EU’s Creative Rights and Cultural Diversity

Last week in Brussels, EU held a conference about the future of copyrights, especially as they applied to music across the countries in EU region, and a lot of discussion about taxed/levies on music hardware players in the region as well as digital music copyrights. Videos of some of the sessions are available here.
Also, European single market commissioner Charlie McCreevy gave a speech and it looks like on levies, EU looks set to come down on the side of digital/music distribution companies instead of artists. Private copy levies are a system in 20 out of 25 EU member states that see artists’ “collecting societies” or trade unions skim a fee off the price of any DVD recorder, MP3 player and blank disk sold on the legal basis these will be used to make unlicensed private copies, with Brussels set to issue a legal “recommendation” on the issue next month.
“We are concerned that the operation of some current schemes for fair compensation may be disruptive to trade in the internal market…and whether full account is being taken of the increased use of technological means to protect copyrighted works,” the commissioner said, echoing the arguments of digital/distribution firms that want the Euro 1.6 billion a year levies regime scrapped.

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