Ed O'Brien signs open letter against the EU's royalties draft

Ed O'Brien is one of five signers of an open letter to the European Commission, which today published its draft law on collecting societies, the bodies that gather royalties on musicians' behalf. Nick Mason of Pink Floyd, Sandie Shaw, the producer CJ Bolland and Kelvin Smits, director of the artists' lobby Younison, signed it with him. You stole our hopes¹, it tells the Commission.

The Commission says the draft will make music easier to license online across borders, speed up royalties and cut piracy, and it gives societies 12 months after the end of the financial year in which a song was played to pay out. PRS, the British collecting society, has welcomed it. It still has to pass the European Parliament and the member states.

The rule the signers object to lets a society keep the money for a recording if, after five years, it still cannot identify who the rights belong to. They accuse the Commission of breaking its promises. You thus legitimise one of the most problematic forms of embezzlement adopted by some collecting societies in Europe¹.