| dc.description.abstract | The management of music rights is currently carried out in a collective manner, by
national organisations known as collecting societies. These organisations issue licences to
commercial users, monitor their uses, collect royalties and distribute remuneration to
rights holders. Collecting societies emerged as a response to the difficulty for authors to
authorise personally every use of their work. They subsequently evolved into large and
highly structured institutions that aggregate the interests of a wide and scattered array of
rights holders. Collecting societies perform their activities within their national
boundaries, as enforcers of territorial entitlements granted under copyright or droit
d’auteur legislation. Cooperation between them has led to the establishment of a valuable
network of reciprocal representation agreements for the exploitation of foreign repertoires.
It is submitted, however, that the territorial connotation of collecting societies’ activities
does not match the borderless character of music uses taking place via the internet.
Technological and business solutions are open to cross-border uses but even such
solutions still rely, to a large extent, on territorial licensing practices. It has been argued
that this is an obstacle to the full development of online music services in the European
Union.
The problem for music rights management lies in the response to calls for new licensing
models to arise, and in the challenge that such a response could bring to the existence of
collecting societies. The query that this thesis tackles is whether the problem can be
resolved via copyright instruments, or whether strategies based on competition are
required to drive the market towards the desired outcome. It is observed that, in order to
adapt to the changed environment, collecting societies have updated their reciprocal
representation agreements to fit internet uses. The results of this process of adaptation
have mostly been unsuccessful, due to their incompatibility with competition rules. Other
models have been proposed, which envisage the elimination of reciprocal representation
agreements and the implementation of mono-repertoire multi-territorial licences. These
models also raise anti-competitive concerns.
This study shows that the preferred solution to the defined problem is to be found in the
assessment of rights management institutions from the point of view of the law and
economics analysis, and more specifically through the lens of Industrial Organisation
theories. The assessment conducted according to this approach highlights the strategic
interactions in which rights managers engage, and demonstrates that multi-territorial
licensing solutions now adopted for the internet function as by two-sided platforms
competing in a market that remains highly concentrated. | en_US |
