The EU Competitiveness Council will meet in Brussels on Thursday 03 and Friday 04 December under the chairmanship of Ms. Ewa Bjorling, Minister for Trade and Ms. Maud Olofsson , Minister for Enterprise and Energy. The European Commission will be represented by Vice President Gunter Verheugen, responsible for Enterprise and Industry and Meglena Kuneva Commissioner for Consumer Protection. On 3 rd December, the European Commission will be represented by Commissioner Poto čnik during the Research part of the Council.

The Education, Youth and Culture Council will meet in Brussels on 27 November 2009 to discuss, inter alia, key issues related to Europe's Information Society. The European Commission will present its analysis of the impact of the Google Books Settlement on Europe from the angle of copyright, cultural diversity and competition. EU ministers will address the wider challenges for digitising books and other cultural content, and making this material available through Europe's digital library Europeana. The ministers will also discuss media literacy in the digital environment. The European Commission will be represented on these issues by Viviane Reding, Commissioner for Information Society and Media. On the issues related to the Education and Culture portfolio, see MEMO/09/521.

The European Commission today published a reflection paper on the challenge of creating a European Digital Single Market for creative content like books, music, films or video games. According to Commission studies, a truly Single Market without borders for Creative Online Content could allow retail revenues of the creative content sector to quadruple if clear and consumer-friendly measures are taken by industry and public authorities (see IP/07/95). The digital availability of content thus presents great opportunities for Europe, but also a number of challenges. First of all, regulatory and territorial obstacles still stand in the way of digital distribution of cultural products and services and can impede creativity and innovation. In addition, illegal downloads on a large scale can jeopardize the development of an economically viable Single Market for digital content; there needs to be much more encouragement for legal cross-border offers. Against this background, the reflection paper – drafted jointly by the services of Commissioners Reding and McCreevy – outlines current challenges for three groups of stakeholders – rightholders, consumers and commercial users – and invites everybody interested to participate in a broad debate about the possible European responses to them. Comments can be sent by 5 January 2010.

The European Commission today adopted a Communication on Copyright in the Knowledge Economy aiming to tackle the important cultural and legal challenges of mass-scale digitisation and dissemination of books, in particular of European library collections. The Communication was jointly drawn up by Commissioners Charlie McCreevy and Viviane Reding. Digital libraries such as Europeana ( http//www.europeana.eu ) will provide researchers and consumers across Europe with new ways to gain access to knowledge. For this, however, the EU will need to find a solution for orphan works, whose uncertain copyright status means they often cannot be digitised. Improving the distribution and availability of works for persons with disabilities, particularly the visually impaired, is another cornerstone of the Communication.

The availability and take-up of broadband, and the increasing possibility to access creative content and services everywhere and anytime, provide challenging new opportunities. For consumers, it means new ways to access, and even to influence, creative content available on worldwide networks such as the internet, both from home and using mobile devices. For companies, it means the possibility to offer new services and content and to develop new markets. With the emergence of new devices, networks and services, these challenges have to be addressed by content and network operators, right holders, consumers, governments and independent regulators. Successful responses will be key to growth, jobs and innovation in Europe.

Speech by Viviane Reding, Member of the European Commission responsible for Information Society and Media, FAEP Gala Reception "Empowering citizens – the magazine media", Brussels, 7 October 2009

EDiMA's White Paper on Policy Strategy for the Development of New Media Services 2009-2014 – Launch Breakfast Event Brussels, 1 October 2009

The next call for proposals of digital libraries and digital preservation research projects is ICT Call 6, expected to be published by the end of November 2009. The European Commission is organising an information day specifically dedicated to these research fields. The event aims at helping participants to better understand the work programme and criteria for the evaluation of proposals, to facilitate sharing of ideas and experiences, and to meet potential partners for project consortia. Participation is free of charge. Registration is open until 4 October 2009.

Viviane Reding, Commissioner for Information Society and Media, and Charlie McCreevy, Commissioner for the Internal Market and Services, today made a joint statement setting out the important cultural and economic stakes of book digitisation in Europe. To face the daunting task of digitising Europe's books, of which there are tens of millions in Europe's national libraries alone, the two Commissioners stressed the need for fully respecting copyright rules to ensure fair remuneration for authors, but also welcomed public-private partnerships as a means to boost digitisation of books. They highlighted the need to adapt Europe's still very fragmented copyright legislation to the digital age, in particular with regard to orphan and out-of-print works. The statement of the two Commissioners comes ahead of a series of workshops and meetings between the Commission, cultural institutions, right holders, IT companies and consumer organisations, which start today with an information hearing on the US class action settlement on Google Book Search. Under this settlement, agreed between Google, authors and publishers in the United States (which still requires validation by a US court), authors could receive 63% of the online revenue generated by Google with digitised books. As of today, no equivalent solution is available in the EU. This week's hearings and meetings at the Commission will help develop a European response to the challenges of books digitisation. Both Commissioners believe that the challenge for EU policymakers is to ensure a regulatory framework which paves the way for a rapid roll-out of services, similar to those made possible in the United Sates by the recent settlement, to European consumers and to the European library and research communities.

4.6 million digitised books, maps, photographs, film clips and newspapers can now be accessed by internet users on Europeana, Europe's multilingual digital library (www.europeana.eu). The collection of Europeana has more than doubled since it was launched in November 2008 (IP/08/1747). Today the European Commission, in a policy document declared as its target to bring the number of digitised objects to 10 million by 2010. The Commission also opened a public debate on the future challenges for book digitisation in Europe: the potential of the public and private sector to team up and the need to reform Europe's too fragmented copyright framework.