Among the different topics discussed, Mrs. Kroes addressed the issue of online music.  She wondered why pan-European services find it so difficult to get a pan-European license. It has been acknowledged that rights and licenses agreements are complicated issues; however Mrs. Kroes stressed that “it is no excuse for inaction”. She also added that collecting societies and music labels have not evolved together with the artists, the distribution and the artists. She highlighted the fact that collecting societies have the important responsibility of looking after the interests of artists. She believes that the music industry can reach sensible solutions, allowing simple, workable licensing systems to be created; and stressed the need to make the Single Market a reality for new products and services.

Mrs. Kroes encouraged the members of the OCR to submit more detailed written comments regarding this discussion. The OCR will also produce a short report for the European Commission (EC) which will be published later this year; Mrs. Kroes also invited further comments from third parties. The final report will be published on the EC’s website by the end of October 2008.

The EC has published the issues paper for the Group and invites all interested parties to submit their own comments on the issues paper by October 15th, 2008. All comments submitted will be published on the EC's website.

Commissioner Charlie Mc Creevy for Internal Market, also attended the OCR and stressed important points: “We find ourselves in a situation where every single year over 20 billion recordings are illegally downloaded. No one is making money here not the artists, not the producers and not the collecting societies. The present system of awarding one license for one kind of right, limited to one territory at a time has to be looked at. As has the idea that every single owner of a copyright – from authors and composers to music publishers and record labels – should license downloads individually through a collecting society that has an exclusive mandate for each of the 27 national territories.
So if you take the simple example of only two basic categories of copyright owners - authors and record companies - and 27 national territories you end up with 2 licenses multiplied by 27 countries giving a total of 54 licenses for one download.“

Next steps:
-Publication of the final report of the OCR on the EC’s website: End of October 2008
-Deadline for submitting comments on the issues paper: October 15th, 2008.

To access the press release, please click here
To access Mrs. Kroes' speech please click here
To access Mr. Mc Creevy's speech, please click here
To access the EC’s issues paper, please click here