We Europeans mostly think Americans are crazy when you talk about 'socialism' in Eurpoe. So I have to counter some of those comments. 'Socialism' is a scary to Europeans as to Americans, but luckily it ain't so.

You Americans are fooled by the political terminology overseas, which is different. There are no socialist countries in Europe at all, Russia and some eastblock countries exepted.

What you call 'socialist' is in fact liberal democracies, and a far cry from socialist. If these politicians were in your two party system, they would be proper democrats. The 'socialist' part is that they vote for public healthcare programmes and unemployed insurance programmes. Even these things has absolutely nothing to do with 'socialism' in their current form, and they further more are under heavy pressure over here now. So we are actually moving towards what the US used to be, and you are moving in the opposite direction with Obama.

Most of Europe has been dominated by right wing politics (Republican) for more than a decade now. In fact, in Denmark the neo liberals have formed our government with the conservatives for almost a decade now.

It is true that a so called 'piracy' party are getting a minor share of public votes, but thats in Sweden, and they are mostly adolecent radicals and considered a couriosity.

Southern Europe, like Greece, are considered more loose with rules, though. Thats more a cultural thing, though, more than political. The story from Greece could never happen further north in Europe.

All of the large European Countries (France, UK, Germany, Benelux) and the Scandinavian PRO's are very good, and very protective of copyright law.

As a tv/film composer, you are actually better off having works performed overseas, as you get paid for everytime they show a tv show or a movie (performance royalties), unlike in the US.

Further more, EU law mostly overrules the laws of individual countries, so when you wonder about copyright rules (which is internationally agreed upon), you should examine EU law, not the particular laws in individual countries.