British music fans have been complaining for years about Apple's policy of charging them £0.79 ($1.55) per protected iTunes song, when other European users pay only €0.99 ($1.32). Like Hollywood, which separates the world into four zones in order to sell movies at different prices, record labels set prices at different points worldwide, in part because licensing laws vary so much from country to country. An EU probe seeks to solve the problem, and in doing so, could shake the music industry, which is built on an aging, faltering, byzantine foundation, to the core, as suggested by CBS Marketwatch.
I hope this leads to a more general rethinking of music licensing. Although the investigation concerns variable pricing based on region, other areas of music licensing are equally backward (for example, artists are still liable for the accidental breakage of albums; this was unfair back in the physical era, and is patently insane now -- digital music is unbreakable). The EU probe, which set out to resolve a regional pricing issue, could set the wheels in motion for music licensing reform in general, once the labels have to reveal how they set these prices.
(image from the bbc)
