Collecting societies rail against EC legislation.

EC proposals to increase competition are bad for business, say societies

EC Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes is mulling over draft proposals for new legislation that thousands of Europe's composers and songwriters believe could spell disaster for themselves and the continent's two dozen collecting societies.

The EC has been on a collision course with Europe's collection societies since February 2006, when it issued a statement of objections to the International Confederation of Authors and Composers Societies (CISAC) and its 24 European members relating to internet, cable and satellite transmission of music. The EC is now readying itself to produce legislation that will force the societies to compete on price.

British Academy of Composers and Songwriters chairman David Ferguson, who helped lead a protest in Brussels last Thursday against the proposed moves, says, "It is not good news for collection societies. We don't need this nonsense."

Others within the composer community and collecting societies are more emotive. "They are tearing apart the reciprocal agreement and it attacks the notion of territoriality," says Bernard Grimaldi, co- chairman of the European Composer and Songwriter Alliance (ECSA), which organised last Thursday's protest, and president of the Federation of Film and Audiovisual Composers of Europe (FFACE).

Another senior executive adds, "I can't see the way forward. It is not good for the consumer. It will not bring cheaper music and there is no benefit to the creator."

Currently, artists grant their rights to their own national collecting society, which in turn grant those rights to opposite numbers in Germany, France and throughout the rest of Europe.