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The changes are necessary with the advent of legal music downloads services such as iTunes. Traditionally, music rights are negotiated on a per country basis. However, download services on the Internet have opened a can of worms whereby people can download from anywhere in the world. As part of the move towards a single market, the European Commission has recommended what it hopes will lead towards a single licence and drive the creation of better services.

The EC examined

After consultation the EC found, not unsurprisingly, that commercial users and most collective rights managers wanted a deal which allowed them to cut an EU wide licence among themselves while the independent record labels favoured the option of appointing their own rights manager.

Equally unsurprisingly, the EC decided to recommend both. Copyright holders and commercial users of copyright-protected material should be given a choice as to their preferred model of licensing. It will encourage the development of pan-European licences among the big collecting societies while allowing right-holders who do not wish to make use of those contracts the chance to make their own deals for EU-wide direct licensing.