But I do mind the addition of unnecessary costs and frictions (Sven's terms).

For example, I think a bad regulation would be to require special licenses of any web site operator end/user (host, ower, customer) that sells something (in general) over the Internet.  Ditto for advertising something on a website or showing a video on a website (whether "linearly" or "non-linearly".)

On the other hand, I think a good regulation would be to ban (i.e. make illegal) the posting, hosting, sending, etc. of child pornography.  Another good regulation would require a special license to sell specific goods and services, such as firearms and oother weapons, certain drugs, etc.

More controversially, I would be against a regulation that made outlawed sell Nazi paraphernalia, or made it illegal to deny the Armenian genocide online.

Another way I would favor EU regulation would be if EU regulators could successfully work with individual member states to take the "intersection" so to speak of all their regulations and make that the core of the EU regulations.  In which case the sum total of all regulations that Internet users and businesses would have to worry about would be reduced and simplified.

Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.

Yes.  The cost of getting a license and following other rules that conventional TV broadcasters must follow may  be not only monetary (though probably it will be that, too), but it will exist, in terms of time, frustration, effort to the petitioner of the license, as well as time, money, and other kinds overhead to whatever agency would hand out those licenses.

The question is: Will the benefit of extending this licensing system outweight these collective costs?

What we are moving toward is a form of friction-free transaction system that anyone can (and perhaps will) enter. ET as a 'channel' is not yet friction-free - it still requires a few hundred euros now and again. But the costs are infinitessimal compared to those that preceded it.

Absolutely.  This is the reason for the explosion of creativity and technological advance on the Internet so far, as well as efficiencies and new opportunities that have emerged since the Internet use has become so widespread.

Having said this...

I am still trying to understand just what the existing regulations that European Commission directive would extend to the Internet consist of, but pace your comment, I could see where if the EU regulations were designed and implemented well, how they might be able to reduce costs and increase efficiencies.  In two ways:

1.  By eliminating redundancies and contradictions among existing laws and regulations among EU member states (as well as redundancies and contradictions among the member state agencies that oversee and enforce these.)

The directive revision proposal text itself makes this point:

There is a real risk of legal uncertainty if, with the emergence of on-demand audiovisual services, Member States were to derogate from the country of origin principle for public policy reasons with the effect that on-demand audiovisual services would be subject to non-harmonised rules in different Member States.
<...>
Without a harmonised European approach, pan-European offers would suffer from a lack of legal certainty and may choose to go offshore outside the EU and therefore in the medium-term harm Member State economies.

EU Commissioner for Information Society and Media Viviane Reding remarks:

"If you have 25 conflicting regulations in 25 countries, you can't take advantage of the internal market. When the new rules are applied, [content providers] can get authorisation in Britain and spread into 25 countries. I see a big chance for European content to travel," said Reding.

But then again, the proposal also say:

The draft only proposes minimum harmonisation to ensure the free movement of audiovisual media services in the internal market. As regards implementation, it explicitly refers to co- and self-regulation. ["co- and self-regulation"? Can anybody explain what these mean?]

Which seems to contradict the other passage I quoted from it just above.  Is the EC trying to have its cake and eat it, too?

2.  By pre-emptively (I know, probably unwise choice of words) making it much harder, or far riskier, to engage in socially harmful practices over the Internet (sexual solicitation of minors, fraud, etc.) that -- in addition to the immediate damages they inflict -- might also provoke a disproportionate emotional reaction and consequent a slew of unnecessarily heavy handed regulation.

In the same article above in which I quoted Viviane Reding, AOL UK's director of policy, Camille de Stempel, says:

"We believe existing legislation protects children and consumers. Child abuse images are already illegal...  We believe strongly in self regulation as the way forward."

and

Mike Cosse, Microsoft's lead counsel for Europe, argued that self-regulation by the industry was the answer. "Let's use self-regulation on content, and help the state in a cooperative, non-confrontational way," Cosse said.

Well, AOL and Microsoft may have incentives to self-regulate -- they don't want their share prices to drop -- but what about smaller players, or players whose interests are not correlated directly to market-share and share-prices?

One point that is not clear to me is, would EU regulations -- if I understand the text of the proposal correctly -- supplant individual member nation regulations?  Or would they be applied in addition to individual member state regulations?

Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.

A TV channel broadcasting your Creative Commons-licensed movie could legally demand that no one record or redistribute it--and sue anyone who does.

Sweet suffering Jesus.

I don't know if this has anything to do with the EU's Television Without Frontiers directive, but it's a horrible idea, and totally unjustified.

I see Robert (rdf) had a diary up in February about Intellectual Property in which dvx comments on what seems to be the same "Broadcasting Treaty":

At stake is the "webcasting provision" of the "Broadcasters' Treaty" underway at WIPO, the UN agency that handles copyrights, patents and the like. The Webcasting provision would make it illegal to retransmit Creative Commons licensed works (as well as public domain works, uncopyrightable works like those made by the US government, etc) without permission of the person who hosts them. In other words, it will no longer be enough to know that the author of the work wants you to share it -- you'll also need permission from the company that hosts and distributes the files.

(By the way, those Google TechTalks looks like a really great application of webcasting which I have not seen outside of university classrooms yet.  Hope they catch on.)

Truth unfolds in time through a communal process.

I other words, WiMax.

Those whom the Gods wish to destroy They first make mad. -- Euripides