The new EU Directive 2014/26 as a catalyst for film and digital content innovation in Europe

Abstract

The present paper analyses various conditions of the digital content market, such as barriers to competition and bottlenecks to intellectual property (IP) rights generation and management, as well as the collective copyright management system. The paper will discuss the need to modernize Spanish IP law, improve the transparency of how “collecting societies” operate and liberalise processes for licensing and transferring IP to allow for new types of contracts. It will also explore how regulatory reform en route to a digital single market stands to give more freedom to copyright holders and producers, and how Directive 2014/26 is likely to affect music and other paid content-sectors such as film and video. It argue that these reforms will open new business opportunities in entertainment, as well as offer solid alternatives to piracy, which may help revitalise the digital content industry in Europe.