Voor Artiesten en Consumenten

Persbericht EC, volgend op een eerdere waarschuwing aan de Europese Buma's dat De Santiago Overeenkomst (goede titel voor een thriller) wel eens in strijd zou kunnen zijn met het mededingingsrecht: "The European Commission has opened a public consultation on commitments submitted by BUMA and SABAM, the Dutch and Belgian collecting societies that manage music copyrights for authors. These companies have proposed commitments that aim to end the restrictions, as far as these two collecting societies are concerned, in the cross-licensing arrangements for online music that they have between themselves and with other societies.

The Commission issued a Statement of Objections in 29 April 2004 raising concerns that these restrictions unjustifiably transposed into the Internet world the national monopolies that the societies have traditionally held in the offline world. The Commission sees modernising the licensing of music for online services as highly important and it will now consult third parties on the proposed commitments. Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes commented: 'Online distribution brings many benefits to artists and to consumers. I am committed to ensuring that the licensing system does not hamper the development of a genuine European single market between collecting societies to the benefit of these artists and consumers.'" Lees hier (persbericht) of hier (Telegraaf) meer.