On 9 October 2015, the European Commission published its clearance decision in relation to the joint venture between three collecting societies (GEMA, STIM and PRSfM). This joint venture – and the European Commission’s (Commission) decision to clear it (following commitments offered by the parties) is of particular note, not only because it fits under the e-commerce umbrella (it is all about the licensing and administration of online rights in musical works), but also because it represents a further move towards breaking down the practice by collecting societies of dividing up the licensing and administration of copyright along national boundaries, long-criticised by the Commission. As highlighted by Competition Commissioner Margrethe Vestager in her recent speech in Florence:** barriers to cross-border trade can be created either by national copyright laws or by the use of contractual terms in copyright licences. This decision deals with the latter.

To be clear, up to now, reciprocal representation agreements between collecting societies have permitted each participating collecting society to license the repertoires of other collecting societies around the world to users but only for use in its own territory. Although collecting societies have started granting multi-territorial licences for their own repertoires, they have licensed the world repertoire of other collecting societies only on a mono-territorial basis for their home country.

Several “firsts”

The joint venture will provide new products on both sides of this two-sided market:

• The joint venture will provide multi-territorial licences to online platforms for all three collecting societies’ musical repertoires. Going forward, the likes of iTunes will need to negotiate only one single multi-territorial licence for all three repertoires instead of negotiating a licence for each country where the platforms operate. Small collecting societies who do not license their repertoire on a multi-territorial basis will also be able to request that their repertoire is included in any multi-territorial online licensing offer.
• Collecting societies and large music publishers will also have the opportunity to obtain copyright administration services on a multi-territorial basis for the first time. Until now such services have been offered for a single country, namely that of the collecting society providing the service.

What was the Commission concerned about?

The Commission’s concerns lay in the market for the provision of copyright administration services to collecting societies and particularly to large music publishers (so-called “Option 3 publishers”) in relation to transactional multi-territorial licences. These publishers tend to license the mechanical rights for their Anglo-American repertoires themselves but obtain a mandate from the PRSfM to license the performing rights. They still obtain administration services from collecting societies. One of the Commission’s concerns was that in return for granting a mandate to license the performing rights for the Option 3 publisher’s repertoire, the PRSfM would oblige Option 3 publishers to obtain all their administration services from the joint venture, thus excluding collecting societies who wished to compete in providing these services. In the eyes of the Commission, the joint venture might also impose exclusivity provisions or bundle such services in an attempt to foreclose competitors. Lastly, the Commission was concerned that the joint venture may make it difficult for users of its database to transfer their data to a competitor if they decided to switch to a different collecting society.

The commitments made by the parties

The PRSfM committed:

• not to use its position in relation to Option 3 publishers’ performing rights to require them to obtain their copyright administration services from the joint venture. Other collecting societies and Option 3 publishers will be able to pick and choose the services they require from the joint venture and such services will not be bundled together.

All three collecting societies committed that the joint venture would:

• not enter into exclusive contracts other than for database services
• offer copyright administration services to competing copyright societies on fair reasonable and non-discriminatory terms when compared with the terms offered to its parent companies
• facilitate switching, and
• allow termination of the contract at any time on the provision of reasonable notice.

Not only will the Collective Management Directive (“CMD”) be directly applicable to the joint venture, but the joint venture itself puts into practice the idea, made legally binding in the CMD, that musical repertoires should be able to be aggregated into multi-territorial online licences regardless of the location of the right-holder or the collecting society. In addition, the Commission’s decision may pave the way for easier switching by rights holders which will increase their choice of collecting society. Offline licensing and mono-territorial online licensing and administration are not the subject of the decision and will continue to function as before.

It will not be surprising if the impact of the CMD, the European Commission’s investigations in relation to the e-commerce sector enquiry as well as the review of copyright rules across the EU, lead to a change in the landscape relating to the licensing and administration of online musical rights, and pave the way for more exciting “tie-ups” in the future. Who knows if the offline world of music licensing will follow?

**Speech by Commissioner for Competition, Margrethe Vestager, at the 19th IBA Competition Conference, Florence 11 September 2015