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Digital Rights Management

Note: eEurope 2005 finished at the end of 2005.

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High Level Group

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High Level Group on Digital Rights Management

The establishment of a High Level Group to address current issues arising from Digital Rights Management (DRM) was announced by the Commission in its Communication "Connecting Europe at high speed: recent developments in the sector of electronic communications", adopted on 3 February 2004.

DRM - Digital Management Rights systems and services are a key component of the e-content distribution. The Communication underlines the importance of DRM's availability for new business models to develop in the broadband market. The usefulness of DRM has been recognised by the European Parliament in its Report of 11 December 2003 on a Community framework for collecting societies for author's rights.

The advent of broadband networks and their capacity to transmit large volumes of multimedia content at high speeds emphasises the importance of ensuring that digital content is available under the appropriate conditions, which meet the interests of all stakeholders. In this context, DRM technologies are promising to establish the right incentives for this development, notably a secure environment for ensuring remuneration of right holders in the context of private copy, payment for online content as well as preventing illegal copying.

New business models for the delivery of online content are increasingly being experienced in the market. Yet some issues deserve attention at this early stage of commercial implementation; amongst these issues the interoperability of DRM remains to be addressed together with concerns of stakeholders or consumers such as privacy concerns.

The High Level Group on Digital Rights Management will provide an opportunity for stakeholders to raise their essential concerns and to discuss about possible co-operation between businesses and governments, while the outcome of the Group should be submitted for a large consultation at a later stage. The Group will comprise high level representatives of interested parties ranging from right holders, collecting societies, content providers and the ICT sector to research and consumers organisations.

A first meeting of the High Level Group on DRM with Commissioner Liikanen took place on 31 March and has been followed by another meeting on 5 July to finalise its positions on the appropriate response to the policy challenges posed by DRMs.

Members of the High Level Group :

08.07.2004 - Second Meeting of the High Level Group

                                            Final Report of the High Level Group:  

                                            Presentation of the Report: 

31.03.2004 - First Meeting of the High Level Group:

                                            Highlights of the First Meeting:                                    

Informal Consultation of the Final Report on the High Level Group 

At the second meeting of the High Level Group on DRM (8 July 2004) it was decided to launch a wider consultation of all stakeholders on the Final Report. This informal consultation allowed views to be expressed by interested parties on the outcome of the High Level Group.

Stakeholders and interested circles were invited to submit their comments to the Commission until the 15 September 2004. The comments received will be put on this Website unless a specific request not do so is mentioned.

The deadline for the submission of the comments to the Commission has now been closed.

For access to the submissions to the consultation, click here

 

 

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