EU-wide Music Licensing Policies Published

www-xenu-dot-net writes "To stimulate the online music business in Europe, EU Commissioner Charlie McCreevy is recommending the elimination of territorial restrictions on the licensing and copyright enforcement of online music. Until now, so called licensing collection societies have enjoyed monopolies within their countries. (For online sales, the collecting societies typically charge 12 percent of the retail price today, compared to 9 percent on CDs.) EU Socialist Group leader Martin Schulz has called Mr McCreevy a "loose cannon whose arrogant opinions have provoked anti-EU feeling across Europe." That impression might not change with the new recommendation, as collecting societies in smaller European countries fear that they will lose out to larger rivals, potentially restricting the development of new music."

Comments

SIAE are thieving bastards

[DavidNWelton]

Italy's 'SIAE' group are a bunch of thieving bastards who do much to detriment musical culture in this country.

It cost us something like 150 Euro in taxes just to have a duo play for a few hours at our wedding! To add insult to injury, because our wedding reception was in a different province, we *had to go to the office of these thieving bastards in that province* (open from like 10-12 on certain days) - we couldn't even pay their larcenous fees in our home town.

The taxes are so high that young, aspiring musicians like my wife's brother, who certainly isn't in it for the money at this point in his life, has trouble finding places to play because it's just too expensive in terms of taxes for everyone concerned.

Not only that, but these rats have successfully campaigned to tax the sale of blank CD's, "because they're all used for piracy anyway, right?".

What a bunch of despicable individuals.

Yes, I'm bitter and I just thought I'd get that off my chest.

At last!

[meringuoid]

Does this mean that we in the UK can now pay the same for downloads as our dear friends on the mainland?

As it is, in the UK the usual price is 99 pence, whereas on the mainland the usual price, so I hear, is 99 euro cents. For US readers, a euro is a little bit more than a dollar, while a pount is a lot more than a dollar.

We're getting ripped off out here, and that's contrary to the whole point of the single market. Nice to see something getting done about it.

EU

[Auckerman]

It sounds like the EU is going through the same problems the the US did when it tried a confederate system. When we figured out it wasn't going so well, we moved to a federal system. This is just another example.

Having a single copyright authority for Europe sounds like a good idea. Smaller countries need to realize that under unified economic policy, they will benifit from the wealth of the larger states more than they will suffer from less power.

The creation and playing of music won't suffer because you don't have your own licensing board, it will suffer if the fees associated with said process are so high that the common man can't afford them.

Re:EU

[novus ordo]

Only in Europe you would only have a few of states that actually understood the president. Language barrier is a hard obstacle to overcome, not to mention cultural, ethnic and religious differences. The only reason EU exists is because of economic reasons. It's like trying to get the Noah's ark animals to produce the entire works of Shakespeare in Mongolian.

Wow, what a surprise.

[Noryungi]

A bit of perspective, for those of you who are not EU citizens:

1. Jose Manuel Barroso, the former Portugal Prime Minister and now the current President of the European Commission was fairly unpopular in his own country, just before he was (conveniently?) named to the top EU job.
2. He chose people for some of the top jobs in Europe who quickly alienated European Members of Parliament with their ultra-conservative positions and had to withdraw their candidacy.
3. Predictably, he has supported the wackiest pro-big-business policies, to the point that it threatened open-source and free software and favored the european equivalent of the RIAA (look it up on google or /.)

So, today, we have another piece of legislation -- written by the same arch-conservative people -- that seems to support big european businesses, at the expense of the 'consumers' and smaller EU firms. Big surprise.

As long as the top jobs in the EU are discreetly decided by powerful, rich white people in remote smoke-filled rooms, without any input by European citizens , that type of bullsh*t will continue. Get mad and get involved.