Bee Gees’ Robin Gibb recently joined other composer-artists in representing the European Composer and Songwriter Alliance (ECSA) to warn the EU that a standard rate for all member nations could result in reduced royalties for composers and musicians.

Each EU member nation has separate licensing rules, regs and royalties. Because of this, companies like Amazon and Apple need to negotiate separate licenses with each country they want to do business in.

It is the absence of any EU-wide royalty system that helps prohibit music distribution by forcing Internet companies, satellite and cable broadcasters to negotiate fees with each country. According to the EU, some companies choose to skip some EU members rather than get involved with all the red tape.

However, Gibb and his ESCA associates claim that a standardizing royalties could result in musicians being paid less money despite seeing an increase in music distribution.

“On a fundamental scale, it’s a human right that someone who writes a piece of work should have control of it,” Gibb said.

The EU favors a standard rate because it will cut administrative costs that the administrative body believes will translate into more money for musicians and composers.

Administrative costs aside, the commission is also studying whether the current system runs afoul of fair trade policies by giving copyright agencies monopolies in their respective countries.

Meanwhile, Gibb has a lot of company in his opposition to a standardized royalty rate. More than 200 musicians and composers, including Mark Knopfler, David Gilmour and Julio Iglesias, have already signed an appeal to the EU claiming a standardized royalty rate would stifle creativity and cause hundreds of thousands of small and medium businesses representing artists and composers to go out of business, thus reducing “the ability for Europe to produce cultural goods of any value in the international market.”