BRUSSELS, July 16 (Xinhua) -- Music copyright groups must stop practices which created artificial barriers to the provision of music across borders, the European Commission said on Wednesday.
The Commission's antitrust decision required 24 music copyright groups, or the collecting societies, across Europe to end the infringements by modifying their agreements and practices, but did not impose fines.
The prohibited practices consisted of clauses in the reciprocal representation agreements as well as other concerted practices between those collecting societies.
As a usual practice, music authors sign over to collecting societies the rights to manage on their behalf, worldwide, the copyright of their musical works.
However, the membership clause, currently applied by 23 collecting societies, prevents an author from choosing or moving to another collecting society.
Meanwhile, the collecting societies also agreed to territorial restrictions that prevent a collecting society from offering licenses to commercial users outside their domestic territory
These territorial restrictions include an exclusivity clause by which a collecting society authorizes another collecting society to administer its repertoire on a given territory on an exclusive basis.
The Commission said the concerted practice among all collecting societies resulted in a strict segmentation of the market on a national basis, making it difficult for a commercial user to offera pan-European media service since it has to obtain a license in each member state.
"The removal of these restrictions will allow authors to choosewhich collecting society manages their copyright. It will also make it easier for users to obtain licenses for broadcasting music over the internet, by cable and by satellite in several countries from a single collection society of their choice," the Commission said.
The European Union (EU) antitrust watchdog said it opened an investigation following complaints from broadcasting group RTL and Music Choice, a British online music provider.
