Trading under WTO rules has been described as a regulatory cliff edge. It is a highly unattractive option. The WTO rules and schedules provide no ready mechanism for securing and enforcing freedom to provided services. Generally, they may be enforced on a state-to-state basis only.<\/p>\n
Audiovisual and other cultural services were excluded from negotiations during the WTO Uruguay Rounds. EU sought to exempt any product or service related to culture from WTO agreements. There is no cultural exception. Member countries may use flexibility in determining their schedules and not commit to liberalisation in cultural goods and services.<\/p>\n
Trading in the audio media sector under WTO rules is extremely unattractive. The EU schedule of commitment, GATS commitments on audiovisual and other cultural services are excluded due to the cultural exception. EU states could apply discriminatory provisions in relation to the UK in relation to the audio-visual sector. This situation would be unlikely to be improved by the Trade in Services agreement as the EU has indicated it shall continue to exclude audiovisual and other cultural services.<\/p>\n
The Council of Europe Transfrontier Television Convention establishes rules for the free circulation of television programs between signatory states. It follows a country of origin system for television broadcast. It has significant limitations including that several states including Ireland, Luxembourg, Sweden are not signatories. It does not apply to on-demand services. Its implementation relies on mutual assistance and cooperation between the state parties.<\/p>\n
In common with other services sectors, access to skills is critical in the digital services sector. The EU regulation on access to skills is critical in creative services. In principle, skills are prioritised through Tier 2 immigration rules. However, this introduced an amount of inflexibility.<\/p>\n
Although the percentage of EU work is relatively small, the foreign-born workforce, in particular, the EU workforce, has disproportionately assisted growth in the digital sector. Seventy-five percent of U.K. cross-border data flows are with EU countries. This includes communications, search audio and video transactions and data flows.<\/p>\n
Creative services are dependent on intellectual property preservation. This includes copyright, trademarks, and design rights. The WTO Trade-Related aspects of Property Rights seeks to promote the effective protection of intellectual property rights by setting standards for their protection. The agreement is weak in providing enforcement and falls much short of the protection effort by EU Law.<\/p>\n\n
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Broadcasting The Audio-Visual Media Services Directive underpins the single market in broadcasting. It covers both traditional broadcast and on-demand services. It sets minimum regulatory standards that states and national regulators must implement. It aims to preserve cultural diversity; protect children protect consumers; safeguard media pluralism; combat racial and religious hatred; and guarantee the independence of […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[79,129,255],"tags":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/legalblog.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1347"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/legalblog.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/legalblog.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legalblog.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legalblog.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1347"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/legalblog.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1347\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":18712,"href":"https:\/\/legalblog.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1347\/revisions\/18712"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/legalblog.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1347"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legalblog.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1347"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/legalblog.ie\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1347"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}