(8) This Directive should cover ancillary_online_services offered by a broadcasting organisation, which have a clear and subordinate relationship with the broadcasting organisation's broadcasts. Those services include services that give access to television and radio programmes in a strictly linear manner, simultaneously to the broadcast, and services that give access, within a defined time period after the broadcast, to television and radio programmes which have been previously broadcast by the broadcasting organisation, so-called ‘catch-up services’.
In addition, the ancillary_online_services covered by this Directive include services that give access to material that enriches or otherwise expands television and radio programmes broadcast by the broadcasting organisation, including by way of previewing, extending, supplementing or reviewing the relevant programme's content.
This Directive should apply to ancillary_online_services that are provided to users by broadcasting organisations together with the broadcasting service.
It should also apply to ancillary_online_services that, while having a clear and subordinate relationship with the broadcast, can be accessed by users separately from the broadcasting service without there being a precondition for the users to have to obtain access to that broadcasting service, for example via a subscription.
This does not affect the freedom of broadcasting organisations to offer such ancillary_online_services free of charge or against payment.
The provision of access to individual works or other protected subject matter that have been incorporated in a television or radio programme, or to works or other protected subject matter that are not related to any programme broadcast by the broadcasting organisation, such as services giving access to individual musical or audiovisual works, music albums or videos, for example video-on-demand services, should not fall within the scope of the services covered by this Directive.
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(14) Operators of retransmission services can use different technologies when they retransmit simultaneously, in an unaltered and unabridged manner, for reception by the public, an initial transmission from another Member State of television or radio programmes. The programme-carrying signals can be obtained by operators of retransmission services from broadcasting organisations, which themselves transmit those signals to the public, in different ways, for example by capturing the signals transmitted by the broadcasting organisations or receiving the signals directly from them through the technical process of direct_injection.
Such operators' services can be offered on satellite, digital terrestrial, mobile or closed circuit IP-based and similar networks or through internet access services as defined in Regulation (EU) 2015/2120 of the European Parliament and of the Council (6).
Operators of retransmission services using such technologies for their retransmissions should therefore be covered by this Directive and benefit from the mechanism that introduces mandatory collective management of rights. In order to ensure that there are sufficient safeguards against the unauthorised use of works and other protected subject matter, which is particularly important in the case of services that are paid for, retransmission services which are offered through internet access services should be included in the scope of this Directive only where those retransmission services are provided in an environment in which only authorised users can access the retransmissions and the level of content security provided is comparable to the level of security for content transmitted over managed networks, such as cable or closed circuit IP-based networks, in which content that is retransmitted is encrypted.
Those requirements should be feasible and adequate.
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(17) Any rights held by broadcasting organisations themselves in respect of their broadcasts, including rights in the content of programmes, should not be subject to the mandatory collective management of rights applicable for retransmissions. Operators of retransmission services and broadcasting organisations generally have ongoing commercial relations, and as a result the identity of broadcasting organisations is known to operators of retransmission services. Accordingly, it is comparatively simple for those operators to clear the rights with broadcasting organisations. As a consequence, to obtain the necessary licences from broadcasting organisations, operators of retransmission services do not face the same burden as they face when seeking to obtain licences from holders of rights in works and other protected subject matter included in the television and radio programmes they retransmit.
Therefore, there is no need for simplification of the licensing process with regard to rights held by broadcasting organisations. It is, however, necessary to ensure that where broadcasting organisations and operators of retransmission services enter into negotiations, they negotiate in good faith regarding the licensing of rights for the retransmissions covered by this Directive.
Directive 2014/26/EU provides for similar rules applicable to collective management organisations.
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(20) In order to ensure that there is legal certainty and to maintain a high level of protection for rightholders, it is appropriate to provide that when broadcasting organisations transmit their programme-carrying signals by direct_injection only to signal distributors without directly transmitting their programmes to the public, and the signal distributors send those programme-carrying signals to their users to allow them to watch or listen to the programmes, only one single act of communication to the public is deemed to occur in which both the broadcasting organisations and the signal distributors participate with their respective contributions. The broadcasting organisations and the signal distributors should therefore obtain authorisation from the rightholders for their specific contribution to the single act of communication to the public.
Participation of a broadcasting organisation and a signal distributor in that single act of communication to the public should not give rise to joint liability on the part of the broadcasting organisation and the signal distributor for that act of communication to the public.
Member States should remain free to provide at national level for the arrangements for obtaining authorisation for such a single act of communication to the public, including the relevant payments to be made to the rightholders concerned, taking into account the respective exploitation of the works and other protected subject matter, by the broadcasting organisation and signal distributor, related to the single act of communication to the public.
Signal distributors face, in a similar manner to operators of retransmission services, a significant burden for rights clearance, except as regards rights held by broadcasting organisations. Member States should therefore be allowed to provide that signal distributors benefit from a mechanism of mandatory collective management of rights for their transmissions in the same way and to the same extent as operators of retransmission services for retransmissions covered by Directive 93/83/EEC and this Directive.
Where signal distributors merely provide broadcasting organisations with ‘technical means’, within the meaning of the case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, to ensure that the broadcast is received or to improve the reception of that broadcast, the signal distributors should not be considered to be participating in an act of communication to the public.
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