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Geo-blocking for audiovisual works should be prohibited.

Yesterday, the European Parliament voted against a review of the geo-blocking rules for audiovisual (AV) content. Parliament adopted an IMCO own-initiative report on the implementation of the 2018 Geo-blocking Regulation, but also passed a number of amendments to effectively exclude AV content from the scope of a review. While the result isn’t binding, this is […]

Today, we are publishing an open letter from civil society organizations to members of the European Parliament ahead of the plenary vote on the IMCO own-initiative report on the implementation of the 2018 Geo-blocking Regulation scheduled for Tuesday, December 12, 2023. The letter refutes a number of grossly exaggerated claims made by rightsholders in an […]

Somewhat out of sight of the public eye there is another fight about EU copyright rules going on. This time it is about cross border online access to audiovisual works, and the widespread practice of streaming platforms to block access to customers from other member states – aka geo-blocking. Over the past weeks, we have […]

Last October, COMMUNIA was invited by the European Commission to a stakeholder dialogue to improve cross border access to audiovisual (AV) content. As part of the stakeholder dialogue, the European Commission organised a series of three meetings during which it invited stakeholders (predominantly organisations representing various parts of the audiovisual media sector) to agree on […]

Earlier this week, COMMUNIA was invited to participate in a high-level roundtable on access to and availability of audiovisual content across the EU hosted by Commissioner Thierry Breton. This round table which took place today marks the beginning of a stakeholder dialogue with the audiovisual industry to agree on concrete steps to improve the access […]