While we are still working to provide a favorable environment for the deployment of pan-European online film, television and music in Europe, the competition between online content providers is increasing more and more in America. Amazon.com Inc, leader in digital books but now also branching out into video, has licensed thousands of television shows from CBS Corp to compete with DVD rental and video streaming company Netflix Inc. Popular series such as "Frasier" and "Cheers" are now added to Amazon's video streaming service. This move increases competition with other digital content providers, including Apple Inc, Hulu and Netflix. 

It is quite remarkable that in Europe services such as Hulu and Netflix do not yet exist. One of the reasons is that there is no single internal (European) market with one European licensing model to protect the copyrights of audiovisual works. Therefore the European market seems to be an unprofitable market for companies such as Hulu to bring their online content services to, as Hulu would have to deal separately with the copyrights in each country. Even Africa is already working on a project to build a common digital platform to streamline the identification of protected (musical) works across eleven West African countries. This platform is meant to help African creators get remuneration for their work through a simplified and standardized copyright registration system. 

How things will work out for online content services for the European market (also in terms of video on demand services) is not yet clear. The European Commission recently announced to start initiatives from Europe to create a favorable environment for the deployment of online film and television distribution platforms, possibly through a European licensing model. 

Reference: Reuters.com