Calls for German music quotas as pop music congress begins
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One of Europe's biggest pop music trade fairs and festivals opened against a backdrop of calls for German music to be promoted by forcing quotas on radio stations.
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&quot;We are well on pace to launch more EU stores. We will do it next month,&quot; Eddie Cue, Apple&#39;s vice president of applications, told music executives at the annual Popkomm conference in Germany.
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The Bundestag, or lower chamber of the German parliament, will host a high-level conference on German-Arab relations next month, it was announced Tuesday.
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The European Parliament  called on Monday for binding rules to regulate the bloc&#39;s  online music market and protect less powerful artists, but the  proposal was rejected by the bloc&#39;s executive.
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Ahead of this weekend&#39;s elections in the eastern German states of Brandenburg and Saxony, leading politicians have been calling for voters to turn out and cast their ballots against far right parties.
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Parties on the fringes of Germany's political spectrum have been given an eager reception in the depressed east ahead of state elections this weekend, luring voters with a mix of xenophobic standards and new complaints over plans to reduce much-needed benefits.
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Major labels have begun demanding a cut of concert earnings or T-shirt, ring tone and merchandise revenue from new artists seeking record contracts.
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Germany faced a surge of far-right parties in eastern state elections, worrying about their rise and the ensuing damage to the country&#39;s image.
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Rock stars from the 1960s and 1970s have been hitting Germany's lucrative concert circuit but many of the grandpa-generation acts have disappointed fans and provoked withering reviews in Europe's biggest music market.
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Tomorrow is yet another day for racking up delegates. And songs, or not.
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Apple yesterday confirmed that it will open the promised pan-European version of its iTunes Music Store in October 2004. Speaking at the Popkomm show in Germany, Apple&#39;s online and apps chief, Eddie Cue, said
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Germany's state governments will this week ask parliament for the freedom to further extend shop-opening hours, long seen as one of the most visible symbols of the heavy regulation of the country's economy.
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Rock stars from the 1960s and 1970s have  been hitting Germany&#39;s lucrative concert circuit but many of  the grandpa-generation acts have disappointed fans and provoked  withering reviews in Europe&#39;s biggest music market.
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(InfoWorld) - The European Parliament urged the European Commission Tuesday to propose a law that would force the dismantlement of the current method of distributing online copyright fees to songwriters and musicians in Europe. The Commission also wants to change the fee distribution regime to open up the market to greater competition. However, it has said it would be enough for collecting societies, which operate in each European country on behalf of artists and publishers, to reform the way they work online themselves. But in a show of hands rather than an actual vote count at the plenary session of the European Parliament in Strasbourg Tuesday, a large majority of parliamentarians said this wasn't enough. "I am not happy with the softer approach taken by the Commission in regulating this area, which is of growing economic importance," said Hungarian Socialist member of the European Parliament, Katalin Levai. "It requires more than just soft law to open up this market. A binding legal instrument is needed," said Federico de Girolamo, a spokesman at the Parliament. At the moment musicians and publishers must choose the collecting society in the country where they are based to handle the collection of the royalties generated from both online and offline music distribution. These collecting societies collect royalties generated from around Europe on behalf of the artists in their countries. They argue that this form of cooperation is sufficient to create a properly functioning, competitive single market across the 27 countries in the EU. The Commission has been examining the way collecting societies operate for many years. It stopped short of proposing a law to pry open the market because it said this might stifle progress in the fast-evolving space. "The Commission wishes to note that the online market is still only in a stage of development -- we need to be especially careful not to limit its potential by adopting an overly inflexible approach," said Vladimir Spidla, the European commissioner for employment, who was standing in for Single Market Commissioner Charlie McCreevy at a meeting with members of the European Parliament Monday. Parliamentarians Monday rejected Spidla's fears. "We don't want unrestrained competition at any cost. We feel a law is needed to ensure competition, while at the same time guaranteeing cultural diversity around Europe and protecting the interests of smaller, lesser-known artists who might suffer if competition drove down royalties too far," said de Girolamo. The Commission didn't rule out introducing a proposal for a law along the lines the Parliament is calling for. However, people close to Commission president Jose Mauel Barroso said the Commission -- the EU's executive body -- has no appetite for pursuing a law. "Barroso has been approached by companies in the music industry who have urged him to avoid proposing a law," said one source close to the Commission who asked not to be named. In a separate but related matter concerning copyright levies charged on blank CDs, photocopiers, printers, and the like, Barroso last year ordered McCreevy to abandon a plan to harmonize rules across the EU after he was lobbied heavily both by copyright owners, including record companies, and by the French government. The Parliament stopped short of giving precise instructions to the Commission concerning an online copyright law. "It's not for us to dictate the content of the framework directive we want to see. That's for the Commission to do," de Girolamo said.
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Defenders of financial rigour in the European Union attacked Tuesday a German call for a radical overhaul of the eurozone's budget rules at a lively meeting of EU finance chiefs.
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Germany&#39;s dream of a permanent seat on the UN Security Council got support from Great Britain and France Thursday but prompted domestic concerns that the country was perhaps too ambitious.
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European Parliament is pushing for changes in how musicians collect online copyright fees.