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Web audio/video regulation intended to stave off EC, says press watchdog commissioner

Posted: 09/05/07 By: Oliver Luft

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Chairman of the Press Complaints Commission (PCC), Sir Christopher Meyer, told an industry conference today that regulation on web audio/video content was the result of trying to prevent the European Commission controlling this area of the UK press.

The Commission announced in January that it had reached agreement, in principle, with the UK newspaper and magazine industries to extend the PCC's remit to regulate the video and audio on publishers' websites.

Speaking today at a magazine business conference, in London, Sir Christopher told delegates how European plans led to the extension of the remit.

"Alarm bells rang, and they rang from Brussels," he said. "We picked up from one of the bits of the European Commission's jungle that somebody there was itching to get their hands on the internet and regulate it… we went to Brussels and there was no doubt at all, even though they were vague about what they wanted to do, that they were itching to get on to bits of the internet, which would have included audio/visual content on publishers' websites.

"We might have found ourselves in a situation, and the threat has not gone away entirely, where the European Commission through the back door would have come to regulate bits of content on British publishers' websites.

"From our point of view it was a matter of principle and absolutely unacceptable."

Since the PCC has been regulating the area, he added, they had received 'just a handful' of complaints about audio/visual content on news sites.

"What we hoped was that by planting this standard of self-regulation in this field we could actually discourage others from occupying the territory at the same time," he continued.

"We're not quite sure what the European Commission is going to do but it will be possible to say to it, if it comes forward with some draft directive or regulation: 'you don't have to worry about British online publications because we are in there', and that probably will work."

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