlier

The third and fourth questions

It is appropriate to examine third and fourth questions together. It must be held from the outset that a system for financing fair compensation such as that described in relevant part of this judgment is compatible with the requirements of a ‘fair balance’ only if the digital reproduction equipment, devices and media concerned are liable to be used for private copying and, therefore, are likely to cause harm to the author of the protected work. There is therefore, having regard to those requirements, a necessary link between the application of the private copying levy to the digital reproduction equipment, devices and media and their use for private copying. Consequently, the indiscriminate application of the private copying levy to all types of digital reproduction equipment, devices and media, including in the case expressly mentioned by the national court in which they are acquired by persons other than natural persons for purposes clearly unrelated to private copying, does not comply with Article 5(2) of Directive 2001/29.

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Padawan case: European court’s decision – first and second questions

Published 24th April 2015

The first question

It should be borne in mind that under Article 5(2)(b) of Directive 2001/29 Member States which decide to introduce the private copying exception into their national law are required to provide for the payment of ‘fair compensation’ to rightholders. It should be noted at the outset that neither Article 5(2)(b) nor any other provision of Directive 2001/29 refers to the national law of the Member States as regards the concept of ‘fair compensation’.

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Reforming of copyright in EU and one of the questions concerned: user-generated content

Published 21st April 2015

User Generated Content (UGC) is understood as referring to cases where a pre-existing work is taken by a user as a starting point for his/her own expression, modified or transformed in one way or another, and then made available online. It may also include the merging of two pre-existing works (“mash-ups”). The threshold may be lower than “a certain amount of creative effort”. It excludes the case of “mere upload”, where a user merely distributes on the internet (by uploading and sharing it) pre-existing works without having intervened in any way on the work. It also excludes “creation from scratch”, i.e. the case where a user creates a new work “from scratch”, without relying on a pre-existing work.

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White paper – Making available issue

Published 24th February 2015

There is no unitary copyright title in Europe, so works are protected on the basis on 28 national legislations. The use of a work in all EU Member States therefore requires the clearing of rights for 28 territories. The varying availability and accessibility of content services in the EU can thus be caused by the difficulties that service providers have in obtaining all the rights needed in all territories.

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Reforming of copyright in EU and one of the questions concerned: exceptions and limitations and the functioning of the internal market

Published 16th February 2015

In the light of coming copyright reforms in EU the draft impact assessment concerns some important copyright issues. One of them is exceptions and limitations and the functioning of the internal market.

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