COPYRIGHT : COLLECTIVE MANAGEMENT DRAFTS ON TRACK.

Members of the European Parliament's Committee on Legal Affairs (JURI) will vote, on 9 July - while representatives of the EU member states have already agreed - on a draft directive to improve the functioning of copyright collecting societies and to facilitate legal access to music online in the EU.

These drafts, which have tended to be consensual since they were announced, are not creating major controversy. So the Lithuanian Presidency of the EU will be tasked with wrapping up a compromise. "It won't change much in terms of substance because our collecting societies are already very modern but it's important to have European standards," says Veronique Desbrosses, the director-general of the European Grouping of Societies of Authors and Composers (GESAC). For GESAC, it is also about "improving the credibility" of these societies, which have for a long while been in a monopoly situation in their territory and are still in open conflict with the high-tech manufacturers with...