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EU Proposes Online Music System
jefu writes "According to a story in the Globe and Mail, the European Commission has proposed a unified online music licensing (and copyright) system. The article says that one of the points of doing this is to get copyright and license fees to the artists and to simplify the maze of copyright regulations that cover Europe."
EU proposes system for on-line music
Thursday, July 7, 2005 Updated at 2:44 PM EDT
Associated Press
BRUSSELS, Belgium -- The European Commission on Thursday proposed a single Europe-wide copyright and licensing system for on-line music, to boost the European Union's music business.
EU Internal Market Commissioner Charlie McCreevy said European on-line services had to be improved to make copyrights cheaper for artists to obtain.
"We have to improve the licensing of music copyright on the Internet," McCreevy said, adding such a system would ensure "Europe's creative community will get the lion's share in revenues achieved on-line."
Currently artists have to secure copyrights in each of the EU's 25 member nations, with each country requiring separate copyrights for the right to transmit songs over the Internet, a complex and expensive process the EU head office said.
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As a result of these costs, on-line music sales in Europe have lagged behind those in the United States. Last year, the U.S. had an estimated $248-million (U.S.) in on-line music sales compared with Europe's $32.5-million.
Musicians make money from their music after registering copyrights with collective rights managers. Those managers then license songs to on-line services, radio stations, dance clubs and other outlets. All these registrations are complex and costs artists a lot of money.
The EU head office said a single system governing music rights would save money.
"The most effective model for achieving this is to enable right-holders to authorize a collecting society of their choice to manage their works across the entire EU," said the Commission in a statement, adding such a system would "considerably enhance" earnings for artists.
Léa Gris
As far as I understand it, what is being proposed is that artist will be able to contract a single authority to distribute the music throughout the EU, rather than having to contract the appropriate authority in each state separately.
This means that (or so it is expected) the existing copyright monopolists (typically there is one authority which has exclusive rights in a state) will be forced to compete with one another. I believe that to be a Good Thing...from 25 monopolists to 25 companies, each having a pretty small market share.
Please correct me if I got my facts wrong.
Am I the only person here that is angered by this news item - and the way it's served to us?
First of all, everywhere in the article, we get excerpts saying "the artists pay too much money", "it costs the artists too much". Which is of course, totally BS, because the labels pay for these, as the artists don't own the copyright!
In other words:
The EU is spending our (I'm a EU citizen) money (all these procedures cost money), so that the record labels spend less trying to restrict us, while at the same time we are going to get the same price for the BS records they serve us?
You'll be seeing me again in a record store buying a CD in...2078. Because no way in Hell am I going to download a drm'ed version from an online store!