Nick Antonovics
BRUSSELS: European Union partners are divided over the details of a key
copyright law aimed at protecting music, films and other works distributed
online, EU diplomats said on Wednesday.
The issue, which centers around whether governments should be able to prevent
rights owners from protecting their works using digital encryption techniques,
is the main obstacle blocking agreement by EU ministers at a meeting on
Thursday.
Failure to agree on a text would be a serious blow to EU credibility. EU
leaders committed themselves at a summit in Lisbon in March to adopt the
directive by the end of 2000 as part of an initiative to equip Europe for the
information age.
That goal was restated on Wednesday in a European Commission draft action
plan to implement the Lisbon "eEurope" initiative.
The diplomats said that differences over whether private individuals should
be able to make copies of digital works now threatened to scupper the deal.
Officials were working late to try and thrash out a compromise, but failure
would almost certainly mean the EU would not get the law onto its statute books
this year. The row has split the EU between countries–led by France, Spain and
Italy–which traditionally seek a high level of protection for authors' rights
and those that believe private individuals have a right to make copies for their
own use.
"It's gone from a debate about whether private copies should be allowed,
yes or no, to one about to what extent rights' holders use technical systems to
bloc copies," a diplomat said.
Messy compromise?
The IFPI, the main lobby for the 600,000 Europeans employed in the music
industry, said it feared a messy compromise that could damage a sector worth
Euro $14 billion.
As it stood, the directive would allow countries that take a more liberal
approach to private copying, such as Britain, to prevent rights holders from
encrypting their products.
"This would effectively partition the single market by mandating 15
different technologies according to the national definition of what private
copying is and how much may be permitted," IFPI said in a statement.
Senior EU officials admitted there was a problem, but hinted compromise would
be better than no agreement at all.
"I would always prefer a solution which respects the internal market for
all. If you can't achieve that, it's better to have a solution...which has as
limited a possible margin for changes," Enterprise Commissioner Erkki
Liikanen told a news conference.
A second related issue which remains to be resolved is to what extent rights
holders can claim compensation from makers of compact discs or other materials
which can store and record private copies of digital works.
Some EU states already impose levies on CD and video tape sales to compensate
rights holders and the directive does not seek to define at what level these
should be set.
Britain has angered some partners by seeking an exemption from such levies
for individuals seeking to record programs they plan to watch later–a concept
known as "time shifting".
(C) Reuters Limited 2000.