From Platforms to Fairness: Fair MusE Responds to EU DMA Consultation

In response to the European Commission’s call for evidence on the Digital Markets Act (DMA), the Fair MusE teams at Central European University and the University of Tartu have submitted a detailed proposal highlighting how current gatekeeper obligations could be refined to better serve music creators. Their contribution underscores the urgent need for greater data access, fairer licensing terms, and tailored dispute resolution mechanisms to rebalance the relationship between digital platforms and rightsholders in the music sector.

This summer, the EU Commission opened a stakeholder consultation and a call for evidence regarding one of the important new EU regulatory frameworks for large online platforms, the Digital Markets Act (DMA). Recorded music is made available daily through some of the core platform services (CPSs) specified in Article 2(2) DMA, namely online social networking services and video-sharing platform services. Platforms such as YouTube, TikTok or Instagram benefit enormously from the circulation of music, yet creators often have little transparency as to how their works generate value and what the possibilities are to challenge unfair practices. For music creators, the DMA can have the potential to contribute to increase fairness in how their works are exploited online. Some of these companies are also designated gatekeepers under the DMA, including Alphabet, Meta, and ByteDance.

The Fair MusE teams of the Central European University and University of Tartu submitted a response to the DMA consultation, which highlighted that awareness of the potential possibilities that the DMA offers is low. Music creators who fall under the definition of “business users” under the DMA rarely realise they may have enforceable rights under this framework to demand more data and fairer terms. In this regard, we stressed that some of the obligations imposed on gatekeepers under the DMA could be further specified or refined in order to allow music creators to obtain more data and better access conditions to gatekeepers’ services when it comes to the exploitation of their works via social networking services and video-sharing platform services.

The full Fair MusE submission can be found here.

*Photo by cottonbro studio.