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."

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.

When will TV channels follow?

[joostje]

When will they do the same with TV channels? As it is now, the satellite TV provider gives me a card that will enable me to decode the Dutch satellite TV channels anywhere in Europe -- but to get the card, I have to sign a contract stating I am only allowed to actually use the card in the Netherlands.

The reason is of cource the same as with music: the copyrightholders want to sell each movie at different prices to each country. But not being able to see TV channels from other countries hinders european intergration more than not being able to by US music in the Netherlands at Spanish prices.

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.

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 [eubusiness.com], 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 [timesonline.co.uk] and had to withdraw their candidacy [bbc.co.uk].
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.

Re:Not to mention ...

[Anonymous Coward]

As I understand it, the basis for such rhetoric is that the local collection agencies dole out grants to local projects. Since there is a separate agency in every country, there can be no doubt that the agencies have very different policies with respect to what kind of culture they support, and this would probably change if the number of collection agencies in EU was drastically reduced.

I don't know much about the issue, but if you want to attack such rhetoric, the first thing would be to check how much they really do dole out in grants, and how significant those grants are to the cultural developments in different countries. I'm sure one could also arrange for local grants even in a single EU-wide collection agency, if that was deemed an appropriate goal.

Re:EU != state/country

[bobbo69]

Perhaps it wasn't meant to be that way originally, but so what? Do you really think the vision of 50 years ago is useful now?

Successive treaties, agreed by the Governments of the EU member states, have taken us in a new direction. If you disagree with this direction, talk to your MP or vote. It's called democracy.

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.

Re:Finnish music licensing

[tindur]

With this kind of organizations in control, I'd be happy to get a Europe-wide agency as it can't get _any_ worse than it is now and at least I'd be more likely to get a good selection of music to the local iTunes store.

I would rather like to see all these organisations compete with each other in all EU countries. Didn't get a good deal from Teosto? Deal with the corresponing organisation i Slovakia instead.

Re:SIAE are thieving bastards

[MooCows]

The Buma-Stemra folks hunt for shops and individuals selling untaxed blank media. They then fine them a rather large amount of cash and take their blank cd's/dvd's.

Not many stores would take a risk like that just to earn more on blank CD's.

The only existing bypass is because of stores selling from germany. Those CD's are imported into the Netherlands and clears the store from having to pay the copy-tax. I believe the Dutch customer has to pay instead, but that's much harder to track. There was a ruling on this just last month. Ruled in favor of the German webshops.

Re:EU

[Anonymous Coward]

Language barrier is a hard obstacle to overcome

Not really. Give it 20 or 30 years and English will be the primary language throughout the EU. Even France has admited already that English is the lingua franca[1] of the EU bureaucracy.

[1]: insert your own irony here.

Re:EU != state/country

[Anonymous Coward]

True, but most citizens also want a completely unrealistic set of goals - i.e. freedom to buy cheap goods from any EU member state (and indeed imports from China, USA) - while somehow having their jobs magically protected from the consequences of cheap goods (and indeed their public sector protected from the reduced tax income, etc, that is also a consequence of increased free trade).

Along with the freedom to work anywhere else without having any immigrants - i.e. it's OK for British kids to go and have a summer job working in a bar in Spain, or an IT or building contract in Germany - but not to have Polish workers on British farms.

Save my job and no one elses.

Re:EU != state/country

[DingerX]

...which is exactly what I said. Direct democratic representation does not exist; the reasons, I suspect are along the lines of what some of the other responses are: "the people can't be trusted with the power to govern". The United States Senate used to work this way too: state legislatures would appoint the senators. And the senate got known as "The Millionaires' Club". Four kinds of power exist over politicians: A) Money B) Other politicians C) The vote D) Popular uprising (cf. 'Bury the system/smash the state'). Most Citizens can only have direct access to C) and D) -- and I don't think anyone wants D. A "removed representation" system effectively puts the Citizens' control at a disadvantage in group B). At the higher levels of power (such as pan-european policy), this is a problem, hence why I called it a plutocracy.

I don't hate the EU/EC. More than once I've been a beneficiary of their questionable economic policies. But the facts remain as they are: it's not a representative democracy, and the majority population of many countries does not want the EU; probably for chaotic, confused and self-serving notions, but at least they're their own chaotic, confused and self-serving notions, and not those of a ruling elite.