EU And Music Industry
The biggest record labels and sellers of the digital music have made an agreement with the European commission on changes that will touch certain aspects of the music industry within the European Union territory, said Electronista. Particularly it deals with the licenses that permit selling of the music content. In the future such licenses will have legal power in many if not every country in the EU. Business talks included such companies as Apple, Amazon, EMI, Nokia and Universal. Currently, companies which sell music in Europe are often present various music catalogues that are different from each other. Thus, in small European countries Apple iTunes Store offers way less music than in large countries; surely it’s not very fare, and the only reason for it is labels’ resentment to license music for small markets. Also, many countries have so called ‘monopoly associations’, which protect musicans’ rights; it means that in other markets (where the given monopoly association is not functioning) music cannot be sold out. This problem was seriously discussed during the meeting, so possibly certain results will be finally reached. Practically, it all means only one thing – better regulatory methods of the music sales in the European Union, but hence EU is not well regulated then it may not go as good as record labels wish.