Major publishers set to follow EMI's lead: more pan-European online licensing deals on the cards.(News)

A string of major publishers are expected to follow EMI Music Publishing's lead over the coming months and strike their own pan-European online licensing deals.

After EMI formally announced its deal with the MCPS-PRS Alliance and Gema last Monday, both publishers and collection societies indicated that further deals were inevitable.

The Alliance/Gema deal will be the first to allow for pan-European online rights clearance, covering all of EMI's Anglo-American repertoire. The deal comes two months after the European Commission recommended that such arrangements would help facilitate the growth of digital music distribution in Europe.

BMG Music Publishing chairman and CEO Nicholas Firth told Music Week that he welcomed the deal. Although he stopped short of confirming that BMG was likely to finalise such a deal later this year, it is understood that the major is talking to several collection societies--including the Alliance--about such an arrangement.

At Midem, MCPS-PRS Alliance group chief executive Adam Singer also acknowledged that it was in talks with "several big name publishers", but declined to name names.

One source close to the EMI/ Alliance/Gema deal suggested that one rival collection society had asked if it could borrow the heads of agreement, so it could model its own offer on the details. Talking to Music Week at Midem last week, EMI Music Publishing president and chief operating officer Roger Faxon said he believed further deals were inevitable, "because, for pan-European licensing to work, that is what has to happen".

Some smaller publishers and songwriter associations last week voiced initial concerns about the plight of such smaller players, in an environment where several big players have struck international deals. But Faxon says independent publishers should not be penalised: "Independent publishers should be able to do exactly the same thing as us and appoint one of these societies," he says. There is no reason they shouldn't do that."