The audiovisual industry and film protection in the information age

It would be no exaggeration to say that the prospects of the audiovisual sector in Europe have never been so good. The European market for audiovisual works has expanded greatly over the past decade and will continue to do so in the near future. Due to deregulation in national audiovisual industries, the growth of cable and satellite television has been spectacular. The video market, both rental and sell-through, has become very significant. Once threatened by these developments, the traditional cinema business is reshaping itself, and new multiplex cinemas are flourishing in the UK and throughout continental Europe. The European film industry has produced its largest number of films in twenty years, and investment in this sector is increasing. Moreover, the convergence of new technologies has opened new markets at the crossroads of the audiovisual and software industries for multimedia works and computer games, which will account for an ever-growing share of the entertainment industry. Finally, the development of high-speed, high-capacity, digital telecommunications networks will allow the expansion of new modes of distribution for audiovisual works, such as video-on-demand or on-line delivery of films, which will probably meet with success in the coming years. Although the US industry is dominant in most of these markets and is likely to remain so, these developments create new prospects for the European audiovisual industries.

In this context, copyright protection has become a key question.