EUROPEAN INSTITUTIONS
European Commission: The Commission has announced an initiative to combat online piracy of live content. With this initiative, the Commission aims to offer a set of tools to combat the illegal broadcasting of live events, especially sports. On the basis of relevant EU legislative instruments, the Commission will encourage member states and companies to use EU legal tools more effectively to fight against illegal online content downloads. More about this at this link .
INDUSTRY:
AIPA: News about what ZKUASP and online piracy have in common? More about this at this link .
Advanced Television: In January, the British Intellectual Property Office and the police sent a message to more than 1,000 people urging them to stop downloading pirated content, and informed users of the legal consequences of using it. More about this at this link .
Advanced Television: The Parliament of Wales requests a hearing from Netflix representatives, as it has recently produced many works in the said country, which is part of Great Britain. Parliamentarians are mainly interested in why Welsh was not used in the mentioned parts. According to them, Netflix did not promote the national language, despite filming in their territory. More about this at this link .
Advanced Television: Netflix’s new “Basic with Ads” service, which offers viewing of content without a subscription but with the obligation to watch advertisements, already had 1.4 million subscribers in France at the end of last year. Three out of five subscribers are new customers, according to analysts NPA Conseil and Harris Interactive. More about this at this link .
Cineuropa: Italians are returning to cinemas after the pandemic. Last year, ticket sales in Italy increased by almost 80 percent to 44.5 million compared to the previous year, and revenues increased by 81 percent to 306.62 million euros. Despite last year’s good results, revenues and the number of tickets sold are still about 50 percent lower than the pre-corona period. More about this at this link .
Cineuropa: According to provisional data, 27 million viewers saw French films in cinemas abroad last year. Through ticket sales, these films earned 167.4 million euros abroad, which is 52 percent more than in 2021, but still a third less than in pre-corona times. Provisional data also show that French cinemas hosted almost 152 million visitors last year, which is 60 percent more than the year before, but still 27 percent less than before the covid-19 pandemic. More about this at this link .
Cullen International: Commentary on Global Trends in Social Networking. More about this at this link .
Digital TV Europe: The YouTube platform is preparing to launch a new service based on ad-supported free-to-air TV channels. This should increase competitiveness in this ti FAST market. More about this at this link .
Digital TV Europe: Research by the analytical company Mediavision showed that as many as three million households in Scandinavia use a foreign subscription to watch subscription video on demand. is logging in with foreign data. The largest share of this goes to watching Netflix content. As many as one million households watch this with foreign subscription data. More about this at this link .
European Audiovisual Observatory: Commentary on the European plan to protect media freedom in the EU. More about this at this link .
Euroactiv: Inter-institutional negotiations between European institutions on artificial intelligence legislation will begin this year, and the European Commission and the European Parliament are still on opposite sides of the artificial intelligence regulation. Germany is getting closer to the position of the European Parliament, which, like the Parliament, wants to comprehensively regulate this area. More about this at this link .
Euroactiv: The European Commission will propose that the costs of the development of digital infrastructure, in addition to online platforms, are also borne by these virtual worlds (metaverse). More about this at this link .
Euroactiv: The Swedish EU Presidency has sent a proposal to member states asking for guidance on some of the most controversial points of the new data law, namely the exemption of small and medium-sized enterprises from the new legislation, B2G data exchange and trade secrets. More about this at this link .
Euroactiv: The independent Russian television channel Dež (TV Rain) received a European broadcasting license from Dutch regulators. The aforementioned TV company first moved from Russia to Latvia, where its license was later revoked, as the Latvian government was not satisfied with its reporting. That is why she has now moved to Amsterdam. More about this at this link .
Euroactiv: Vice-President of the European Commission and European Commissioner for Values and Transparency Vera Jourova, European Commissioner for Competition Margrethe Vestager and European Commissioner for Home Affairs Ylva Johansson met with TikTok CEO Shou Zi Chew to discuss data security, disinformation and EU digital regulation. More about this at this link .
Advanced Television: Starting in 2024, Netflix will broadcast the SAG-AFRA Awards live. More about this at this link .
Advanced Television: Generation Z has completely different habits in terms of watching TV and using online platforms than other generations, according to the Hub Entertainment research house. Generation Z much prefers to watch content on other media (phones, tablets, computers) than on TV sets. More about this at this link .
ScreenDaily: Many Russian film distributors participated in the Rendez-Vous French distributor meeting in Paris. This is a good indication that Franco-Russian film cooperation continues, despite the country’s unofficial boycott since Russia invaded Ukraine in February 2022. Russia remained the third largest market for French film last year, with 2 .6 million viewers, which is 83 percent more than in 2021, although still 14.2 percent less than before the pandemic and before Russia’s invasion of Ukraine in February 2022. Learn more at this link .
LEGAL MATTERS
Kluwer Copyright Blog: Commentary on the implementation of the Copyright and Related Rights Directive in the Digital Single Market in Germany. Germany implemented the aforementioned directive last year. More about this at this link .
Kluwer Copyright Blog: Commentary on developments related to copyright law in Europe in the last quarter of 2022. Read more at this link .
Kluwer Copyright Blog: Commentary on whether copyright law can also be a means of introducing censorship. More about this at this link .