The European Commission (remember them?) have confirmed they are launching a formal investigation into the way collecting societies gather royalties from media organisations. The investigation is in response to allegations, mainly from licensing types in the media, that the collecting societies across Europe violate anti-competition rules through their partnership agreements - preventing media organisations from being able to choose which collection societies they deal with, and making it impossible for new societies to be set up. EC officials have reportedly sent a list of 'objections' to the International Confederation Of Societies Of Authors And Composers (CISAC) and its European members, who now have two months to respond.
In a public statement, the EC said: "The Commission considers that certain aspects of the agreements might infringe the EU Treaty's prohibition of restrictive business practices. The historical de facto monopoly is strengthened and potential new entrants are prevented from entering the market for the management of copyright".
Despite the general nature of their concerns, the EC investigation will only look into the issues surrounding the licensing of music to newer media channels - websites, and cable and satellite TV stations. That is, presumably, because many of these media organisations are pan-European, something which has created some interesting licensing issues in recent years.
The royalty bodies will presumably protest 'innocent, guvnor' to any charges of unfair practices, while pointing out that a number of collection societies, including the UK's MCPS/PRS, have already introduced new initiatives in response to concerns raised by the EC last October regarding the overly complicated nature of pan-European music licensing.
Billboard reckon the first response from the collection society sector will come from CISAC, possibly as soon as later today.