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Legal certainty throughout Europe

To invest in growth, content and service providers need legal certainty. Rules at the European level are crucial in areas ranging from fighting illegal or harmful online content to copyright issues.

Overview ¦ Relevant Policies ¦ Relevant Activities ¦ Example Projects

"Old" and "New" rules for TV

"Broadcasts must not contain any incitement to hatred on grounds of race, sex, religion or nationality"
- TVWF Directive 97/36/EC (HTML)

The fight against illicit, harmful or racist content is led on various fronts, and needs to be kept up to date as technologies and services converge.

The Protection of Minors and Human Dignity Recommendation, for example, was adopted in December 2006. It encourages, for example, actions to enable minors' responsible use of audiovisual and on-line information services, in particular through media literacy; actions to avoid and combat all discrimination based on sex, racial or ethnic origin, religion or belief, disability, age or sexual orientation; the implementation of filters and of the online right of reply.

The Television without Frontiers (TVWF) Directive, created in 1989 and updated in 1997, regulates, among other things, what content and what advertisement is banned from the TV screens all over Europe, with special articles concerning the protection of minors and human dignity as well as advertising, teleshopping and sponsoring.

In December 2005 the Commission tabled a substantial Modernisation proposal for the Directive - the Audiovisual Media Service Directive - embracing both traditional linear and 'non-linear' audiovisual services.

Protecting and Using Intellectual Property

While digital technologies make content easier to transmit, creating a potentially huge market, they also make content easier to copy. Rules are required at European and international level to ensure that creators and inventors can distribute their work via these new technologies without losing their legal rights. For more information:

• Intellectual Property Rights on the international stage
• The Directive on the harmonisation of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society (2001) adapted Europe's Single Market legislation in these areas to reflect technological developments
• Digital Rights Management (DRM) systems describe and identify digital content protected by intellectual property rights, and enforce usage rules set by right-holders or prescribed by law for digital content. They are thus important tools to protect intellectual property in the digital world;
• Note: a European approach on Software Patents was rejected by the European Parliament in July 2005 - read more

 

"The public sector is the single biggest producer of information in Europe"

On the other hand, data created and owned by Europe's public sector - the single biggest producer of information in Europe - should be a rich resource for Europe's suppliers of content and services. Innovators wishing to exploit this rich seam of data on everything from economics to traffic flows face a number of barriers - hence the EU’s Public Sector Information Directive of December 2003.

Media pluralism

In 2005, finally, a Media Task Force was established to support the growth and jobs in the media industry and to promote diversity and pluralism in the media and freedom of the press. The task force monitors all policies affecting the media, explores the possibility of common indicators of Media pluralism, and serves as a contact point for media companies, organisations and citizens with media-related enquiries.

Last Updated March 2007

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