Demystifying Pan-European digital-music rights

Summary:

This report shows in a simple-to-follow way what societies and organizations the digital-music services must do business with to gain access to major and independent music publisher repertoire for the launch of a service in one country or a number of countries.

Overview:

Since the turn of the century, Music & Copyright has detailed all of the goings on relating to the licensing of digital-music rights in Europe. “Demystifying Pan-European digital-music rights administration” contains just a snapshot of some of the more important happenings that have gone into shaping the digital-music licensing landscape. However, key to this report is the fact that it illustrates what repertoire is controlled by what collection society or licensing hub in all of the 27 European Union Member States.

The spreadsheets that accompany the report have separate pages for each country and list the publishers that have withdrawn certain repertoire from the national collection society network and placed the licensing rights in the hands of one or a number of different national collection societies.

Publishing a document about Pan-European licensing which includes separate sheets for each country may seem odd. Surely the whole idea of breaking down borders spells the end of the national licensing? To a certain extent it does, but national licensing remains a big part of the way authors’ and publishers’ rights are licensed today. Moreover, the role of the national collection society is extremely important and extends beyond licensing, rights collections and distributions. All collection societies are involved, to differing levels, in cultural activities and the promotion of local repertoire. Whatever happens with regards to the future of Pan-European licensing, these activities will form part of all future collection societies’ functions.