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A new policy paper drafted by the European Commission (EC) shows its intention to promote new measures to fight against illegal file-sharing.

A new policy paper drafted by the European Commission (EC) shows its intention to promote new measures to fight against illegal file-sharing, taking as a positive example the French agreement between ISPs and the record industries already presented in EDRI-gram.

The policy paper obtained by EurActiv and entitled "Creative content online in the Single Market" wants to involve all the stakeholders in the activities against piracy: "It seems appropriate to instigate co-operation procedures between access and service providers, right holders and consumers".

The Commission communication also talks about the development of new legal offers of digital content available for consumers, educational programs to raise awareness on the copyright issues and availability of the digital content in a single market, suggesting multi-national copyright licences and the interoperability of platforms offering legal content.

The digital content market is estimated to reach 8.3 billion euros by 2010 in the EU 25 and this is why the EC sees as a real concern the "piracy and unauthorised up- and downloading of copyrighted content". Therefore the Commission has started a public debate by "asking the sector's stakeholders whether they are ready to consider the French way, based on enforcement, and whether they consider applying filtering measures to be an effective means of preventing online copyright infringements."

The position of the EC is not a surprise, if we take into consideration the statement of the European Information Society Commissioner Viviane Reding at the European Publishers' Forum on 6 December 2007. She emphasised her efforts to promote a new law on digital publishing copyrights, explaining that: "With the telecom package, I want to support competitiveness, innovation and creativity. It is the first time that an electronic communications package includes specific requirements for network operators and users to respect copyright law."

Reading added: "People don't buy technology, they acquire contents and services. Therefore, the new rules contain references concerning compliance with national measures implementing the Copyright Directive and the Enforcement Directive. Moreover, the Universal Service Directive says that member states shall ensure that subscribers to electronic communications services or networks are clearly informed in advance of their obligations to respect copyright and related rights and of the most common acts of infringements and their legal consequences."

The commissioner also pointed out the new role of the EC in this domain - a catalyst through a "communication on creative content online in the single market, which will generate business negotiations and improve legal certainty."

But the publishers were also criticised, the European official considering they didn't adapt their business modes to the new dynamics asked by the raise of the Internet. According to Reading the publishers "face a big challenge in determining how to generate revenues in the digital age, and that most news and magazine publishers still earn less than 5 percent of revenues from new media, though this should double in the next year."

EU plans new measures to curb online piracy (10.12.2007)

EDRi-gram: New agreement between the French ISPs and record industries (5.12.2007)