Currently any online music store in the European Union has to deal with 25 different licensing bodies from the states that make up the EU. Now proposals have been made for a Europe-wide copyright and licensing system and put forward to the European Commission. Ultimately, the hope is that music downloading in Europe could compete directly with the United States, which sees millions more legal music downloads currently.

In the United States last year, €207 million (US$248 million) was spent by consumers on legal downloads whereas in Europe, consumers spent €27.2 million (US$32.5 million) on legal downloads. The reason for the dramatic difference in revenue has been blamed on the lack of a single copyright and licensing system in the EU.

"The absence of pan-European copyright licences makes it difficult for new European-based online services to take off," said internal Market and Services Commissioner Charlie McCreevy. "This is why we are proposing the creation of Europe-wide copyrights clearance." Also currently online music businesses have systems set up to collect royalties from each of the 25 states.

The EU believes that a single system governing music rights would be a positive thing all around, mainly, it would boost revenues for artists. The proposal is now to be discussed by Industry bodies and member states, and the hope is that an agreement on a way to implement the idea will be reached by October this year.

Source:
BBC News