The Lords European Union Committee this week
produced a report outlining why the Commission's Audiovisual Media
Services Directive (AVMS) should be resisted. The proposed
successor to the Television Without Frontiers (TVWF) Directive,
AVMS will extend television regulation to some internet video
services.
Intended as a way to keep EU law up to date
with new and emerging media platforms, the new Directive has proved
controversial as bloggers, podcasters and hobbyists have worried
about being caught up in regulation designed for major broadcast
operations.
The Directive as currently framed makes clear
that it applies only to commercial TV-like services, but critics
still worry that vagueness about what that actually means could
lead to regulation of content that should not be governed by the
Directive.
"We believe that this attempt was seriously
misguided and any future efforts to do the same would be in grave
error," said Lord Freeman, chairman of the Committee. "Such an
attempt risks damaging the new media industry, which is a vibrant
and important sector of the UK's economy."
The report warned that, if passed, the
Directive would force production companies outside of the EU to
escape the regulation, and that the UK would be one of the main
victims of that flight.
The Directive was heavily amended by the
European Parliament in November and adopted in its amended form in
December. The Council of Ministers must now back that amended
version and send it back to Parliament for a final vote. If
approved, the Directive must be implemented in national law in each
country within two years.
Germany, which currently holds the EU
Presidency, says that it wants the AVMS Directive to be finalised
by June of this year.
Many concerns were laid to rest in November
when the European Parliament changed the proposal so that it
explicitly excluded amateur, or user-generated, content, such as
videos posted to YouTube or rival video sites.
The Lords committee, though, said that it
should not be the job of the EU to protect the business interests
of existing broadcasters, which it said was the Directive's
effect.
"We firmly reject the idea that regulators
should act to preserve the market dominance of established players
from new entrants," said the report. It said the Committee was
"unconvinced of the need for any quantitative restrictions on
advertising in a market which is now clearly open to
competition".
"We are concerned that the identification of
some of media services as 'television-like', may lead some to
conclude that eventually 'like services' should be regulated in a
'like-manner', i.e. a perfectly 'level playing field'," it said.
"If these services are to be included at all we agree that they
must be regulated differently, but the wording and definitions in
the latest versions of the text may encourage the idea that they
can and should be regulated in the same way as television. We would
consider such a move now or in the future to be a grave error."
Disclaimer: We hope you find OUT-LAW’s content useful. It’s prepared by the lawyers at Pinsent Masons. Please remember, though, that it’s intended as general information only. It’s not legal advice. If that’s what you’re seeking, please
contact us. See also: our
full disclaimer
