Under the current system of private copying levies an estimated € 600 million is collected annually by collective rights management organisations. The European Parliament is about to strengthen and expand the system. The levy should in the near future apply to “all material, media and services whose value resides in their private recording and storage capacity”. Moreover, the idea is to extend the levy system to content stored in the cloud. At the same time, at least 25% of the levies collected will have to be earmarked “to promote the creative and performance arts”. The idea that the private copying levy system could be replaced by a licensing system (as in the case of online music sales) is rejected.

In part, the rules proposed in the Draft Report seem to go against the opinions expressed and the recommendations made by António Vitorino in his Report of 31st January 2013 following the mediation on private copying and reprography levies.

On Monday, 13th January 2014, Rapporteur Françoise Castex will deliver a short presentation of the Draft Report on private copying levies which she has been preparing for the Committee on Legal Affairs . The presentation will take the form of a one-minute speech under a procedure which is reserved for matters of political importance.

On 5th December 2013, the European Commission launched a Public Consultation on the review of the EU copyright rules. The deadline for submissions was set at 5th February 2014.

Although the consultation is said to focus on the EU copyright regulatory framework in general, all questions seem to relate to the internet.

This Public Consultation provides a unique opportunity for the parties in the vertical value chain of production and distribution of audiovidual media services (producers, broadcasters, aggregators, operators of distribution platforms) to promote an entirely new system. The current system is inefficient for reason that it requires an ever increasing number of transactions (with an increasing number of collective rights managment organisations, all representing only parts of the rights required and/or only parts of the right holders in a certain category of rights). The current system also leads to continuous litigation  and hampers or delays the development of new and innovative services. It would be much better to find commercial solutions.

X-Media Strategies knows how to achieve this goal and has been deeply involved in the ongoing process in The Netherlands to replace the system of collective rights management by commercial agreements between all parties in the value chain.