The EU Media Futures Forum, the cross media advisory group working with the European Commission to come up with practical recommendations on how Europe can take full advantage of the digital revolution, has publishes its report calling on Europe to “wake-up”.
The report’s authors (including Martin Sorrell, CEO WPP Group; EPC member and CEO of De Persgroep, Christian van Thillo; and Patrick Grueter, VP, Disney) identify eight major obstacles and come up with eight solutions along the following lines: companies are failing to seize opportunities because Europe is currently stifled by market fragmentation and lack of capital. It calls for a true digital single market by 2015; one set of rules for the processing of personal data; rewards for creators and the creation of content; a more efficient financial support programme for audiovisual creations; equitable regulatory and fiscal principles, whether online or offline, from outside or within the EU; avoidance of barriers to entry; increased access to and use of legal content and services from anywhere in the EU on any device for all EU citizens and faster roll out of the infrastructure for high-speed internet allowing the EU to become a global leader in ubiquitous high-speed internet access by 2020.
Angela Mills Wade, Executive Director of the European Publishers Council (EPC) welcomed the report saying “the EU Media Futures Forum has captured the disruptive trends facing the media today and in response set out pragmatic steps for all players in the emerging media ecosystem to take advantage of exponential change”.
The forum found that although the digital economy has become a major source of growth and innovation that has allowed us to gain up to eight per cent of EU GDP in 10 years, other parts of the world are gaining more.
The EPC welcomed the conclusion that competition drives innovation and that by abiding by competition rules more growth will be created for each and every sector in the value chain but that competition rues also need to adjust to the fast changing world of Internet.
Angela added, “The eight solutions go to the heart of our businesses and relationships with our readers and viewers based on some important principles such as the freedom of contract and the need for fair competition conditions to promote wider licensing and payment for our Content. In particular we welcome the forum’s recognition of the important role of media and press in our democratic societies and that to incentivise the creation of quality content and journalism, VAT rates should be aligned to the lower and zero rates which apply to the printed press.
“We welcome the Forum’s recognition of the role that technology can bring to improving access to creative content by developing the necessary industry standards to ease management of copyrights online. This is something we are addressing in our important work on the Linked Content Coalition, the EPC-initiated cross-media project working on new technology to make copyright work on the web.