The collective management of copyrights is a highly topical issue in the United States which is exemplified by the review of the Consent Decrees between 2014 and 2016 and recent rate court proceedings. Furthermore, the economic and technical environment for the collective management of copyrights has undergone profound changes in recent years; this implies the need for research on the corresponding legal framework, also de lege ferenda. A comparative approach was chosen in order to highlight that similar problems occur in the United States and the European Union. Those problems are, however, not always addressed in the same way.