New Services and Protection of Broadcasters in Copyright Law

Legal, technological or economic developments in the audiovisual sector generate immediate priority information needs for professionals. IRIS plus identifies these issues and provides the relevant legal background. It features a combination of a lead article, related reporting and a Zoom section, comprising overview tables, market data or practical information. This brand new format provides you with the knowledge to follow and join in the latest and most relevant discussions concerning the audiovisual sector.

LEAD ARTICLE
The Legal Protection of Broadcasters: Challenges Posed by New Services
Digitisation and convergence, especially the enormous increase in capacity and performance in the case of Internet access, computers and storage media, have simplified and speeded up the distribution and consumption of programme content. In addition to the growth in the number of legal services, piracy has benefited from the greater efficiency of the new technologies. The problem of protecting the broadcast signal has been raised once again, and perhaps even more clearly than in the past, as a result of the considerable stepping up of the broadcasters’ own Internet activities, that is to say the live broadcasting of programmes using this particular distribution channel (weband simulcasting) and making available to the user for individual access at any time and place audiovisual content that has already been broadcast or is scheduled to be broadcast in the near future.

All this once again raises the question of whether the protection granted broadcasters is sufficient. Is the existing legal framework capable of meeting the challenges brought about by technological progress and the introduction of new business models?

Sections in the lead article:
I. Introduction
II. New Offers of Audiovisual Programme Content and the Protection of Broadcasters
III. The current legal discussion at the international level
IV. Conclusions and future outlook

RELATED REPORTING
Copyright Law: Different Objectives and Types of Protection
This second part illustrates how difficult it is to achieve Europe or even worldwide agreement on the protection of broadcasters’ rights. It also shows clearly that the fruitless search for such consensus already stretches back over many years.

Meanwhile, national legislative bodies are endeavouring to strengthen the copyright protection of online services. Of course, this is useful for the broadcasters that offer such services:
- International Agreements
- National Legislation
- Individual Decisions

ZOOM
Relevant International and European Law
- Status of Signatures and Ratifications (October 2010)
- Protection of Broadcasting Organisations as Holders of Authors and Copyright-related Rights in the Context of Audiovisual Media Content Distribution
- Additional Protection (not Copyright-related) or Measures for the Enforcement of Rights

• Primary Source

European Audiovisual Observatory: IRIS Plus http://www.obs.coe.int/oea_publ/iris/iris_plus/index.html

---