p2pnet - rss feed: EMI attacks French p2p plan
p2p news / p2pnet: French moves to legalise online music file-sharing are an “aberration,” says EMI boss Eric Nicoli, urging the country to re-think its policies..
When Big Four record label cartel executives speak, they expect governments to listen, and hard.
“The French government is expected to publish new proposed amendments to its copyright bill soon, after suffering a rebellion by many of its own lawmakers last month,” says Ireland Online.
“The deputies voted changes that would introduce a so-called ‘global licence’ - allowing Internet subscribers who opt to pay an additional monthly fee to copy as much music as they like online. The additional revenues would be distributed among artists and other copyright owners.”
Speaking at this year’s MidemNet Music & Technology conference in Cannes, Nicoli, who ran a biscuit company before joining EMI, warned the French government to, “reconsider and reverse these proposals” because, “Protection of copyright is of utmost importance in any business relationship within the digital arena,” says the story.
He didn’t say what EMI or the other cartel members, Sony BMG (Japan, Germany), Vivendi Universal (France) and Warner Music (USA) might do if France doesn’t toe the EMI line.
Interior Minister and presidential hopeful Nicolas Sarkozy said last week that the global licence amendment was unacceptable, adds Ireland Online.
Also See:
file-sharing - Will France legalize file sharing?, December 23, 2005
Ireland Online - EMI boss attacks French moves to legalise file-sharing, January 21, 2006
January 22nd, 2006 at 7:01 pm
Maybe the French can finally do something right??
January 22nd, 2006 at 10:45 pm
Chances are very low we see this “global license” adopted by law makers, as we’ve witnessed a true rebellion against this project backers since it first was approved (anwy partly so) in the Parliament. EMI’s president statement is one of many (I do mean *many* as in “several statements a day”) we’ve read this last month.
The copyright law debate is set to resume on February 8th, with far more MPs on the benches defending the copyright industries. Whatever the result, the good thing is that the copyright debate has now raised at a policital level; digital copyright is now seen as a society thing, not anymore as a specialists’ thing only.
Cheers,
Guillaume Champeau, ratiatum.com
January 23rd, 2006 at 11:07 am
“Speaking at this year’s MidemNet Music & Technology conference in Cannes, Nicoli, who ran a biscuit company before joining EMI, warned the French government to, “reconsider and reverse these proposals” because, “Protection of copyright is of utmost importance in any business relationship within the digital arena,” says the story.”
This is all very interesting, the opposition to the described French plan because the plan is similar the currently widely used performance icenses issued to radio, television, etc. by the so called collectives (ASCAP/BMI/etc), where a single fee allows the use of millions of songs from many affiliated collectives throughout the world. Allegedly the money received by the collectives is distributed among the artists. In reality most of the money goes to the music publishers who have absolute control of the collectives.
Strangely the phonograph cartels are not currently objecting to the method that the performance collectives use to license songs to radio/television in almost every country, including France.
Could it be that the phonograph cartels have set up their own music publishing operations and are the ones that are skimming off the most money from the performance collectives?
Could it be that the phonograph cartels are afaid that the French Internet model may bypass them (the middle guys) and pay the artists more directly and fairly?
Or could it be that the scam of the collectives will be exposed by trying to extend it to the Intenet, Internet meaning to the entire society? Of course the scam of the collectives is that radio stations get a “blind” license, where there is no way of knowing what songs are included. Then of course there is the accounting and money distribution system… none in effect… that results in that the main beneficiaries of the system, the songwritesrs, get the samallest and way out of proportion share of the money.
Very interesting!
Rafael Venegas
http://www.gvenegas.com
January 24th, 2006 at 5:56 am
France cleary have their act together. I don’t agree with forced taxation to subside the industry, but an optional fee would be acceptable i suppose.
Lets hope france passes it and the rest of the world follows suit
January 24th, 2006 at 9:17 pm
The “Global license” is an optional fee.
Or at least would be, if the law (miraculously) passes…