The KEA Blog

IMPALA: For Cultural Diversity.

Recently, the merger of two music industry giants, Sony and BMG, was approved by antitrust authorities on both sides of the Atlantic. Along with Universal, SonyBMG now control 60% of the world cultural goods and services market. This oligopoly is bad for competition and is therefore the enemy of creativity and innovation.

In response to this growing concentration of the global market, IMPALA, the association of independent music companies has launched a campaign “For Cultural Diversity”. The campaign aims to promote diversity and competition in the cultural industries as well as supporting the UNESCO convention on cultural diversity which seeks to ensure that the special nature of the cultural sector is recognised, and that it be regulated from a not purely economic point of view.

Further information as well as a petition for the campaign can be found at http://www.forculturaldiversity.org

A European Policy in Favour of the Cultural Industries

On 21 April 2005, Philippe Kern, Director of Kern European Affairs, gave a presentation to the EU conference on the cultural industries, in Luxembourg. 

Philippe began by outlining the challenges facing the music industry: globalization and increased competition as well as the emerging online music market and how it should be taxed and regulated. He then went on to point out how, while the Television, Cinema, and print media sectors receive substantial state support, protection and targeted EU assistance, the Music sector receives little protection and the EU support it does receive is scattered over various programs and is not aimed at achieving any specific policy objective.

Furthermore, following the Sony BMG merger, 60% of the worldwide market share is in the hands of SonyBMG and Universal, creating an oligopoly.

Philippe then went on to explain how culture is seen as an obstacle to the internal market and integration, and the implications of this viewpoint for the EU’s participation in the negotiations at UNESCO for an international instrument to protect cultural diversity.

The full text of the speech can be found here.