Who’s Sovereign? The AVMSD’s Country of Origin Principle and Video-sharing Platforms

This article aims to discuss the impact of the expansion of the country of origin principle to video-sharing digital platforms, and how this contributes to a new paradigm of centralized governance of online media content in Europe. Compared to other jurisdictional regimes in the fields of data protection, intellectual property and personality rights, where other country-of-receipt and targeting tests are utilized, the case of the Audiovisual Media Services Directive (AVMSD) demonstrates the emergence of a split governance model between individual rights and public interests, which fails to protect adequately local cultural and social specificities in the media sphere