Dugie Standeford

The European Parliament likely will urge govts. and telcos to speed work on a pan-European system intended to deliver emergency services automatic alerts of vehicle accidents. The “eCall” proposal is part of a move by the European Commission to use data and communications tools to boost road safety. After a debate at today’s (Thurs.) plenary session, lawmakers are expected to approve a road map to put the technology in new vehicles beginning in Sept. 2009.

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) should scrap plans to update broadcasting copyright protections, Intel said in an April 10 discussion draft posted Tues. Ahead of next week’s meeting of WIPO’s standing committee on copyright and related rights (SCCR), Intel said it opposes giving broadcasters -- and perhaps webcasters along with them -- new rights to control uses of content they broadcast that are separate from existing copyrights in the material. Proponents of the treaty “have not demonstrated that the benefits of creating new exclusive rights outweigh the burdens that these new rights impose,” Intel said. It said those burdens include: (1) Potentially giving broadcast organizations the right to control legitimate and noninfringing uses of content within homes by, say, forcing PVR makers to get licenses and agree to limitations imposed by broadcasters. (2) Requiring technical protection measures that limit design freedom. (3) Potentially exposing software developers, device makers and ISPs to secondary liability for infringements by unrelated parties. (4) Creating a denser thicket of copyright rights that content users must negotiate to obtain clearance from rights-holders. (5) Reducing royalties to copyright owners by making content users pay broadcasters as well as content owners. (6) Potentially limiting “fair uses” of copyrighted materials and restricting content otherwise in the public domain. Efforts to enact the treaty “should be abandoned,” Intel said. Its scope should at least be “dramatically narrowed” to signal theft, the company said. Intel has only recently “really taken a close look at this broadcast treaty” and decided to air some of the questions it raises, said Donald Whiteside, vp-corporate technology group. Many others in the industry -- companies that make TiVo, for example -- still aren’t aware the treaty could give broadcasters the right to say, “my content shall not be tivoed,” he told us. Intel has taken its concerns to nongovernmental organizations participating in the treaty talks and to the U.S. WIPO delegation, he said. The SCCR meets May 1-5 to discuss the latest treaty draft.

Broadband triple-play offers appear to turn the adage “you get what you pay for” on its head, a co-author of an Organization for Economic Cooperation & Development (OECD) report said today (Tues.) “Countries such as France and Japan, which have the lowest priced bundles, also offer the fastest speeds, best calling plans and the most included channels,” said economist Taylor Reynolds of the science, technology & industry directorate. But, he and colleague Yoshikazu Okamoto said, multi-play services could raise regulatory issues such as net neutrality and must-carry.

Deutsche Telekom’s (DT) sale of around 4.5% of its outstanding shares to private investment group Blackstone could signal further mergers among European incumbent telcos, Bingham McCutchen telecom attorney Axel Spies said Mon. The transfer from Kreditanstalt fuer Wiederaufbau (KfW), a state- owned bank that holds a large block of DT stock for sale on the market, to U.S.-based Blackstone will decrease to around 33% the combined share of the German govt. and KfW, DT said. As part of the contract, Blackstone agreed to hold the shares for at least 2 years. The govt. needs the money to pay off pensions owed to former govt. officials who worked for DT while it was still a monopoly, Spies said. Finance Minister Peer Steinbrueck, a Social Democrat, called Blackstone’s move a vote of confidence from international investors in Germany’s biggest telecom group, Spies said. Steinbrueck’s view is in marked contrast to that of former Social Democrat leader Franz Muntefehring, who last year described some foreign investors as “locusts” devouring German companies and destroying jobs. Blackstone’s actual influence on DT management will be relatively small, but the investor will presumably try to increase its stake in the future, Spies said. “I wouldn’t be surprised if we see similar deals in other EU countries in the near future, for instance in Denmark and in Portugal.” When investment funds such as Blackstone buy stakes in European incumbents, they increase pressure on management to “unite forces on a pan-European basis and weaken, at least in the long run, the national govts. that are still holding significant stakes in their incumbents.” DT rivals welcomed the deal on the ground that any reduction in the govt.’s stake in DT helps level the playing field, Spies said on behalf of the German Competitive Telecoms Assn. (VATM).

