In the paper ‘Sharing killed the AVMSD star: the impossibility of European audiovisual media regulation in the era of the sharing economy’, Indrek Ibrus and Ulrike Rohn (Baltic Film, Media, Arts and Communication School (BFM), Tallinn University) focus on the challenges that the ‘sharing economy’ presents to the updating of the European Union’s (EU) Audiovisual Media Service Directive (AVMSD), part of the broader Digital Single Market (DSM) strategy of the EU.
Abstract
‘The paper suggests that the convergence of media markets and the emergence of video-sharing platforms may make the existing regulative tradition obsolete. It demonstrates an emergent need for regulatory convergence – AVMSD to create equal terms for all technical forms of content distribution. It then shows how the operational logic of video-sharing platforms undermines the AVMSD logic aimed at creating demand for professionally produced European content – leading potentially to the liberalisation of the EU audiovisual services market. Lastly, it argues that the DSM strategy combined with sharing-related network effects may facilitate the evolution of the oligopolistic structure in the EU audiovisual market, potentially harmful for cultural diversity.’
The how and why of the paper by: Indrek Ibrus
‘There are two beginnings for this article. First, there was me, Indrek Ibrus, working between 2013 and 2015 as an audiovisual affairs advisor at the Estonian Ministry of Culture. On the EU level it was decided at the time that it is time to start updating the existing Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD) that is in force since 2010. It was understood that the existing directive is not suitable anymore for the rapidly evolving digital media ecosystem and especially in the context of the evolving concept of the EU Digital Single Market strategy. When developing the national Estonian positons for the upcoming negotiations between EU member states and between the EU Commission and EU Council I started to realise many of the related challenges for especially the smaller EU members and their media organisations.’
‘In parallel, Ulrike Rohn, the co-author of this article, conducted a year-long study on the ‘sharing economy’ in the media sector. In this context she addressed also the related challenges to media companies especially in smaller countries. In our discussions we realised that these challenges are closely interrelated and decided to address them in an integrated way. We demonstrate in the article how both the sharing processes as well as the need to create a pan-European single market for media services may contribute to the concentration of media markets in Europe and what could be effects of this to national media institutions and markets.’
Read the paper ‘Sharing killed the AVMSD star: the impossibility of European audiovisual media regulation in the era of the sharing economy’ by Indrek Ibrus and Ulrike Rohn.
