EU to regulate video blogs?

A new European Commission proposal would require Web sites and mobile phone services that feature video images to conform to standards set by that body, the Times of London reports.

Officials in the British government have objected to the proposal, saying it is overly broad. Shaun Woodward, the U.K. broadcasting minister, described the draft proposal as catastrophic, saying it could end up forcing someone to get a license to post videos of an amateur rugby team.

But European Union officials say the "Television Without Frontiers" rules are necessary to set minimum standards for items such as advertising, civil speech and child protection, asserting that the same rules should apply to broadcasters whether their material goes out over the airwaves or over the Internet.

Blog community response:

"The irony here is that TVwF is part of the EU's Lisbon agenda, a goal to catch up to the U.S. in productivity by 2010 through embracing the digital world. Imposing burdensome regulations on new media in Europe will only serve to retard economic growth and productivity, continuing the stagnation that continent has endured throughout this decade."
--Progress and Freedom Foundation

"Which shows just how clueless their regulators are. Most Web video sites not run by big media companies are trying to be anything but "television-like."
--Assorted Stuff

"In what way would this be a good thing, apart from protecting the incumbent media companies? Not that I have anything in particular against the media companies, but a little bit of competition is always good. And the EU seems to be acting very anticompetition."
--I Didn't Quite Catch That