EU copyright licence and a fully private ICANN: a busy couple of days for the InfoSoc Commissioner

InfoSoc Commissioner, Viviane Reding has been busy in the past couple of days.

The New York Times reports that she, together with Meglena Kuneva, the consumer affairs commissioner are putting forward a proposal for a Europe-wide copyright licence. The idea is to facilitate the sale of online content across national borders without the need for distributors to engage with the different copyright laws of up to 27 Member States.

Meanwhile, Commissioner Reding is calling for ICANN to become a fully private and independent company once its agreement with the US Government expires on 30 September 2009. She would like to see this accompanied by a 'G-12 for Internet Governance' which would would include two representatives from each North America, South America, Europe and Africa, three representatives from Asia and Australia, as well as the Chairman of ICANN as a non-voting member.

It's not often that the IPKat finds himself agreeing with the Eurocrats, but on both issues he thinks there is sense in the proposals. He'd like more detail though about the Internet 'G-12'. Will it really be representative? For example, would the membership rotate? How will it take into account the fact that some countries host far more internet activity than others?