Negotiators from the European Parliament and Council have reached an agreement on new EU online broadcast rules covering radio and current affairs programmes.
Under the terms of the agreement, which was devised to maximise distribution of and access to news media across the EU, mechanisms are introduced to facilitate copyright and rights clearance for digital radio and television broadcast channels transmitting between Member States. The amended EU online broadcast rules mean broadcasters hoping to transmit their services across intra-EU borders will only need to clear copyright and associated broadcast permissions in their country of origin, rather than every country to which they transmit.
Under the EU online broadcast rules currently in place, online broadcasters must clear the rights for every territory they serve, as well as in their own country. Because this can be an arduous and expensive process, many broadcasters providing online radio and television services make content available in a single Member State and implement geoblocking software to prevent consumers in other countries from accessing that content.
The new EU online broadcast rules will apply only to news and current affairs programmes for radio and TV which are fully financed and owned by the broadcaster, meaning broadcasters will be able to make content available online in other countries simultaneously with their web broadcasts or as online catch-up services.
Legal Affairs committee rapporteur Pavel Svoboda said: “Given very different positions of both co-legislators at the beginning, it is definitely positive that today, both co-legislators, managed to find a compromise wording and were able to reach a basic agreement on EU online broadcast rules on a political level. Parliament had a clear priority to defend the principle of territoriality which in our view is still very important and needs to be implemented.”
The EU online broadcast rules will still need to be ratified by the full European Parliament, Council and the Legal Affairs Committee before they can come into force.
