The European Parliament has decided against opening up the TV rights market in EU and making it easier for broadcasters to offer their programming anywhere in the 28 member states. Under the legislation approved by the Legal Affairs committee, only news and public affairs from their home country could be delivered online anywhere in the EU, and not the full range of TV programmes.
The European Commission proposed in September 2016 a regulation aimed at making it easier for broadcasters to offer programming online across borders. This would pave the way for consumers to access digital content from their home country when traveling in another EU country and open up new markets for national broadcasters. At the moment, TV distribution is often restricted in other countries, as licensing of copyrighted content is limited to national agreements.
However, the parliamentary committee could not reach an agreement on opening up the full market and decided to allow only news and current affairs to be covered by the measure. This means broadcasters would only have to clear the rights in their own country to make available their online news and current affairs content for audiences in other EU countries too. This applies both for live and catch-up services.
If the parliament's version of the legislation is approved by the Council, broadcasters will still be able to geo-block their online content if required by the rights holder for the content. The MEPs supporting the measure said this is needed in order to support current licensing models for the audio-visual sector and to promote cultural diversity.
