The European Commission has adopted a proposal for a directive on collective rights management and multi-territorial licensing of rights in musical works for online uses. The proposal aims at ensuring that rightholders have a say in the management of their rights and envisages better functioning collecting societies as a result of the set standards all over Europe. The proposed directive will also ease the licensing of authors' rights for the use of music on the Internet. This should lead to improved access to and more offer of music online. Though the directive has no immediate impact on music publishing in Australia it may well affect members’ sub-publishers in Europe and their relations with their collecting societies.
The International Confederation of Music Publishers (ICMP) welcomed the initiative.
“ICMP welcomes the proposal to promote greater transparency and improved governance of collecting societies through strengthened reporting obligations and increased rightsholders’ control, which will allow for more efficient management of our interests,” said ICMP Chair, Andrew Jenkins.
ICMP Director General, Ger Hatton added that “the proposal will allow rightholders to have a direct say in the management of their rights which will ultimately translate into increased access to cultural content for consumers.”
The text of the proposal can be found here: http://ec.europa.eu/internal_market/copyright/docs/management/com-2012-3722_en.pdf