McCreevy's copyright chances slim?

Charlie McCreevy, the European commissioner for the internal market, last week tiptoed back into the dangerous territory of copyright levies, the charges that are added to the price of CD-players, DVD-players and blank tapes and disks. The Commission would have liked to abolish the levies but has to come up with some way of compensating rights-holders for private copying. An earlier attempt to resolve the argument was killed off by the music industry and the French government. On Friday (15 February) the Commission launched another consultation. So how about a bit of idle speculation: how will the Commission's chances of getting agreement from the music industry and the French government have been improved in the meantime by the marriage of Nicolas Sarkozy, the French president, to Carla Bruni, a model turned singer-songwriter whose albums have sold millions? McCreevy's chances of getting progress out of France's presidency of the EU must be as thin as a supermodel's legs. He would be well advised to make “no promises”.