The Borderless Online User – Carving Up the Market for Online and Streaming Services

Abstract

Traditionally copyright has been exploited in separate geographical markets. This practice restricts the ability of users to access online services, music, movies and sports events on their electronic devices wherever they are in Europe and regardless of borders, viz. so called ‘portability’. This contribution describes the complex legal background to problems in copyright, user and producer contracts and technological protection measures and analyses the EU legal framework. Recently specific EU legislation has been proposed (the Portability Regulation and the Geo-Blocking Regulation) with an aim of amending the current legal regime. This contribution argues, however, that existing EU rules and principles, in particular the rules of competition law, may deal with the challenges of the existing restrictions on the cross-border access to online services to such an extent that those challenges in themselves do not necessitate any change of legislation.

Keywords: copyright, online user, portability, competiion law, EU