EU plans overhaul of Internet download rules
BRUSSELS (Reuters) - The European Union needs new rules for Internet downloads that would make it easier for people to access music and films without resorting to piracy, the bloc's telecoms chief said on Thursday.
Mapping out the priorities for the EU's executive arm over the next five years, EU Telecommunications Commissioner Viviane Reding said it should consider new laws that would reconcile the interests of intellectual property owners and Internet surfers.
"It will therefore be my key priority to work... on a simple, consumer friendly legal framework for accessing digital content in Europe's single market, while ensuring, at the same time, fair remuneration (for) creators," she told a seminar.
Current laws are ill-devised, she said, because they appear to force people, especially the young generation, to become Internet pirates, or download content illegally.
"Internet piracy appears to become more and more sexy, in particular for the 'digital natives'," she said, quoting a survey that showed that 60 percent of people aged 16-24 had downloaded audiovisual content over the past months without paying.
"Growing Internet piracy is a vote of no-confidence in existing business models and legal solutions. It should (be) a wake-up call for policy makers," she told the seminar, organised by the Lisbon Council think-tank.
Reding is expected to seek the telecoms portfolio again when the five-year term of the current Commission ends in late 2009.
She said her other priority was to speed up the digitalisation of books, with 90 percent of books in European libraries no longer commercially available. Continued...
Man walks into his own funeral.