December 4, 2017

Following the Commission’s announcement of an Intellectual Property Rights (IPR) package, Frances Moore, Chief Executive Officer of IFPI, commented:

“We are disappointed that despite the European Commission recognising the need to modernise IPRED and years of evidence gathering, today’s result is merely guidance to EU Member State governments. Soft law does not give right holders the tools they need to take effective action against pirate services.”

Ms Moore said that IPR are “the backbone of Europe’s creative industries” and that, although cross-border access to content has been “a signature success of the music industry in recent years”, cross-border protection has been “lagging”. Ms Moore points out that the IP Enforcement Directive (2004/48/EC) law designed to provide that protection is almost 15 years old and is “in need of major changes, for example by providing for speedier and more effective injunctions.”

At the moment, when rights are infringed, copyright owners have to take action “one Member State at a time”, Ms Moore continues. “This is costly, slow, legally incoherent and flies in the face of the Single Market concept.”

In Ms Moore’s view, the Commission has “recognised several of the legal problems, including inefficient injunctions.” However, she says, “[t]he trouble is that it has done so in a non-binding ‘Communication’.”

Ms Moore concludes by saying that “We remain in a successful Single Market for consumption, but a fragmented European market for copyright enforcement”. IFPI is therefore urging the Commission to use this package of measures as “a stepping stone to a fully revised and updated” IP Enforcement Directive to be provided in the near future and “give European right holders the necessary tools to tackle copyright infringement.” To read Ms Moore’s statement in full, click here.