The European Parliament's Culture and Education committee has voted on a draft report in respect of culture and the Lisbon agenda. According to reports on some US-based websites, it has rejected amendments in favour of ISP filtering and copyright term extensions. I would make a couple of comments here. The Lisbon agenda relates to economic growth in Europe, but it has no budgetary commitment and operates purely as an inter-governmental umbrella policy. Secondly, the vote did not relate to any legislation, as far as I can see. And thirdly, I can't find the final report on the EP website!! However, I look forward to seeing the confirmation of those US reports.

Updated 25th March 2008: The plenary vote on the Bono report will be on 10th April.  Rumours from Brussels suggest there will be another attempt by the industry lobby groups to get amendments included. The significance of the report is that it may set the tone for policy, even though it is not a legislative document.

The music industry's woes - tumbling CD sales and the competition from online  - get short shrift from  that august organ of the money men, the Financial Times .  Prompted by the £4 billion sale of recording industry giant EMI to private equity company Terra Firma, it asked:

"Is a brash but brainy outsider what the industry needs at a moment of crisis or will such culture clashes make him the latest wealthy amateur to fail on its glittering stage?". The question refers to the financier Guy Hands, who heads up Terra Firma, and who is, according to the FT, creating a number of cultural changes within the company.

The article does nothing to offer to offer comfort to industry executives and in fact offers a rather glum outlook for the immediate future. It  predicts that retail shelf space for CDs will dramatically reduce in 2008, and  that some record labels will disappear as online music promotion grows.

 In a related piece , the FT describes how EMI's new owners are asking for EMI executives to provide greater financial justification for new projects including the provision of business plans before signing new artists or undertaking promotional activity. 

From a policy-making perspective, the two articles provide food for thought at a time when  the music industry continues to lobby heavily for  a  clampdown on music downloading.  The general suggestion is that the industry's  problems are caused  as much by  internal, as   external, factors - and that the solutions will also be found internally.