Talking of publishing, the association which represents composers and songwriters across Europe, The European Composer and Songwriter Alliance, has given its backing to proposals by CISAC, the global body representing composers, songwriters, publishers and their collecting societies, which has been drafted in a bid to satisfy the European Commission that the publishing sector in Europe isn't just a cartel of territorial monopolies. ECSA spokesman David Ferguson, who's also chair of the British Academy Of Composers & Songwriters, said this week: "The advantage of these commitments is that they promise to bring significant benefits to commercial users of music in a way that preserves the value of our music and our choice of collecting society".
But key media and internet companies aren't convinced that CISAC's proposition will satisfy either their or the EC's concerns, arguing that actually they'll make things worse. A coalition of those companies who have been considering the CISAC proposal have written in a letter to the EC: "[CISAC's plans] would undermine the current system of licensing the global music repertoire as a single package...which would result in regional and national linguistic repertoires either not being played or paid".