An Internal EU Market for Digital Licensing?

Mark Mulligan | June 30, 2005, 08:12 AM

It’s a bit of a bad news day for the MCPS/PRS. Hot on the heels of the BPI challenge is an alleged EU leak reported by Reuters that a policy discussion document recommends creating “a handful of online, cross-border copyright management firms that would collect royalties on behalf of musicians.”. A cynic might argue that the timing is particularly fortuitous for the BPI’s case.

The story talks about creating an internal EU market for copyright (something which has been talked about for years with no meaningful progress)but isn’t entirely clear whether it is referring to publishing or recorded works rights, or both.

I’m also not quite sure what is meant by:

“The new rights managers emerging from the process would be a powerful counterbalance to the giant media groups now emerging.”

Is the intention for the ‘handful of copyright firms’ to become collection powerhouses or is the author perhaps confusing publishing rights with recorded work licenses? I’m assuming this paper has something to say about licenses from labels, it would be interesting to know just what.

Is compulsory licensing be about to raise its head above the parapet?