Deep in my heart, I hate geoblocking Andrus Ansip Tweet this!

Commission Vice President Ansip yesterday announced that the Commission’s Digital Single Market strategy includes the harmonisation of copyright exceptions, notably for libraries, text & data mining and for people with disabilities.

He also clearly stated that geoblocking for the enforcement of copyright must be abolished completely.

With these announcements, the Commission is siding with my recommendations in the draft report on the evaluation of current EU copyright law, which several MEPs are attacking with amendments in Parliament.

It’s encouraging to see that the Commission is not giving in to lobby pressure and has identified that increased access to culture supports – rather than threatens – Europe’s cultural diversity.

However, Ansip has remained vague on how to achieve the aim of abolishing geoblocking. What we need is a clear commitment to the goal of a single European copyright and a move towards the country of origin principle for online videos. That would mean that companies will have to obtain a copyright licence only in the country from which they operate, which has long been the case for TV broadcasting and has of course not led to the downfall of the film industry.

The Commission will be announcing more specific plans on May 6.

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One comment

  1. 1
    Pirat
    27.03.2015

    http://www.n-tv.de/wirtschaft/EU-will-Internet-Einkauf-erleichtern-article14784296.html
    “”Ich habe gegen eine Sektoruntersuchung nichts einzuwenden, so lange sie nicht die Reform bereits identifizierter Hürden für den digitalen Binnenmarkt auf die lange Bank schiebt”, sagte Julia Reda”

    Jede weitere Verzögerung ist schlecht, da diese Reform mit TTIP zeitlich konkurriert. Die USA könnten genau den EU-Markt bedienen, den sonst die bisher geogeblockten EU-Staaten hätten, wenn das DSM zuerst fertig wird.

    Any further delay result in a bad position of this copyright draft compared to TTIP. The geounblocked USA could serve the EU-Market right before the geoblocked EU-Member States could.