Thursday 6 October 2011

Will the UK European Court decision on satellite football coverage impact on music?

The recent decision by the European Court of Justice that British pub landlady Karen Murphy was entitled to access live coverage from English Premiership football matches from Greek broadcaster Nova, rather than from the more expensive Sky domestic service (which as granted the exclusive licence for UK broadcasts) as EU competition law allows for this (and the free movement of goods, services, labour and capital in European common market) may well have an impact on the music industry - particularly on service such as Spotify and LastFM. In advance of the European Commissioner For The Digital Agenda Neelie Kroes, told The Guardian newspaper "If I can buy a music CD online from a company in the Netherlands and have it posted to me here in Belgium, why can't I buy a digital download from the same company? If I can watch my local team's football matches using online pay-per-view in one member state, why not in 27? This situation does not make much sense to the man on the street. To be honest, it is not a situation that makes much sense to me. And we need to fix it". The EU is also pushing for the reform of the collection society set up, still based on territorial monopolies.

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