EU Commission urges industry to develop new copyright models

In a statement, the EU Commission has urged the IT industry to develop new copyright models that improve access to online content. The three EU Commissioners for the Internal Market, for the Digital Agenda, and for Culture, said that they plan to create a dialogue with the stakeholders in 2013. In 2014, the Commission intends to decide whether to start revising the current copyright legislation.

What may appear to be a rather relaxed approach to outsiders is considered by the Commission to be a suitable process to "deliver rapid progress" in four areas: these areas are cross-border access and the portability of services, user-generated content and licensing for small-scale users of protected material, facilitating the deposit and online accessibility of films in the EU, and promoting efficient text and data mining for scientific research purposes.

One of the Commission's stated aims is to improve cross-border access to online content. It also wants to achieve clearer regulations for combining personal and copyright-protected content – this occurs, for example, in many YouTube videos. End users often have insufficiently clear understanding of the legitimate uses of protected material, said the Commission.

(ehe)