Fifteen representatives from the digital industry, collecting societies and a consumer rights group will have a series for meetings starting this month and running until April next year.
The first meeting is scheduled for September 17 and will look at how companies that succeed in not paying the levy (free-riders) and the grey market can be tackled.
It will examine the practicalities of collecting a levy on goods exported between countries as the levies differ from country to country in the EU.
The more controversial aspect concerning the calculation of copyright levies along with the issue of piracy will be dealt with in the second half of the forum.
One of the central issues of this meeting will be whether breaches of the copyright levy system on blank media should be criminalised and if so how. There are a lot of instances where people from the grey market escape without paying the copyright levy and this affects both the collecting societies and the electronics industry. The forum will aim to find a way to tackle this situation.
Irena Bednarich, from Hewlett-Packard, who will be representing the printer manufacturer in the series of meetings, said: "This is the first time both parties will be sitting together on the same table. We believe both the parties have real concrete stuff on the table, and in principle we are coming together to fight the grey market."
The European Commission announced at a
hearing
on May 27 that it will set up a forum to mediate between industry associations and collecting societies to find a solution to the controversial subject of copyright levies.
It was then decided that instead of a harmonisation of the amount of levies there should be a harmonisation in the methodology of the tariff. The forum is hoping to establish a list of questions by which a tariff can be set.
After the meetings in April the forum will be expected to deliver proposals to the Commission within six months.
The European Commission announced in March this year that it would resume trying to find a solution to the problem of copyright levies, just over a year after it had suspended work on harmonization.