An alliance of blue-chip high-tech companies attacked a proposed European law that would regulate TV programming on the Internet. The measure is designed to update the European Union’s 1989 TV Without Frontiers directive. The 1989 version of the directive, requiring broadcasters to show a majority of European content, was considered biased against Hollywood. The new law contain no such quotas, but some groups fear the European Parliament may add them. The proposal would require broadcasters of news or children’s programs to have 35 min. between ads -- seen as discouraging production of such programming. The European Parliament’s culture committee reports on the new directive in June and a full parliamentary vote is expected this year. The high-tech companies’ effort Tues. suggests fierce lobbying to come in Brussels. Meanwhile, the U.K. broadcasting, telecom, technology, new media and advertising sectors said EU plans to extend TV regulation to on-demand services will hurt competition and consumers, said the. The new alliance -- led by high-tech trade association Intellect and the Broadband Stakeholder Group -- said it supports updating the TV Without Frontiers (TVWF) directive to boost Europe’s economy and protect consumers. But it said imposing traditional rules on on-demand services could confuse businesses, overwhelm regulators and disappoint consumers. “While we support deregulation within the current scope, and agree that definitions relating to ‘TV-like’ services need to be revisited, we oppose the extension of scope as defined,” the group said in a statement to Brussels. The proposed extension undermines the legal certainty of existing legislation such as the e-commerce directive, creates unenforceable definitions, and fails to allow self-regulatory approaches to develop, it said. The alliance recommended that: (1) The TVWF directive be revised to update regulation affecting scheduled ("linear") TV, but not be broadened to include “non-linear” programming. (2) The definition of linear TV be revamped to include services that are the same as traditional scheduled broadcast services except for the delivery platforms. (3) Self-regulatory mechanisms should be encouraged to work with non-linear services.

P2P technology, the music industry’s bane, is looking increasingly promising to Europe’s TV industry, according to industry observers. Following a Feb. workshop, the European Bcstg. Union (EBU) said the technology “certainly seems a very attractive solution for broadcasters.” Pilot projects in the U.K., the Netherlands and elsewhere are beginning to tackle P2P’s intellectual property issues. However much the cheaper distribution system may excite broadcasters, the question remains whether P2P TV is a viable business model, officials said.

Webcast signals could be protected on an opt-in basis under a draft treaty posted ahead of the May meeting of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) standing committee on copyright & related rights (SCCR). The panel is trying to update a convention that protects broadcasters’ copyright in their transmission signals to account for new technologies such as cablecasting. U.S. webcasters -- with support from the EU and Japan -- want to include webcasting signals, which has sparked strong opposition from many other quarters. Publication of the draft text prompted one civil libertarian to ask how webcasting and other controversial provisions seem to have made the final cut, while more popular elements may have fallen by the wayside.

EU lawmakers have been seeking an update of the TV Without Frontiers directive for 4 years and generally back the European Commission’s approach to that, European Parliament Member (MEP) Ruth Hieronymi told us. The revisions are needed to adapt the law to new technologies and to ensure that AV content is regulated the same regardless of its method of transmission, said Hieronymi, who will write the official report on the legislation for the Culture Committee. The draft calls for a regulatory division between “linear” or broadcasting services, including streaming, webcasting and IPTV, and “nonlinear” or on-demand services, which would be subject to minimal rules in areas such as protection of minors and subliminal advertising. MEPs don’t want on-demand services regulated unless their main purpose is media-related as opposed to providing user-controlled movies or games, Hieronymi said. A true AV media service has relevance for information, education or entertaining the public, she said, and the “demarcation is extremely important.” Lawmakers don’t want to regulate the Internet - as the Commission’s proposal has been widely claimed to provide -- because “we are convinced it’s not possible to regulate the Internet by this directive,” she said. The parliament has already laid out its position in several resolutions, Hieronymi said. She expects a broad discussion of the issues and the introduction of lots of amendments. The majority of MEPs will likely accept the “crucial” line of the Commission’s proposal but “not 100%” of it, she said. The draft is undergoing review in 5 parliamentary committees besides Culture, and a joint hearing is set June 1-2. The culture committee will vote on Hieronymi’s report in Oct. Hieronymi said she hopes the plenary vote will come in Dec., a timetable she acknowledged is “ambitious.” Other committee reporters didn’t comment.

