The government the final electronic media bill to parliament on Thursday, under which providers of electronic publications will also be held responsible for the content of user comments.

The bill was amended in cooperation with the Croatian Journalists’ Association and the Association of Newspaper Publishers at the Croatian Employers’ Association and was submitted to parliament for discussion under fast-track procedure.

Under the amended document, providers of electronic publications are responsible for the entire content published, including user-generated content, if they failed to register a user or failed to warn them, in a clear and easily visible way, of the rules of commenting and violation of the relevant rules.

The proposed bill regulates the rights, obligations and responsibilities of legal and natural persons that provide audio and audiovisual media services and services related to electronic publications and video platforms, transposing several EU directives into national legislation.

The bill additionally defines mechanisms to determine jurisdiction over providers of media services and increases transparency in the publication of information related to the ownership structure of media service providers.

Another change in the bill is the obligation for providers of media services to make sure advertisements for games of chance contain a warning and a visual symbol about the risk of addiction, in order to protect primarily children and young people, with the same rule also applying to advertisements for energy drinks.

As for impermissible ownership change, the bill defines restrictions whose violation results in impermissible ownership change regarding the protection of media pluralism and electronic media diversity. The restrictions envisaged by the bill also apply to on-demand services and providers of media services that broadcast their programmes via satellite, cable and Internet networks as well as via other allowed broadcasting modes, as well as to associated entities determined by the Taxation Act.

Under the bill, a provider of media services will be considered to have a dominant role on the market if their share in the annual revenue of all providers of media services and electronic publications in Croatia is 40%, in which case they will not be able to acquire stakes in other media outlets, Culture and Media Minister Nina Obuljen-Korzinek said.

This rule does not apply to the HRT public broadcaster and its revenue, she added.

The final bill no longer includes an article prohibiting vertical integration, and  television broadcasters with national concessions are required to publicly announce their offer for the transfer of their non-pay TV channels for electronic communications operators that provide pay television to end-users. The total fee is calculated by the Electronic Media Council in cooperation with the HAKOM regulator. This covers only channels for which television broadcasters with national broadcasting licences have concessions and they cannot tie other offers to them.

2% of annual gross revenue for independent producers

Under the bill, providers of on-demand media services directed at Croatia, which are established in the EU, have the obligation to pay a financial contribution for the implementation of the National Programme for the promotion of audiovisual creation for the production of European works in line with the law regulating audiovisual services.

They have to contribute 2% of their total annual gross revenue for the production of independent Croatian audiovisual works or purchase them.

The government also sent to parliament the final bill on copyright and related rights, which, compared to its version in first reading, has a changed provision regulating the acquisition of the right to use artists’ music performances on the Internet.

If no contract on the use of a performance on the Internet was signed between the phonogram producer and the performer, it is considered that the artist’s rights are exercised collectively. A transitional period has been envisaged to regulate all contractual relations, the minister said.

Minister: Social networks to be regulated in coming period

Minister Obuljen-Korzinek said later today that publishers of electronic publications would have the obligation to register all of their users who comment on articles and that in case of violation of any law and hate speech, the person who committed the act would be held responsible.

She noted that media laws do not cover social networks and that comments on media content published on social networks would be more precisely regulated globally or at EU level in the coming period.