Digital Piracy
Protecting Europe's fast-growing pay-services (paid for content provided via TV, mobile and internet) against piracy is an important prerequisite to making the EU more competitive. The aim is to provide a satsifactory level of legal protection against piracy within the EU for pay-services and DIF welcomes efforts to try to achieve this without affecting innovation and competition.
DIF says
Representing the pay TV value chain, DIF members include conditional access vendors and service providers. The creation of an overly-prescriptive pan-European legal framework for the protection of electronic services could prevent the use of the most appropriate content protection systems.
A voluntary code of practice could be helpful in encouraging legal online distribution of film and other content and any legislation must not restrict the ability to choose the most appropriate technologies or business models.
EUROPEAN COMMISSION AND POLICY MEASURES
The current legal provisions for content access are currently based on the 1998 Conditional Access Directive (Directive 98/84/EC). This Directive aims to provide a minimum level of equivalent protection within the EU for television services and CA systems against piracy by prohibiting all commercial manufacturing, distribution and marketing activities related to pirate smart cards and other devices circumventing the access protection of pay-TV, radio and internet services.
As a condition of this Directive the Commission has been undertaking regular reviews of its implementation to ensure that it still meets demands of today's fast changing pay services sector.
Following an independent study and a public consultation on services protected by conditional-access systems the Commission published in October 2008 its latest report on the Directive's implementation and also setup a group of Member State experts to exchange information and good practice on any problems that arise in relation to conditional access. This report recognized that many new and thriving types of service are protected by the Directive: video on demand, mobile TV and online streaming, for instance, which all use conditional-access systems to restrict access to paying customers.
In January 2008 the European Commission adopted a non-binding Communication on "Creative Content Online in Europe's Single Market". This document is the starting point for possible EU initiatives to facilitate development of innovative business models, cross-border services and consumer-friendly offers. In this document piracy and unauthorized file-sharing were identified as major areas where cooperation was needed between service providers, producers and consumers. It also addressed the need to further reflect on the growth of Digital Rights Management systems (DRMs) and their perceived lack of interoperability, standardisation and "cross platform friendliness" for the user.