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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."
This is a good idea, providing they come up with a system which can take part-time and amateur artists into account.
Currently (at least in Finland) marginal artists get next to nothing. Revamping the system would provide an opportunity to rectify this issue.
.: Max Romantschuk
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
Since allowing you to have to deal with just one copyright office to be valid for all of Europe is the exact sort of thing that inspired the European Economic Community thing that became the EU in the first place.
Unfortunately, you can absolutely bet 100% that if a system such as this is proposed or comes anywhere near to implementation, the biggest and most affluent copyright holders will use it as an excuse to grab new and undue powers for themselves-- powers which they will then never, ever let go of, and be defending in a hundred year's time as "the way things have always worked".
Thus what ought to be a plus for everyone (a unified, more efficient copyright system) is going to be a massive downer for consumers, or at least that subset of consumers who wish to be treated like consumers or citizens and not cattle.
The EU was initially set up as a free trading group. The aim has since become to create a level playing field that allows businesses from all member countries to operate in the eurozone; this isn't just free trade but e.g the free movement of capital and labour. This inevitably means changes at the political level to harmonise standards and regulations.
So I think harmonising licensing and copyright systems is a natural step, and a good one SO LONG AS it is not seized as an opportunity for radical reform in the favour of corporations over the citizen, e.g. extending the lifetime of copyright.
As much as TFA says the system is supposed to increase revenues for artists by streamlining things, that's great. But I suspect most of what will happen is that another government-mandated program will be too slow and inflexible to allow its supposed beneficiaries to profit from a rapidly changing business world.
Chalk one up for the people who can't even get a constitution done. Do you really want them involved in your label? Software patents, anyone?
Don't trust anyone under thirty.
let the project be discussed by politicians, artists and fans. Lock all the managers, producers, studio owners etc in a dungeon, take their phones away from them, close the exit with a concrete wall, and don't let them contact the outside world until the project is ready. Otherwise it will be another horrible "all your base" takeover of your rights.
Actually, once the project is over, don't let them out either.
Anagram("United States of America") == "Dine out, taste a Mac, fries"
Everyone who makes music available for listening to, should have to publish the name and address of the copyright holder and the amount of money that you need to send to that person in order to be allowed to make a single, permanent copy of that music {i.e. on a medium which cannot be prepared for re-use using generally available equipment -- to re-use a CD, you would have to melt it down} plus an indefinite number of temporary copies. The licencing fee would be the same for any party. If any money changes hands at the time the music changes hands, and the licencing fee is to be stopped out of the transaction charge, then this must also be clearly stated.
Example: I buy a CD of Lester Norton's greatest hits for £12.50. It says in the booklet that Norton owns the copyright on all his music and the licence fee is £1.50 for the album. My friend wants a copy of the album. I make a copy of the CD, and send a postal order for £1.50 to Lester Norton. He gets his money, and my friend saves the best part of £11. Everyone is happy.
Je fume. Tu fumes. Nous fûmes!
It's called the doctrine of first sale and it has been recognized time and again by the US and other courts that it also applies to instances of copyrighted works. It's fair use.
The doctrine of first sale has even been used to challenge End User License Agreements
Therefore is the following is self evident that copyright legislation should grant the following rights under the concept of fair use:
1. Acknowledge the supremacy of the doctrine of first sale : When you purchase an instance of a copy of copyrighted work, your rights to view,use,modify,combine,inter-operate with, dispose or resell that one instance should not be impeded by either legislation or technology. This fact has been recognized time and again by the US courts.
2. The doctrine of first sale applies to both physical media and digital content where the receiver pays a transaction for particular instances of a copyrighted works: When you purchase an instance of a copy of copyrighted work that involves the buyer making a choice for that instance of copyrighted work and entering into a transaction with the seller, then the buyer has the rights to that instance under the doctrine of first sale. Sellers of instances of copyrighted work cannot hide behind "provision as a service": when you pay for an instance, you own that instance.
3. You do not have the right to record content without permission of the copyright holders of a live performance ( play, concert etc ) or private performance ( film theater ) held on private property or performance venue. You pay to attend a performance at a physical venue, not for a copy of an instance of that performance.
4. Instances of copyrighted works broadcast ( as apposed to downloaded ) and received by a device held by individual person or on that person's property, may not be redistributed outside of that person's household to anyone who does not receive the content though the same service. You may record an instance of copyrighted work for later viewing ( timeshifting ) and distribute a copy along to any person whos household also receives that same broadcast service ( samaritan clause ). You many not redistribute or resell content recorded from a broadcast service to anyone not receiving that same broadcast service content.
