Conditional Access Directive

Directive 98/84/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 November 1998 on the legal protection of services based on, or consisting of, conditional access is a European Union directive in the field of intellectual property law, made under the internal market provisions of the Treaty of Rome. The Directive covers "conditional access services", which are defined as television or radio broadcasts or internet services to which "access in an intelligible form is made conditional upon prior individual authorisation" and payment. Examples are pay-per-view and encrypted television and internet sites which charge for access.

Member States may not restrict the provision of conditional access services which originate in another Member State . Devices intended to circumvent the access restrictions are prohibited (Art. 4).

Famous quotes containing the words conditional and/or access:

    The population of the world is a conditional population; these are not the best, but the best that could live in the existing state of soils, gases, animals, and morals: the best that could yet live; there shall be a better, please God.
    Ralph Waldo Emerson (1803–1882)

    The professional celebrity, male and female, is the crowning result of the star system of a society that makes a fetish of competition. In America, this system is carried to the point where a man who can knock a small white ball into a series of holes in the ground with more efficiency than anyone else thereby gains social access to the President of the United States.
    C. Wright Mills (1916–1962)