News from the Music Industry

“These licences will make it easier for new European-based online services to take off,” Internal Market and Services Commissioner Charlie McCreevy said in a statement.

Starting an online music service in Europe such as Apple’s iTunes currently requires the consent of dozens of license holders in each country—record labels, royalty collection societies, music publishers, and, in some cases, from the artists themselves.

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The resulting lengthy negotiations pushed back the launch of services such as iTunes and Napster by months, and some popular U.S. music services such as Yahoo have yet to appear in Europe in part because of licensing red tape.