bookstoreSome alarmed articles have been put about about the transfer of the European Commission copyright portfolio to Commissioner-designate for the Digital Agenda, German Guenther Oettinger, who inherits this from the Internal Market & Services Directorate General (DG Market) arm, where it was siloed in units D1 and D3, according to a report in The Guardian. Oettinger will now oversee an office known hitherto as DG Connect, to be renamed DG Digital Economy and Society.

Since Oettinger’s predecessor Neelie Kroes was widely criticized by publishing and creative industries figures as too friendly to technology groups at the expense of rights-holders, it’s hard to imagine that the transfer of individual responsibility could bring much further danger. The reshuffling of responsibilities might leave the copyright units more exposed to digital economy lobbies, conceivably, but once again, it is hard to forsee much change in a body hardly known at the official end for Pirate Bay copyright bucanneering. Perhaps the main offense of the European Commission so far to fail to accept some of the more unrealistic curbs and changes of priority that traditional copyright holders have been hoping or lobbying for. More significant may be the fact that the European Commission now is clearly identifying copyright, and by extension, all media industries as a whole, as part of the digital economy.

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