Les autorités de concurrence enquêtent sur la musique en ligne et les DVD

Publié le 09/07/2001 par Etienne Wery

On le sait, la musique en ligne fait l’objet d’intenses opérations de rapprochement entre entreprises. Les frères ennemis d’hier passent aujourd’hui des alliances industrielles, technologiques et commerciales, dans le but de renforcer leur position sur le marché et de générer des économies d’échelle. C’est que la mise eu point de systèmes fiables coûte finalement cher,…

On le sait, la musique en ligne fait l’objet d’intenses opérations de rapprochement entre entreprises. Les frères ennemis d’hier passent aujourd’hui des alliances industrielles, technologiques et commerciales, dans le but de renforcer leur position sur le marché et de générer des économies d’échelle. C’est que la mise eu point de systèmes fiables coûte finalement cher, et qu’à 2 ou 3 l’effort est proportionnellement moins grand.

Le regroupement des Majors : un danger pour la concurrence ?

Vivendi-Universal et Sony Music ont conclu en juin 2001 un partenariat dans la distribution de musique en ligne. Cette plate-forme,
finalement baptisée Pressplay après avoir été appelée Duet, a pour mission de vendre le catalogue commun des deux plus grosses maisons de disque à différents distributeurs en ligne afin qu’il la commercialise sous forme
d’abonnement. Pour l’instant, Yahoo! est le seul client de Pressplay
mais sa situation de force le rend indispensable à tout distributeur
potentiel.

A côté de Pressplay figure l’autre grand rapprochement baptisé MusicNet.

En fait, les cinq majors du disque sont réunis dans ces deux
plates-formes de diffusion.

Ce faisant, les multinationales ne sont-elles pas en train d’étouffer la
concurrence sur le marché naissant ? C’est la question que se pose actuellement le commissaire européen à la Concurrence Mario Monti, dans le cadre d’une procédure officielle d’enquête.

Lors de son discours du 11 juin Stockolm, le commissaire a été clair :

Looking to future developments, the Commission has opened investigations into Duet and MusicNet online music joint ventures involving, respectively, two and three of the five major music companies worldwide. These are important cases for the development of music services offered online to consumers, and there are potentially a number of issues which merit close examination. Again, the status of the cases means that it’s impossible for me to go into more detail, but the consumer interest is clear: Yes, online music services should develop rapidly, but with a diversity of service providers.

Des discriminations entre l’Europe et les USA dans le secteur des DVD ?

Lors du même discours, le Commissaire a également annoncé le lancement d’une autre procédure concernant le marché du DVD. Il a demandé aux entreprises US de s’expliquer sur la différence de prix entre les
Etats-Unis et l’Europe ainsi que sur les dates de sortie. Les studios
ont un mois pour répondre à ces questions. La Commission déterminera
ensuite s’il y a lieu d’entamer une procédure. Dans une affaire
similaire concernant le prix de vente des CD, elle a récemment clos le
dossier sans prononcer de sanction mais ses investigations avaient
suffi à faire changer les pratiques des majors :

However, the issues for us are often more complex when we are dealing with the developing high technology sectors. The convergence of telecoms and media is changing the consumer environment particularly the entertainment environment – markedly, and for the better. Businesses are faced with many new opportunities, and many new products and services are becoming available. However, these changes also bring with them some challenges ensuring consumers receive a fair share of the benefits, ensuring that companies don’t bundle or tie products or attempt to monopolise these new emerging markets.

In an area with which we are all familiar, the Commission has taken action to check on the consumer prices for Compact Discs. Last year, the FTC in the US found widespread price maintenance activities in the relationship between the major music companies and retailers. We conducted a similar investigation and were happy to note that the practices were far less common. There were, unfortunately one or two practices being carried out that were a cause for concern where, for example, some record companies only made advertising money available to retailers if the retailers agreed to sell above a certain minimum retail price. But these limited practices were abandoned as soon as the Commission began its investigation. As this case has yet to be concluded I’m afraid I cannot say anything further at this stage, but even on the basis of these short remarks I’m sure you can see the advantages of competition law enforcement.

Another area where the Commission is giving direct follow-up to the concerns of individual consumers is that of Digital Video Disc pricing. We have received a significant number of complaints from private citizens on this matter. In each case, the complaint is virtually the same namely, that DVD prices are significantly higher in the EU than in the USA.

Whilst the prices of many products are higher in the EU than in the US, the major film production companies in agreement with the major equipment manufacturers have introduced a worldwide regional coding system for DVDs. Under this system, a DVD sold in one of the world’s six regions cannot be played on a DVD player sold in another region. The thrust of the complaints that we have been receiving is that such a system allows the film production companies to charge higher DVD prices in the EU because EU consumers are artificially prevented from purchasing DVDs from overseas.

As a direct result of these complaints, we have initiated contacts with the major film production companies. We will examine closely what they have to say. Whilst I naturally recognise the legitimate protection which is conferred by intellectual property rights, it is important that, if the complaints are confirmed on the facts, we do not permit a system which provides greater protection than the intellectual property rights themselves, where such a system could be used as a smoke-screen to allow firms to maintain artificially high prices or to deny choice to consumers.

My services have had contacts on this issue with the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission, which has also sought clarifications from the major film production companies. I have noted with great interest the Australian Competition and Consumer Commission’s conclusion that the regional coding system imposes a ‘severe restriction of choice’ on consumers. The Commission will need to determine whether there are similarly negative effects in the EU which could fall within the scope of the competition rules.