A Question for Readers – What’s Brexit’s Impact on Music Licensing in Europe?

Usually, on these pages, I’m trying to give my views on legal issues for media companies. Today, I’ll ask for your views on today’s news – as least as it affects media companies.  We write extensively here about US music rights issues, and we have noted how US media companies with an online presence need to obtain international rights to their content before making it available on their websites, if those sites are not geo-blocked to prevent non-US access (see, for instance our articles here and here.  In Europe, over the last few years, there have been many moves toward trying to establish a pan-European music licensing regime so, if you get licenses in one EU market, you can perform music across all the EU.  Obviously this is important as the fewer negotiations that a digital music service has to engage in, the quicker it can launch its operations.  The New York Times has already started to speculate about Brexit’s impact on the arts community generally.  My question to readers – any theories as to what will happen now to those efforts to seek pan-European licensing?  Look for thoughts here over the next few days.