5. Although you may not redistribute recorded copies of broadcast copyrighted content outside of the terms of (4), there should be no limit to what you may do with instances of those works within your household. You should have the right to modify the works, combine with other works and inter-operate with other works. You should also have the right to transform the instances of the copyrighted work so that it operates or can be viewed on other devices (mediashifting).
6. Copyright protection extends only to the particular work copyrighted. The copyright holder's exclusive rights should not extend to the right to deny others combining a legally acquired instance of a copyrighted work with other works. You should have the right to distribute and/or sell, patches, recipes and add-on components that refer and link to the content of the copyrighted work, as long as the distributed items do not contain content from the original copyrighted work. The resulting combined and/or transformed work that contains content from the copyrighted work sources can not be legally redistributed without the permission of all the copyright holders.
We have to ensure that file formats and protocols adopted should not limit the ability to sample mix and match. To do otherwise would limit peoples creativity.
If I purchase an instan
All they EU is doing is facing the reality of the way technology is changing business practices and legislating appropriately which is so normal it should not be newsworthy. The old ways of doing business in the music industry are dying. You can either react to that by suing people who download music left right and center in the hope of keeping change from happening or you can do like Apple did and embrace the new way of doing business. Piracy not withstanding going into the online music business certainly does not seem to have done Apple any harm since people do seem to be prepared to pay for downloadable music even though they have the option of downloading pirated materials free of charge. I suppose you could make the argument that the law suits have actually discouraged people from consuming pirated music and thus helped online oufits like iTunes but I don't buy that argument since the chances of being caught while downloading pirated music are still very small.
Only to idiots, are orders laws.
-- Henning von Tresckow
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.
Obviously those who use the words "unified" and "Europe" in the same sentence never got the memo...
Indy Media Watch-Proctologist of the Internet
Too true. Remember, this is the same EU that brought us the EU Copyright Directive, which is pretty much Europe's DMCA. It'll take a lot to convince me that they're doing this for the benefit of consumers.
Here's a great scenario for you, based on some investigation for an amateur dance club in the UK about the possibility of burning a selection of the best tracks used at club activities onto a small number of compilation CDs, so the club DJs don't have to carry several large boxes of CDs everywhere. For reference, the club already pays a fee to PPL for the right to play the copyrighted music in public at its classes and events. It also buys the original CDs just like anyone else.
It seems the club can also pay another fee to a different organisation, which gives it the legal right to make the compilations (and even to make multiple copies and sell the spares, with a few restrictions). However, while this would be more than enough, under UK law, to make the compilations normally, thanks to the EUCD those people making the compilations could be criminally liable for doing so if they take material from any "copy-protected" CDs. After all, circumventing copy protection now seems to be a criminal act in its own right here, even if you had every legal right to copy the protected material. <sigh>
Now, if the EU were to introduce some common sense to copyright -- the equivalent of fair use rights so everyone knows they're safe making a back-up or format-shifting material they've legally purchased, for example -- that would be great. If the EU want to introduce mandatory escrow for DRM-based material to guarantee that fair use, and prohibit the sale of music in any DRM'd form that doesn't submit a copy for escrow first, that would be in the interests of consumers and yet still consistent with protecting the legitimate rights of copyright holders.
I'm guessing this is neither of those things, but then this is also the EU that just threw out software patents, so there is some hope and perhaps I should keep the faith. Time will tell...
If you disagree, post your argument. (-1, Overrated) isn't your personal censorship tool for views you don't like.
I'm against this kind of unificated legislation. There're several reasons, one being that they will most likely try to base it on the American broad copyright.
The swedish copyright which I think is great, makes it possible for only items which reaches a "work of art" level.
This means silly stuff like cease and desist letters cant be copyrighted to keep them secret from outside parties except the legal advisor.
Now, other sources of cultural exchange such as the pirate bay would most likely also be forbidden. Where even "linking" to the source of copyright will be forbidden. I'm not against allowing artists a fair pay for their work. But there's still a thin balance between making a system which is good and a system which limits freedom to the point it's silly.
I dont want a system which allows companies to extort minors.
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!
the key word here is artists; not the industry. i couldn't care less about popular artists not getting their royalties, but less popular artists need the money. i thought mp3.com was great back in the days before it became what it is now. the sad fact is for people who are interested in underground music there is sometimes no way to get this music other than p2p. a paid system which supports these artists is long overdue.