The European Commission has said that it currently has no firm plans to introduce new laws that would force an overhaul of the publishing royalty collecting societies across Europe, instead preferring to continue to evaluate the effect of voluntary guidelines already in place that encourage the royalties sector to offer artists, labels and digital music firms more choice in terms of which societies they work with and in offering pan-European licences.
The EC has been encouraging the collecting societies to reform the way they operate, partly because of concerns the way each society traditionally dominates in its home country is anti-competitive on a European level, and also because many argue digital music services can only prosper if there is a one stop shop to licence music across Europe. The logic behind the EC's recommendations is that collecting societies give up certain monopolies they have essentially enjoyed in their home territories and instead take advantage of the opportunities that come from the pan-European royalty market.
The EC's guidelines have had a lukewarm reception. Some societies have made moves to address European officials' concerns, but others have so far resisted, arguing the guidelines favour larger collecting societies and artists or publishers with English language catalogues. But despite the slow uptake of the guidelines, Jorgen Holmquist, Director General of the European Union Executive's Internal Market Unit last week said that, while the system for managing online music rights in Europe remained unsatisfactory, there was no broad support on either side of the debate for legislation on the matter. The guidelines, he said, offer some possible solutions, and the EU executive will continue to evaluate how the collecting societies voluntarily use them in a bid to overcome challenges in the digital domain.
The UK's collecting society, MCPS-PRS, who have made some moves to respond to those EC guidelines, welcomed the Commission's decision to allow the royalty industry to come up with its own solutions to the challenges of pan-European online licensing rather than forcing change through legislation.