National versus regional, many versus few

The dilemma facing the collection societies

Abstract

National authors’ collection societies play a central role in the music copyright economy. Throughout most of the twentieth century, they operated a successful reciprocal system which enabled composers’ foreign earnings to be efficiently repatriated. In the last two decades, this system has been under pressure from international record companies, competition authorities and the online digital market, each of which has undermined the national basis of copyright licensing administration. This article traces the key events involved in these processes between 1996 and 2006, and the responses of authors’ societies to them.