EU unveils plans for single market for online films, music and games
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The European Commission said Thursday it would draw up plans to boost the online market for music, films and games while promising to uphold intellectual property rights.
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A European group says PCs and operating systems should be sold separately to boost competition.
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(InfoWorld) - The European Union's 27 national telecom authorities must submit plans to regulate the single European market by Feb. 16Â or face ceding those powers to the European Commission, Telecommunications Commissioner Viviane Reding has warned. The Commission wants the national regulators to join forces to form an E.U.-wide independent body akin to the U.S. Federal Communications Commission. It gave them until mid February to submit plans so that it could draft legislation by July. "A European Union-wide regulator would be a temporary body. It would be disbanded once the transition to a single competitive telecoms market is over," said Martin Selmayr, Reding's spokesman, on Monday. Several of the national regulatory bodies have failed to prove they are independent from their governments and incumbent monopoly phone companies. Currently, the national regulators enforce Europe-wide telecom rules in their own countries. However, they take different positions in interpreting the same rules. The U.K., for example, has cracked down on former monopoly provider BT Group, while Commission officials complain that Germany has allowed Deutsche TelekomÂ to keep a grip on the fixed-line local loop and even receive permission to build a high-speed Internet network without sharing access with competitors. Some countries are creating their own telecom laws without consulting their E.U. neighbors. The German regulator, for example, has failed to stop the German government from proposing a law that would grant the former monopoly Deutsche Telekom protection from competition. Other countries have failed to transpose European telecom rules into their national statute books. In a letter to all national regulators sent at the end of last year, Reding warned that failure to submit a workable proposal for an FCC-type organization by Feb. 16 would leave her no choice but to propose greater authority for the Commission. Reding is conducting a review of all the laws agreed in the late 1990s designed to forge a single European telecom market out of all the national ones, with open competition throughout the E.U.
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HONG KONG (AFX) - Microsoft Corp said the European Commission&#39;s view of the media player market is &quot;incorrect,&quot; and will argue in Brussels later this week that competition is more &quot;vibrant&quot; than the EC believes, the Financial Times reported on its website
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Customers will be able to download film clips, audio and video, interactive multiplayer games, multimedia music tracks, &quot;push-to-watch&quot; services, as well as access large e-mail attachments.
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The Italian service aims to be a place where users of any virtual world or online game can post their virtual photos, videos, etc.
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A new music service that allows  consumers to directly download an unlimited number of tracks to  their mobile phones for a small weekly fee from wherever they  are will launch in Europe on Thursday.
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The European Commission sought Wednesday to boost Europe&#39;s chances of dominating the emerging market for mobile television technology by pushing for a single European standard.
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The recording industry is seeking legislation in Europe that would require the filtering of Internet connections to block the illicit transfer of copyrighted material and more.
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(InfoWorld) - The European Commission is harmonizing radio frequency bands across the European Union in order to spur use of a wide range of wireless devices such as wireless computer keyboards, headphones and garage door openers, it said Thursday. Frequency bands will soon be harmonized throughout the E.U. making life simpler, as anyone in Europe will be able to use the same short-range wireless product anywhere in the E.U. and manufacturers need only make one product for the whole internal market, the Commission said in a statement. The Commission hopes the move will decrease the price of wireless devices. A parallel move aims to harmonize frequencies for RFID (radio frequency identification) devices too. These electronic tags are increasingly used in businesses such as retail and logistics, tracking of goods and persons, security and alarm systems. "From garage door openers to baby monitors, alarms and wireless medical implants, short range devices affect us all, from the very young to the very old," said Viviane Reding, the European Commissioner for the information society. "That's why these Commission decisions will help create a single market for wireless devices, stimulate their uptake, boost industry in this vital sector and provide benefits to all Europeans." Short-range wireless devices are often portable mass market products can be operated without a licence in all member states. Once the radio frequencies are harmonized, consumers will not have to check whether specific equipment can be used in each member state, the Commission said, claiming that this will spur demand, reduce production costs for manufacturers and encourage new innovative devices and applications. A recent Commission study estimated the value of the market for these devices to be â¬25 billion ($33 billion) by 2009. The retail sector is likely to be the main first user to increase the efficiency in the flow of goods and storage by using RFID technology. The Commission believes the value of RFID services and equipment market in the E.U.'s 15 core members will reach â¬4 billion by 2010. For more information on the E.U.'s radio spectrum policy go to this page. The two decisions on harmonization of the radio spectrum use by short-range devices and for RFID devices in the ultra high frequency (UHF) band can be found here. A study on legal, economic and technical aspects of 'collective use' of spectrum in the European Community (2006) can be found here.
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Only 13 per cent of Europeans are interested in portable video players, according to a survey from Jupiter Research. The market research group surveyed 5,000 consumers in the UK, France, Germany, Italy, Sweden
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Web media threatens to move out: take toys Ofcom, the UK telecommunications regulator, has said that a European Union plan to regulate video risks restricting innovation and even forcing companies to relocate outside the EU to avoid compliance.â¦
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Digital music download service eMusic is  launching across Europe on Tuesday in a bid to become the top  alternative to market leader iTunes, the same distinction it  holds in the United States.
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US computer giant Apple, which launched its online video service in the United States 15 months ago, is about to take its first step into conquering the European market, Luxembourg's economy minister said.
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EU antitrust regulators approved on Thursday British plans to bring North Yorkshire to the cutting edge of the Internet age with public funding for a broadband network.
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A new music service that allows  consumers to directly download an unlimited number of tracks to  their cell phones for a small weekly fee from wherever they are  will launch in Europe on Thursday.
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The EU agrees on new rules for TV and on-demand internet video, allowing more advertising.