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"Competition in the field of collective management: preferring 'creative competition' to allocative efficiency in European copyright law" [2007] ELECD 303; in Torremans, Paul (ed), "Copyright Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2007)

Book Title: Copyright Law

Editor(s): Torremans, Paul

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781845424879

Section: Chapter 11

Section Title: Competition in the field of collective management: preferring 'creative competition' to allocative efficiency in European copyright law

Number of pages: 28

Extract:

11 Competition in the field of collective
management: preferring `creative
competition' to allocative efficiency in
European copyright law
Josef Drexl1



1. Introduction
The European Union is in search of a concept for collecting societies. It has
been questioned whether the traditional system, based on national monopolies,
is still adequately responsive to the evolving reality and needs of cross-border
digital exploitation of music in particular. Yet, in the offline sector, individual
collecting societies remain unable to monitor the use of licences and enforce
rights against infringements abroad. Therefore, and for the time being, the
internal market for copyrighted works cannot function without the cross-
border cooperation of collecting societies based on bilateral reciprocal repre-
sentation agreements. In the field of digital exploitation, however, the
traditional system needs to be reconsidered.
How does the European legislature react to the impact of digitalisation on
collective rights management? In recent years, Community institutions have
adopted positions that are not necessarily consistent. The need for a European
system of collecting societies that serves the interests of authors and perform-
ing artists in particular and takes into account the cultural and social dimen-
sion of collecting societies was recognised by a resolution of the European
Parliament at the beginning of 2004.2 The Commission, too, became active in

1 Director, Max Planck Institute for Intellectual Property, Competition and Tax
Law; Honorary Professor of Law, University of Munich.
2 European Parliament Resolution of 15 January 2004 on a Community frame-
work for collective management societies in ...