The last 10 years have seen the adoption of seven EU Directives relating to copyright, and the Commission is concerned to establish whether inconsistencies between the different Directives hamper the operation of EU copyright law or damage the balance between rights holders' interests, those of users and consumers and those of the European economy as a whole.
It has therefore produced a working paper on the issue. This concludes that there is no need for root and branch revision of the existing Directives but that fine-tuning is necessary to ensure that definitions – for example of "reproduction right" - are consistent.
Similar updating seems necessary with respect to the exceptions and limitations set out in the different Directives, says the Commission.
The working paper also assesses whether further legislative or other action is needed to ensure the Internal Market functions properly.
It concludes that the immediate need for action may be limited to achieving a level playing field on the criteria used to determine who should be protected in the field of related rights. In other words, deciding whether it is on the basis of nationality, place of business, first fixation or the first publication that a phonogram producer or a broadcasting organisation from outside EU would be entitled to protection in the EU.
In addition, the working paper considers suggestions that copyright protection for recorded music be extended from 50 years to 95, to bring the EU in line with the US.
However, the working document suggests that there is no apparent justification for such a change, given, for example, that there are no longer trade distortions arising from different terms of protection within the EU's Internal Market. It also notes that in nearly all other industrialised countries, the relevant period is also 50 years.
The consultation forms part of the Commission's ongoing Better Regulation Action Plan, which seeks to gradually modernise and simplify existing legislation, cutting out "dead wood" and making legal texts more coherent and understandable.
Based on a working paper issued by the Commission, the consultation is open until 31st October.