Copyright Collecting Societies, Monopolistic Positions and Competition in the EU Single Market

The paper discusses the reform of the legal framework in the light of the EU proposal directive on collecting societies. The focus will be specifically devoted to the Italian situation, where, like in Austria, there is a legal monopoly. The basis of this monopoly has been recently discussed and the Italian legislator has liberalized neighboring rights. According to some scholars this would lead to a re-thinking of the legal system and to the liberalization of copyrights too. On the other hand, we will take into account the relations between the CISAC decision and the EU Services Directive. The re-thinking of the de facto or legal monopoly positions will be analyzed by the paper also from an economic perspective, discussing economies of scale in the peculiar perspective of the division of the relevant markets. In fact, the final view is that the overcoming the legal monopoly is likely to lead to partitioning of the markets which will have the result of, on the one hand, promoting the creation of small collecting societies, which will be dedicated to specific sectors, but, on the other hand, it should facilitate the growth of the power of collecting societies already dominant in Europe (e.g. GEMA, PRS)