COPYRIGHT : EXECUTIVE SETS OUT ITS AMBITIONS.

Internal Market Commissioner Michel Barnier had announced it in a 6 December 2012 speech and now the European Commission has printed it in an 18 December communication. The document confirms plans to launch a broad dialogue in 2013 on the initiative of Barnier, Neelie Kroes (Digital Agenda) and Androulla Vassiliou (education) "to deliver rapid progress in four areas" that are encountering problems linked to copyright on the internet. These are:

1. Cross-border access and the portability of services: distribution of content is often too limited. The Commission's objective is to foster cross-border online access and "portability" of content across borders. This work should take stock of current industry initiatives and deliver practical solutions to promote access across borders.

2. User-generated content and licensing for "small-scale users" of protected material. On average, every minute, people upload 72 hours of video to YouTube, and over 150,000 photos to Facebook. Sometimes this user-generated content "re-uses" existing material (such as home-made videos with a soundtrack added) and so is often covered by some form of licensing by rights holders, in partnership with certain platforms, but this is not "transparent" to the end user who is not very well informed. In parallel, small-scale users of content struggle to identify how to acquire licences. The Commission's objective is to foster transparency and ensure that end-users have greater clarity on uses of protected material. This work should identify relevant forms of licensing and how to improve information for end-users.

3. ...