As expected, the EC this week formally released its recommendations for a new pan-European online music licensing model. This aims to simplify the process download platforms like iTunes and Napster have to go through in order to secure licences to sell digital music from the royalty collection societies all over Europe. The download companies say that vastly different systems in different countries have made establishing a Europe-wide service much more costly and bureaucratic than it should be.
As previously reported, the EC's recommendations are just that - they won't force any of the collection societies to do anything, rather they will put pressure on each individual society to develop their systems so they fall in line with the model European officials have recommended. That fact has caused some in the download space to say the EC's proposals will, in reality, achieve little.
But when launching the proposals this week, EU Internal Market Commissioner Charlie McCreevy said that if the collection societies didn't act to incorporate the recommendations on their own, then he would seek to force standards on them at a later date. He told reporters: "I will be monitoring the situation closely and, if I am not satisfied that sufficient progress is being made, I will take tougher action".