COPYRIGHT : INDUSTRY SAYS TALKS ON PRIVATE COPYING FAILED.

The issue of private copying was already a point of heated debate between national publishing rights societies and the industry, but tension is now at a peak. Digital Europe, which represents companies like Canon, Apple, Ericsson and Microsoft, has decided to put a stop to its talks with publishing rights societies aimed at modernising the system in place in 21 of the 27 member states.

"The representatives of industry have decided unilaterally to drop the discussions," protests GESAC, the European grouping of societies of authors and composers. Such societies manage at national level the fees for private copying (of music, films and texts) levied through sales of digital personal music players, blank CDs, photocopy machines and other reproduction devices to remunerate artists for their loss of copyright earnings.

On 7 January, Digital Europe put out a statement on the "collapse" of the discussions that urges the future European Commission - expected to be in place in February - "to take regulatory measures". The industry declares that it is "bitterly disappointed that a year and a half of talks have failed to deliver any concrete results or provide a way forward". GESAC claims to be surprised by the move, because "agreement on a number of issues was so close".

It was at the request of industry that Internal Market Commissioner Charlie McCreevy set up a discussion forum on private copying, in May 2008. Doing so also gave him the chance to mask his failed reform attempt (in the form of a recommendation to the 27 member states) of 2009. Given the outcry raised in the artistic establishment...