EU thinking on geo-blocking and copyright reform leaked

[fjtorres]

ARS techinca has some details and links:

http://arstechnica.com/tech-policy/2...document-leak/

On geo-blocking, the strategy document says, "The Commission will initiate action to put an end to unjustified geo-blocking." As to what that means, the document explains, "Geographically-based restrictions of supply and differentiations can sometimes be justified, for instance where the seller needs to comply with specific legal obligations or where costs associated with cross-border e-commerce (e.g. in terms of shipment) would be too high for certain types of companies."

That would seem to rule out geo-blocking based purely on territorial rights, something that the European copyright industries are keen to retain. However, another section of the Digital Single Market strategy document seems to speak of this kind of geo-blocking more positively: "These contractual practices reflect the central role of territorial exclusivity in the production and financing of audio-visual works (where large upfront investments are funded through the pre-sale of exclusive rights in certain territories)." But it then goes on to distinguish that situation from where "restrictions originate from contractual arrangements between right-holders and distributors (online service providers, broadcaster, etc.)"

Even the Commission's summary of its plans here leaves it unclear how the ban on geo-blocking will work. It says the new strategy aims to "facilitat[e] access to legally paid for cross-border services (e.g. allowing a resident of one Member State to access online content currently available only to residents of another Member State) while safeguarding the value of rights in the audio-visual sector." It's hard to see how those can be reconciled.

More at the source.

Note that they are only focusing on geo-blocking within the EU.

[EowynCarter]

Well, that's.. Something.

Though some are going to complain about the french "cultural exception"

[crane3]

Wonder under what terms the regional blocking being used in the distribution of DVDs fall under. Or maybe it is now alright for manufacturers to make "all region" blu-ray/dvd players?

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by crane3

Wonder under what terms the regional blocking being used in the distribution of DVDs fall under. Or maybe it is now alright for manufacturers to make "all region" blu-ray/dvd players?

The initiative seems to be strictly intra-Europe; to aggregate all the small(ish) *digital* markets into something that might compare to NorthAm in market size. A parallel to the eurozone project, but to create scale and uniform pricing across the continent for digital media. Best example would be how Netflix and Lovefilm and competitors can't build a single streamer service for Europe but have to go country by country to sign up rights, often more than once for the same item. Netflix and Amazon and Apple and Microsoft and Sony can afford the time and cost but local startups can't.

Netflix as a startup was able to ramp up from zero to take on the big boys because the US is a 320m market with one set of rules and licenses so by the time they went international they had the resources to go country by country; Lovefilm was able to grow UK-wide on its own but had to join with Amazon to go beyond. EBooks shows a similar issue: only a multinational alliance of publishers has allowed Tolino to cross borders economically whereas most other local bookstores remain local in scope and size.

The issue starts with culture, feeds into patents and copyrights, and creates the licensing and contractual issues. It *should* be possible to work around the cultural issues but to get to a single digital market they are going to have to make copyright a EU right not a national right. Not an easy thing, thus the pussyfooting...
(And the leak.)

It's going to take years and years.

As for DVD regions, it shouldn't change a thing as it doesn't sound like they are looking to influence imports from outside Europe. Most of those are already single point licenses.

[EowynCarter]

Originally Posted by fjtorres

The initiative seems to be strictly intra-Europe; to aggregate all the small(ish) *digital* markets into something that might compare to NorthAm in market size. A parallel to the eurozone project, but to create scale and uniform pricing across the continent for digital media. Best example would be how Netflix and Lovefilm and competitors can't build a single streamer service for Europe but have to go country by country to sign up rights, often more than once for the same item. Netflix and Amazon and Apple and Microsoft and Sony can afford the time and cost but local startups can't.

Netflix as a startup was able to ramp up from zero to take on the big boys because the US is a 320m market with one set of rules and licenses so by the time they went international they had the resources to go country by country; Lovefilm was able to grow UK-wide on its own but had to join with Amazon to go beyond. EBooks shows a similar issue: only a multinational alliance of publishers has allowed Tolino to cross borders economically whereas most other local bookstores remain local in scope and size.

The issue starts with culture, feeds into patents and copyrights, and creates the licensing and contractual issues. It *should* be possible to work around the cultural issues but to get to a single digital market they are going to have to make copyright a EU right not a national right. Not an easy thing, thus the pussyfooting...
(And the leak.)

It's going to take years and years.

As for DVD regions, it shouldn't change a thing as it doesn't sound like they are looking to influence imports from outside Europe. Most of those are already single point licenses.

I never thought about this, but that's an interesting point.

[fjtorres]

Originally Posted by EowynCarter

I never thought about this, but that's an interesting point.

That's how Brusselcrats justify their existence: by thinking about those things so you don't have to.



(We have a similar breed on this side of the pond.)