The U.K. could learn much from Japan and Korea about convergence despite its major economic, social and cultural differences, a public-private sector report published Wed. said. On a recent mission to those nations, the Dept. for Trade & Industry (DTI) and trade group Intellect studied the impact of wide deployment and uptake of advanced broadband on the content market, applications and services. Their report had 4 key conclusions. Korea and Japan long have stressed top-down information & communications technology (ICT) planning, the latest incarnation being a drive to move beyond “e” to “u” (ubiquitous) networking. A focus on ICT policies means govts. and regulators are “happier to intervene” in the marketplace to get desired outcomes than in the U.K. The policies are stimulating the markets but uncertainty on how to handle convergence is a bar to faster progress, the report said. Govts., suppliers and regulators push operators to invest in ambitious network solutions to deliver policy aims, even if the business reasons are weak. Both Korea and Japan have increasingly advanced networks and high ambitions: Korea hopes to deliver 20 Mbps to all homes by 2006 and 50- 100 Mbps by 2010, while Japan looks to have 30 million fiber- to-the-home connections by 2010. Broadband is driving growth in the market for innovative content. As in the U.K., established growth areas include music, video-based services and games. But “personalized and interactive community sites are also becoming increasingly embedded in Korean and Japanese lives,” proving a fertile ground for business. Firms are exploiting such sites’ strong appeal to generate income via micro-payments and other new methods and extract value from user-generated content alongside more traditional advertising, subscription and pay-as-you-go models. Finally, the report noted, next-generation networks are “leading to disruptive convergence” in Korea and Japan. The broadband value chain is shifting away from households and to individuals; from in-home to out-of-home use; and from mass to personal consumption. The imminent arrival of PTV, VoD and mobile TV has non-traditional broadcasters scurrying to snap up content via partnerships or buyouts, and traditional broadcasting companies trying to innovate with existing content. But, the report said, uncertainty about regulation of TV-like services is slowing deployment, making them less advanced than other content genres and making consumer demand harder to gauge. Overall, the trade mission said, Japan and Korea well could be approaching the “convergence tipping point” that will speed them toward a “Ubiquitous Networked Society” before Europe. But, it said, 2 major questions remain: “Can the same advances be made with less investment or are the negative consequences of not having a highly advanced ICT-enabled society in an ever more competitive global market place too great to risk not taking a leap of faith?” The report’s recommendations included: (1) Study Korean and Japanese regulatory approaches as part of s review of the EU e-communications framework. (2) Focus on payment- identity-trust in the broadband arena. (3) Weigh a review of China’s impact on world ICT. The DTI/Intellect report coincided with a Point Topic analysis finding that S. Korea could lose its tag as the world leader in broadband uptake. Despite negligible broadband growth in 2005, Korea still has over 25% penetration by population, analysts said. But Denmark and the Netherlands are catching up. Since it’s growing at a much faster rate -- 47% in 2005 compared to the U.S.’s 27% -- Western Europe could soon be way ahead of the U.S. in broadband penetration, analysts said.

Red tape and folderol entangling new-media offerings will result if the European Commission proceeds with plans to oversee on-demand audiovisual (AV) services, the American Chamber of Commerce to the EU (AmCham) said. The EC wants the TV without Frontiers (TVWF) directive, now covering only linear (traditional) programming, to expand to “non-linear” on-demand offerings. In a March 23 position paper, AmCham said it backs EC moves regarding traditional broadcasting, but is “concerned the proposal extends the scope of the directive to the online area, without demonstrating market failures to justify regulation and without assessing the impact on employment in the EU.” Most on-demand services already come under the e-commerce directive, AmCham said. It criticized parts of the proposal, including: (1) A definition of AV services covered that is unclear and too broad. It should focus on services mainly about AV content and otherwise fully comparable to TV services (i.e., filling the whole screen and changing several times per sec.) rather than on websites that happen to include some AV element or content delivered to new devices. (2) The draft directive requires EU nations to ensure AV media services promote the protection of children and prevention of incitement to hate or bias, provisions likely to stick the online world with regulatory mandates and higher costs. (3) Unlike the TVWF, adopted to address lack of market forces in traditional broadcasting, there’s no lack of AV media service providers on the Internet. The Commission should have clear evidence of market failure before imposing more regulation, AmCham said. The proposal, adopted in Dec. by the EC, is getting European Parliament review. The culture & education (CULT) committee is vetting it, as are panels on women’s rights and gender equality; economic and monetary affairs; industry, research and energy; internal market and consumer protection; and civil liberties, justice and home affairs, a parliamentary spokesman said. All 6 panels are to meet June 1-2, with a vote on the CULT official report Oct. 9 or 10, a CULT committee spokeswoman said. Dec. plenary debate and a vote are likely, she said.