Brussels, 17 May 2011 – Today the European Broadcasting Union (EBU) and the European Grouping of Societies of Authors and Composers (GESAC) stressed the need to adopt a rights clearance mechanism for musical works that is tailor-made to the broadcasting industry for their non-linear broadcast-like services, such as catch-up TV or radio podcasting.

This proposal is intended as a contribution to the European Commission's work and draft legislation on Collective Rights Management which aim to simplify the clearance of musical rights for cross-border online usage.

EBU Director General Ingrid Deltenre says, “Broadcasters need a music rights clearance mechanism that is simple, coherent and efficient. The key to this efficiency lies in collective licensing, and in the important role that collecting societies play in the digital era. A one-stop-shop approach that avoids fragmentation of rights is crucial for public broadcasters.”

GESAC Secretary General, Véronique Desbrosses, says, “Having been business partners for so long, public broadcasters and authors’ societies have a thorough understanding of each other’s needs. This commonly supported model is the result of our shared views on the best way to organize rights clearance in a manner that is efficient for broadcasters and respectful of rights holders’ interests.”

Today broadcasters must clear the rights for all pieces of music in their own programming used online, even if they have already been cleared for the original, linear broadcast. A simplified mechanism should allow broadcasters to clear the rights, including for cross-border use of musical works, in both their linear and non-linear (broadcast-like) audio and audiovisual online services with the same authors’ society that has granted them the licence for their traditional broadcasting activities.

This rights clearance mechanism should allow the world musical repertoire to be licensed to broadcasters via one-stop-shop licensing based on the voluntary reaggregation of rights in collective agreements under circumstances that reflect the specific needs of broadcasters.

Such a system would not only be beneficial for broadcasters, but also for rights holders which, in a voluntary model, would be offered equal access to the market and guaranteed protection of the value of copyright. The consumer will also benefit from the development of a wide array of new cross-border broadcast-like on-demand services.
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Note to editors:

The EBU serves 85 national media organizations in 56 countries in and around Europe. It represents its Members and promotes the values and distinctiveness of public service media in Europe and around the world. The Eurovision and Euroradio networks deliver news, sports, events and music to EBU Members and other media organizations. Services to Members range from legal advice, technical standardization and development to coproduction and exchange of quality European content.  For more information about the EBU: www.ebu.ch.

The European Grouping of Societies of Authors and Composers (GESAC) represents 33 of the main collective copyright management societies (authors' societies) in the European Union, Norway and Switzerland, that administer the rights and remuneration of almost 700,000 authors in the area of music, graphic and plastic arts, literary and dramatic works and audiovisual and music publishers. More information at: www.gesac.org