Collecting societies under threat?
The IPKat has been remiss thus far in failing to report on a draft decision from the European Commission which, if adopted, would lead to major reforms of Europe's music collecting societies. According to the Guardian, the draft, which has not yet been signed by EU Commissioner Neelie Kroes, berates the fact that the collecting societies operate as monopolies within their national borders, partitioning the EU market on national lines. It gives the collecting societies 90 days to terminate their agreements and calls on them to cross-license.
The draft has been criticised for not going far enough to break down national monopolies.
The IPKat notes that, from what little information is available, it seems that the Commission isn't too worried about the notion of collecting societies, but rather about the way in which they operate territorially. This territoriality is understandable, since copyright has grown up as a system of national rights with a slightly different focus in the different Member States.
Tomorrow
Tomorrow the Advocate General will deliver his Opinion in Intel v CPM - a UK reference on dilution. The IPKat will endeavour to bring you the lowdown tomorrow - as long as it isn't only in French.
Commission report on collecting societies draft; Intel tomorrow
Reviewed by Anonymous
on
Wednesday, June 25, 2008
Rating:
No comments:
All comments must be moderated by a member of the IPKat team before they appear on the blog. Comments will not be allowed if the contravene the IPKat policy that readers' comments should not be obscene or defamatory; they should not consist of ad hominem attacks on members of the blog team or other comment-posters and they should make a constructive contribution to the discussion of the post on which they purport to comment.
It is also the IPKat policy that comments should not be made completely anonymously, and users should use a consistent name or pseudonym (which should not itself be defamatory or obscene, or that of another real person), either in the "identity" field, or at the beginning of the comment. Current practice is to, however, allow a limited number of comments that contravene this policy, provided that the comment has a high degree of relevance and the comment chain does not become too difficult to follow.
Learn more here: http://ipkitten.blogspot.com/p/want-to-complain.html