The licences for Europe initiative came to an end on 13th November 2013 with the presentation of ten pledges to help European citisen access and use creative works online.
The aim of the plenary session was to present the results of 9 months discussions among stakeholders to overcome problems European citizens face in four areas: cross-border access and portability of services; user-generated content and micro-licensing ; audiovisual heritage and text and data mining.
Ten pledges were presented. http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/copyright/docs/licences-for-europe/131113_ten-pledges_en.pdf
The hope was, as stressed in the Commission's press release, that commitments presented by stakeholders would represent " important added value as they could have a real impact on the availability and accessibility of cultural content online".
Stakeholders presented the results of their work proposing industry solutions to tackle the 4 issues at stake. Users expressed their disagreement over the whole process, complaining that the final results were industry initiatives only and not joint work. The lack of transparency of the process was also raised by several speakers.
The conference was joined by Commissioners Michel Barnier (Internal Market and Services), Neelie Kroes (Digital Agenda) and Androulla Vassiliou (Education, Culture, Multilingualism and Youth).
They confirmed that a consultation would be launched and that the Commission was to decide in the first half of 2014 on future initiatives.
