There are quite a few similar rights. One example is that radio stations don't have enter agreements with individual rights owners to license songs. There is blanket fee. Similar payments are for playing music in bars, restaurants and other public spaces, for copying machines, blank CDs (and video and cassette tape), etc. All of those fees are set to collect money, not to kill of that use.

The difference this time, is that contracts with individual rights owners are specifically excluded.

So the fee is likely going to be an amount that Google can afford. But for the good of the Internet, it would be best if Google refuses and shows EU citizens that copyright has gone way beyond reasonable.

>One example is that radio stations don't have enter agreements with individual rights owners to license songs.

Isn't that because the music creator already entered an agreement with a rights organization? If the music creator didn't enter an agreement with a rights organization, the station would have to directly enter an agreement with the musician. The musician has the power to decide whether to sign with the organization or not.

The musician doesn't have much choice here. Radio stations will only perform music licensed by the rights organizations, so either they join and get some money, or they don't and get zip. Rights organizations typically invert the burden of proof. Even worse, if they do join, in many countries they are no longer allowed to license their music in another way. In Belgium for example they are expressly forbidden from releasing their own music under a creative commons license.

Another thing rights organizations are notorious for are overbroad claims. They invert the burden of proof and require all performances to prove they are not playing licensed songs, and all music publishers to prove they are not publishing licensed songs. There is a lot of bureaucracy involved with this inverted burden of proof, which has no legal basis except that rights organizations can afford big legal bills and those on the other side mostly cannot.

I find this whole rights organization business to be nothing but a legalized racket.

At least in Finland, the state-sanctioned music copyright organization has a legal authority to sell performance permissions to all of the music in the world. Maybe someone in South America wrote a song, and that person has never even heard of Finland. But if you want to perform that song in Finland, you can buy the permit from the Finnish organization.