New EU copyright rules would give travelers cross-border Netflix access; ArsTechnica.com, 12/9/15

Glyn Moody, ArsTechnica.com; New EU copyright rules would give travelers cross-border Netflix access:

"The European Commission says it wants to tackle the lack of consistency across the EU when it comes to copyright exceptions. As it notes: "The fragmentation of copyright rules in the EU is particularly visible in the area of exceptions. The exceptions set out in EU law are, in most cases, optional for Member States to implement and are often broadly defined. As a consequence, an exception in the law of one Member State may not exist in a neighbouring one, or be subject to different conditions or vary in scope."

In its new copyright framework, the European Commission proposes a number of initiatives in this area. These include: finally ratifying the Marrakech Treaty, which allows for the creation and distribution of special formats of print material for people with disabilities, without needing additional licences; permitting "public interest research organisations" to carry out text and data mining of material they have already licensed; and clarifying the scope of an exception for teaching materials.

The Commission also wants to sort out the freedom of panorama issue—the public's ability to take pictures of external objects like buildings and to distribute them without permission of the architect."

EU announces plans to banish geo-blocking, modernize copyright law; Ars Technica, 3/271/5

Glyn Moody, Ars Technica; EU announces plans to banish geo-blocking, modernize copyright law:

"At the heart of the European Union lies the Single Market—the possibility for people to buy and sell goods and services anywhere in the EU. So it is ironic that the European sector least constrained by geography—the digital market—is also the least unified. To remedy that situation, the European Commission has announced its Digital Single Market Strategy, which addresses three main areas.

The first is "Better access for consumers and businesses to digital goods and services" and includes two of the thorniest issues: geo-blocking and copyright. As the EU's strategy notes, "too many Europeans cannot use online services that are available in other EU countries, often without any justification; or they are re-routed to a local store with different prices. Such discrimination cannot exist in a Single Market."

There is strong resistance to removing geo-blocking, particularly from copyright companies that have traditionally sold rights on a national basis and which therefore want geo-blocking to enforce that fragmentation."