[Focus] McCreevy snubs MEPs over online music
HELENA SPONGENBERG
20.03.2007 @ 17:33 CET
EUOBSERVER / FOCUS – EU internal market commissioner Charlie McCreevy wants to give his online music recommendation more time before following a European Parliament call for binding rules to regulate the EU's online music market, disappointing MEPs.
Speaking before MEPs in the parliament's legal affairs committee on Tuesday (20 March), Mr McCreevy said the effects of the 2005 commission recommendation on "collective cross-border management of copyright and related rights for legitimate online music services" still had to be seen before a new decision could be made.
There are no plans for a binding EU law on cross-border copyright management of online music, according to McCreevy (Photo: European Commission)
"Let's give it a chance and see how it's going to progress," Mr McCreevy said. "I think it is too early to make categorical decisions about where we should go next in that area."
"Let's give the online music recommendation a time to bed in," he added.
However, the comments were not well received by the author of the parliament report calling for binding regulation, Hungarian socialist MEP Katalin Levai.
"It was a bit disappointing for me," Ms Levai told EUobserver.
She explained that Mr McCreevy's colleague - EU employment and social affairs commissioner Vladimir Spidla - last week told her that the European Commission welcomed and fully supported her report and that the EU executive would like to propose a directive on the basis of the report.
The so-called "Levai report" was supported by a large majority of the parliament's 785 MEPs when they met in Strasbourg last week.
Ms Levai fears that if the commission takes too much time to decide on regulation in the area, the parties standing to gain from the lack of a binding law - such as music publishers - could aggressively take advantage of the situation.
"We have to insist on regulation," Ms Levai said, adding that more discussions with Mr McCreevy were needed to make him change his mind.
"The parliament does have something to say," said Austrian green MEP Eva Lichtenberger. "The report was adopted by a very large majority...and it's not just a question of pure market mechanisms, it is also a question of culture and social issues," she pointed out.
Political reasons behind levy move
Mr McCreevy also admitted that political reasons were behind Mr Barroso's actions last December, when he canned a recommendation by Mr McCreevy one week before it was due out. The document had threatened to re-carve the fast-growing, €1.6 billion a year sector of so-called "private copy levies."
The surprise move came just a few days after a memo from Paris told Mr Barroso that EU member states want a "deeper dialogue" on the levies, despite the fact that Brussels had already carried out a year-long stakeholders' consultation on the subject.
"It is true to say that we did get into some political difficulties with…copyright levies," Mr McCreevy told MEPs. "The decision was that the time was not politically right to proceed with it."
France had argued that the status quo - which sees European artists' trade unions skim a fee off most internet-related gadgets to compensate for reproduction - promotes "cultural diversity." Mr Barroso's move won praise from artists' groups, fronted by stars like film-maker Pedro Almodovar.
Big-hitting electronics firms have already threatened to take Brussels to court over the move.
In the meantime, the Spanish government is facing strong criticism at home over a move to put a digital levy on all electronic devices - that can store, transmit, reproduce or copy music and films - to fund cultural projects.
More than 1 million signatures against the move have been handed over to the government, but Spanish culture minister Carmen Calvo said on Tuesday (20 March) that the levy debate in Spain is unreal because an "absolute costless culture is impossible to maintain."