Frabboni, Maria Mercedes --- "The Changing Market for Music Licences: A Redefinition of Collective Interests and Competitive Dynamics" [2010] ELECD 658; in Flanagan, Anne; Montagnani, Lillà Maria (eds), "Intellectual Property Law" (Edward Elgar Publishing, 2010)

Book Title: Intellectual Property Law

Editor(s): Flanagan, Anne; Montagnani, Lillà Maria

Publisher: Edward Elgar Publishing

ISBN (hard cover): 9781848446274

Section: Chapter 7

Section Title: The Changing Market for Music Licences: A Redefinition of Collective Interests and Competitive Dynamics

Author(s): Frabboni, Maria Mercedes

Number of pages: 19

Extract:

7. The changing market for music
licenses: a redefinition of collective
interests and competitive dynamics
Maria Mercedes Frabboni

1. INTRODUCTION

Collective administration of copyright and related rights is of particular
significance to their enforcement. Collecting societies have emerged as
the solution to the impracticality for authors to administer their rights
directly. In the face of a large number of potential users, it makes eco-
nomic sense to appoint intermediaries entrusted with the duty of man-
aging the relevant entitlements vis-à-vis commercial users of protected
contents. Such management consists in issuing licenses to users, monitor-
ing uses, collecting fees from licensees and distributing royalties to right
holders.1 The economic literature concerning collective management of
rights emphasizes the economies of scale and scope that can be realized
through aggregation of the administrative functions with a single interme-
diary. In particular, an important advantage lies in the representativeness
of collecting societies for a multitude of right holders and in their acces-
sibility for commercial users. This emerges, for example, in the field of
music exploitation and dissemination, where collecting societies' activities
have developed and expanded to allow content to be disseminated through
various technologies and to different audiences.2
This particular and universal nature of collecting societies' action is the


1 Mihály Ficsor, `Collective Management of Copyright and Related Rights'

(2002) WIPO Publication No 855(E) 17; Ruth Towse, `Copyright and Economic
Incentives: an Application to Performers' Rights in the Music Industry' (1999) 52
Kyklos 382.
2 This chapter focuses ...