2 EU States Ease Online Music Sales

IHT: The music royalty collection agencies in Belgium and the Netherlands had given up monopoly rights for online licensing, hopefully easing the online music sales in Europe. EU is looking at other countries too: "This is the first of many steps to follow," said an official at the European Commission office. "Now we will look at imposing fines in the collecting societies who do not make similar agreements."
In their agreements, the Dutch and Belgian agencies said they would allow online music operators within their countries to purchase music rights from collecting agencies in other European countries. The collecting agencies, which manage the collection of royalties, will retain control of other forms of distribution, like discothèques, radio broadcasts and music stores.
BBC: The EU said it sees modernising the licensing of music for online services as highly important, and is hoping an agreement can be reached with other national music copyright agencies by October.