The Role of Regulators: European Union vs Member States | Episode #4
Are music creators’ rights European or national? The answer lies in between. This episode explores Europe’s hybrid system of regulation, where the EU sets the framework and Member States enforce it.
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Are music creators’ rights European or national? The answer lies in between.
This episode explores Europe’s hybrid system of regulation, where the EU sets the framework and Member States enforce it. From the DSM Directive to competition law, the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act, discover how regulators are trying to make the digital music economy fairer for creators.
Module resources
Details
Are music creators’ rights European or national? The answer lies in between.
This episode explores Europe’s hybrid system of regulation, where the EU sets the framework and Member States enforce it. From the DSM Directive to competition law, the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act, discover how regulators are trying to make the digital music economy fairer for creators.
00.08 he Role of Regulators: European Union vs Member States
In our previous episode, we saw how digital platforms became the new gatekeepers of music, shaping what we hear and who gets visibility. Now it’s time to look at the other side of the equation: how regulation steps in to oversee this new digital landscape.
Are music creators’ rights European or national? The answer lies somewhere in between, in a shared space shaped by both European and national powers.
The European Union legislates, while the Member States transpose and enforce those laws. Between Brussels and national capitals, a hybrid system has taken shape, one that defines how composers’, performers’ and record producers’ rights are drafted, interpreted and applied.
It is a delicate balance of shared competence, layered governance, and a continuing search for fairness in a platform-driven world.
01:02 Context – The Growth of EU Authority
Over the past two decades, the European Union has expanded its role in the tech and creative sectors.
From the InfoSoc Directive in 2001 to the Digital Single Market Directive in 2019…
and onward to the 2022 Digital Services Act, the 2022 Digital Markets Act, and the 2024 AI Act, the European Union has built a dense, interlocking framework for digital governance.
Together, these legislative instruments constitute a sort of European digital rights charter, which is an attempt to balance innovation, competition, and creators’ rights across a single market and a single, EU-wide jurisdiction.
1:48 Enforcement of creators’ digital rights: Fair MusE’s Question
Can these existing laws make digital music fairer for creators? That is the question at the heart of the Fair MusE Project.
A new antitrust and platform regulation study authored by Fair MusE researchers shows a clear finding on this front: the challenge is not to create new rights, but to enforce the rights we already have.
Despite Europe’s sophisticated legal architecture, creators still face deep inequalities and structural dependency.
2:17 The Platform Dependency Problem
In the digital era, music has never been more available. But for creators it has rarely been less transparent. Today, visibility and income depend almost entirely on a few platforms: YouTube, TikTok, Instagram, Spotify, etc.
Being on these platforms is no longer optional — it is a condition of survival.
Yet artists have little insight into how their music is ranked, monetised, or promoted.
Algorithms decide what is heard and what is hidden.
Data about streams, listeners, or revenue is often incomplete, inconsistent, or simply inaccessible. Even intermediaries — labels, collecting societies and aggregators —
operate with only partial information.
The collapse of projects such as the “Global Repertoire Database” shows how fragile efforts at collective transparency remain.
In this vacuum, platforms have become both gatekeepers and data monopolists —
controlling not only access to audiences but also the value of the music itself.
3:40 The 2019 DSM (Digital Single Market) Directive and its Fragmented Implementation
The so-called DSM Directive was meant to modernise copyright for the online platform reality.
As far as the rights of authors and performers are concerned, Articles 18 to 23 of this Directive codify their right to adequate and proportionate remuneration. But as Fair MusE’s research shows, national transpositions vary significantly.
The result? The same European provision produces different national realities.
Harmonisation is pursued on paper, but a certain level of fragmentation remains in practice.
4:17 Competition Law as a Tool for Fairness
Fair MusE’s research makes a strong case for competition – i.e. antitrust – law as a tool for fairness. Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union outlaws and sanctions abuses of dominant position.
If platforms withhold data from creators, that information could be seen as an essential facility — information or data that artists must access to be able to value their work.
And if platforms or intermediaries grant privileged access to major rights holders
while excluding smaller ones, that may constitute discrimination under competition rules.
Interestingly, EU competition law is evolving. From 2022 onwards, it allows self-employed creators to collectively bargain without violating antitrust law. For Europe’s freelance musicians and performers, this change opens a new frontier of collective action.
5:24 The New Regulatory Tools – DSA & DMA
Beyond competition law, the Digital Services Act and the Digital Markets Act, adopted in 2022, introduce powerful instruments for regulating online platforms.
The DSA requires platforms to explain their algorithms, publish risk assessments, and provide complaint-handling systems. For so-called Very Large Online Platforms like YouTube and TikTok, this includes obligations to evaluate their social and cultural impact.
The DMA, in turn, imposes ex ante rules on major gatekeepers — companies such as Apple, Meta, or Alphabet — ensuring fair, non-discriminatory access to data and infrastructure.
Used together, these laws could transform how creators understand and contest platform behaviour.
However, Fair MusE’s analysis points out a critical gap: most streaming services — Spotify, Deezer, Tidal — are not currently designated and classified as “gatekeepers” or “Very Large Online Platforms”.
Nor do existing categories in these laws like ‘business user’ or ‘recipient of service’ adequately capture the position of authors, performers, or CMOs. This leaves them in a regulatory grey zone — precisely where much of Europe’s music economy operates now.
6:51 Enforcement and Mobilisation
Fair MusE’s conclusion is unambiguous: Europe doesn’t need more rights — it needs enforcement.
Creators face barriers everywhere — limited legal knowledge, high litigation costs, and fragmented jurisdictions. Few can afford to challenge unfair contracts or opaque reporting. Most creators simply adapt… or give up.
Fair MusE calls for a new enforcement ecology: collective actions by CMOs, unions, and advocacy groups; coordinated complaints under the DSA and DMA; and clearer sector-specific guidance from EU regulators.
Fair MusE also calls for EU-wide monitoring of how Articles 18 to 23 of the DSM Directive are applied. Only through coordination — and pressure — can these rights become real.
Regulators must act. Platforms must embrace the spirit as well as the letter of transparency. And creators — above all — must mobilise and organise.
Europe has the tools. Creators have the need. What remains is the will.
8:07 Conclusion and Looking Ahead
This is Europe’s hybrid model at work: the Union sets the framework, the Member States shall bring it to life.
Fragmentation persists, yet diversity allows innovation.
And through the interplay of laws — the DSM Directive, the DSA, the DMA, and competition law — Europe is slowly building a more accountable digital space.
Fairness will not emerge from new texts, but from enforcing the rights already in the statutes.
If you would like to understand how these issues emerged, you can revisit the previous episode, From Physical Records to Playlists, where we explored how platforms became central to music distribution and visibility
In our next episode, we’ll turn to the next frontier: Collective Management and Freedom of Choice. Who represents you, and how much freedom do you truly have to choose your rights manager?
