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EU's Almunia urges move to pan-European licensing

Posted by Kelvin on Jul 13, 2010 at 12:38

On our mission for a modern and transparent system to collect and redistribute moneys for authors, Younison could find a very important ally in the EU commissioner Almunia who is responsible for competition throughout Europe

The European antitrust chief urged collecting societies to change the way they operate and pave the way for a more efficient pan European Licencing system.

At the moment the system with more than 150 organizations that collect rights , cuts territories into small chunks which deprives companies of economics of scale and leaves artists waiting unnessecary for income stuck between a rock and a hard place, without any information that give them insight to when and what is coming.

Almunia literraly said:

"The market for online content in Europe is a shameful anachronism, and the distribution of content online across the entire European Union is expensive and difficult.

"Collecting societies serve a vital role but the way they manage licensing agreements needs to change. The fragmented national monopoly model and the de facto allocation of customers can no longer stand in their current form. Unregulated monopolies are not a great solution," he said.

Fragmentation of the EU market means Apple (NASDAQ: AAPL - news) 's online music store, iTunes, is available in only just over half of the bloc's 27 nations, with pricing varying from country to country.

Younison agrees on the above, but wants to underline that the artists need to be heard and represented in the coming discussions on these issues.

We will be contacting the Cabinet of Commissioner Almunia in the following days to ensure that this happens .

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