Question to the Department for Business, Energy and Industrial Strategy:

To ask Her Majesty's Government what assessment they have made of EU Commission proposal 2016/0284, which lays down rules on the exercise of copyright and related rights applicable to certain online transmissions of broadcasting organisations and retransmissions of television and radio programmes, and its potential impacts on the UK.

The proposed regulation under 2016/0284 seeks to extend a “country of origin” principle for copyright clearance to certain online broadcast transmissions (such as catch up services), meaning that rights only have to be cleared once in the country of origin of the service. It also proposes to extend the mandatory collective management of rights to retransmissions of TV and radio programmes delivered over the internet.

The Government provided an Explanatory Memorandum to the House of Commons European Scrutiny Committee and the House of Lords European Union Committee in October 2016 following publication of the Commission’s proposal. In this it set out how the proposed extension of country of origin principle could benefit consumers by enabling them to receive TV and radio programmes from other EU Member States via services which are currently unavailable – for example, where they miss a programme and cannot access the catch up service. Likewise, UK citizens in other countries may be able to access UK broadcasts. However, many broadcasters and rights holders have concerns that this provision will undermine their ability to license content by territory, which is central to their business models. The Government agrees that the proposal could undermine the principle of freedom to contract by territory, affecting both broadcasters and rights holders. On this basis, the Government opposes the proposed extension unless it protects the freedom to contract by territory robustly.