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French culture minister confirms digital collective licensing plans
By CMU Editorial | Published on Monday 25 January 2010
To Cannes, and French Minister Of Culture Frédéric Mitterrand had some interesting things to say this weekend, feeding back on the previously reported ‘Creation & Internet Report’ penned for the French government by, among others, Patrick Zelnik of French indie label Naïve. In his speech to the music business convention he confirmed which aspects of the report are most likely to be made government policy.
The French government have, of course, been more proactive than most in responding to the record industry’s call for ISPs to be forced to help with the policing of piracy, with three-strikes already on the statute book there (albeit yet to actually launch). The ‘Creation & Internet Report’ included more proposals that would force the web sector to help the flagging French record industry (which is flagging more than most), including the idea of a levy on the ad revenues of Google et al that would pay for various initiatives, including a government subsidised pre-pay download card to encourage French teenagers to use legitimate digital music services instead of P2P networks.
But the report also contained some recommendations about the workings of the French record industry, including some that won’t be as widely welcomed by the major music firms as France’s three-strike laws were. In particular, the proposal that the record industry should move toward collective licensing in the digital domain, meaning all digital service providers can tap into the entire recorded music catalogue by getting licenses from one or two collecting societies, rather than having to do deals with every major, indie-label representatives Merlin and a number of other indie aggregators. Such a situation would mean an end to the big upfront cheques often demanded by the major music firms as part of licensing deals with digital start ups.
Speaking at MIDEM, Mitterrand said his government would give the French record industry a year to sort out a “possible” collective licensing system before forcing something on them. Asked by Billbaord for clarification as to what he meant by “possible” he confirmed his government saw the move towards collective licensing in the near future as an obligation on the record industry. He said: “I know this [measure] arouses opposition but it is necessary to work altogether as fast as we can to permit a richer online offer”.
It seems likely, simply for convenience, that the whole record industry will eventually licence music to digital music services via a collecting society, like the music publishers already do, and like everyone has to in the TV, radio and public performance domains. Though France’s proposals seriously speed up something that would probably take a good few years to happen organically.
