December 17, 2018

The EU is taking steps to make online TV and radio programmes more easily available throughout its territory. The Council and the European Parliament have now reached a provisional agreement on the future Directive.

The idea behind the Directive is to provide users in any EU Member State with a wider choice of online TV and radio programmes originating in other EU countries. It will do so by facilitating the licensing of copyright-protected material contained in these programmes.

Broadcasters are, more and more, offering parallel broadcasts over the internet (simulcasting), as well as catch-up services. In order to clear the rights to works and other protected subject matter contained in their broadcasts for all relevant territories, the Directive will allow broadcasting organisations to clear all relevant rights in the Member State of their principal establishment.

The Directive will cover all radio programmes, as well as TV programmes related to news and current affairs or produced by the broadcasting organisation. Existing contracts will remain unaffected for a period of four years from the entry into force of the Directive. The Commission will assess the need for extending this coverage to additional types of TV programmes six years after the entry into force of the Directive.

In addition, the Directive facilitates the clearance of rights where a radio or TV programme broadcast in one Member State is retransmitted simultaneously, unaltered and unabridged in another Member State, via cable, satellite, digital terrestrial, closed circuit IP-based or mobile networks. It also covers retransmissions over the open internet, provided that they take place in a managed environment, i.e. they are subject to some kind of digital identification. Clearance of the relevant rights will have to be cleared through a collective management society, which will also be entitled to clear rights belonging to rights holders who have not transferred their rights to it.

The new rules clarify the legal status of the so-called “direct injection” technique, i.e. when a broadcaster transmits its programme-carrying signals to signal distributors in such a way that these signals are not accessible to the public during that transmission. In that case, only a single act of communication to the public will be deemed to have occurred. This means that both the broadcaster and the signal distributor will have to clear the underlying rights.

The provisional text will have to be endorsed by the European Parliament and the Council before it can be formally adopted. Member states would have two years from its entry into force in which to transpose the Directive into national law. To read the Council’s press release in full, click here.