European Commission Addresses Transfer of Value in the Digital Market in its Communication on Online Platforms

On 25 May, the European Commission published its communication on online platforms and the Digital Single Market. The communication outlines the policy and principles for issues regarding online platforms and the Digital Single Market, and announced a “sector-specific regulation in the area of copyright” which should be included in the coming legislative proposal on the reform of the Information Society Directive (2001/29/EC).

The Communication deals with the “transfer of value” problem.

While these services (platforms which make available copyright-protected content uploaded by end-users) are attracting a growing audience and gain economic benefits from the content distribution, there is a growing concern as to whether the value generated by some of these new forms of online content distribution is shared in a fair manner between distributors and the right holders,” says the European Commission.

This issue refers to the uneven playing field created by the use of copyrighted works made available to the public by digital intermediaries without obtaining the proper copyright licenses for the content and without remunerating fairly the creators.

CISAC welcomes and encourages the Commission to meaningfully address the Transfer of Value problem and continue its efforts on reinforcing the liability of digital intermediaries with regards to copyright acts as outlined in the previous Communication Paper of 9 December 2015.