Directive 2019/789 - Rules on the exercise of copyright and related rights applicable to certain online transmissions of broadcasting organisations and retransmissions of television and radio programmes - Main contents

EN

Official Journal of the European Union

L 130/82

In order to contribute to the proper functioning of the internal market, it is necessary to provide for wider dissemination in Member States of television and radio programmes that originate in other Member States, for the benefit of users across the Union, by facilitating the licensing of copyright and related rights in works and other protected subject matter contained in broadcasts of certain types of television and radio programmes. Television and radio programmes are important means of promoting cultural and linguistic diversity and social cohesion, and of increasing access to information.

The development of digital technologies and the internet has transformed the distribution of, and access to, television and radio programmes. Users increasingly expect to have access to television and radio programmes, both live and on-demand, through traditional channels, such as satellite or cable, and also through online services. Broadcasting organisations are therefore increasingly offering, in addition to their own broadcasts of television and radio programmes, online services ancillary to such broadcasts, such as simulcasting and catch-up services. Operators of retransmission services, which aggregate broadcasts of television and radio programmes into packages and provide them to users simultaneously with the initial transmission of those broadcasts, unaltered and unabridged, use various techniques of retransmission, such as cable, satellite, digital terrestrial, and mobile or closed circuit IP-based networks, as well as the open internet. Furthermore, operators that distribute television and radio programmes to users have different ways of obtaining the programme-carrying signals of broadcasting organisations, including by means of direct injection. There is a growing demand, on the part of users, for access to broadcasts of television and radio programmes not only originating in their Member State, but also in other Member States. Such users include members of linguistic minorities in the Union, as well as persons who live in a Member State other than their Member State of origin.

Broadcasting organisations transmit daily many hours of television and radio programmes. Those programmes incorporate a variety of content, such as audiovisual, musical, literary or graphic works, protected under Union law by copyright or related rights or both. That results in a complex process of clearing the rights of a multitude of rightholders, and for various categories of works and other protected subject matter. Often the rights need to be cleared in a short time frame, in particular when preparing programmes such as news or current affairs programmes. In order to make their online services available across borders, broadcasting organisations need to have the required rights to works and other protected subject matter for all the relevant territories, which further increases the complexity of the...