On 26 November 2015, the Spanish competition authority imposed a new fine on Spanish collecting societies. Two organisations were affected, the society that represents record companies (AGEDI) and the society representing music performers (AIE), who operate in their respective sectors without competition. In the opinion of the Spanish Markets and Competition Commission (CNMC), the two…

On 26 November 2015, the Spanish competition authority imposed a new fine on Spanish collecting societies. This time two organisations were affected, namely, the society that represents record companies (AGEDI) and the society representing music performers (AIE), who operate in their respective sectors without competition. In the opinion of the Spanish Markets and Competition Commission…

By Martin Husovec, Tilburg University and Matej Gera, CIPPM, Bournemouth University This a continuation of our recent blogpost: “Slovakia adopts a new Copyright Act: It’s a Mixed Bag – Part I”. In the first part, we discussed the amended threshold for the protection of subject matter, exceptions and limitations and explained changes that have been…

By Martin Husovec, Tilburg University and Matej Gera, CIPPM, Bournemouth University Some will associate the year of 2016 with the year of the Fire Monkey or the monkey selfie. Not Slovak copyright scholars, whose government decided to engage in its own monkey business – an entirely new Copyright Act (Act No. 185/2015). Being the third…

Case C‑572/13, HP v. Reprobel, 12 November 2015 By Philippe Laurent and Céline Wulleman, Marx Van Ranst Vermeersch & Partners As we know, Member States may adopt exceptions to the reproduction right of authors in the cases and under the conditions listed in Article 5 of Directive 2001/29. Some of those exceptions may be transposed…

The draft law for the implementation in Greece of Directive 2014/26/EU on collective management of copyright and related rights and multi-territorial licensing of rights in musical works for online use in the internal market, which was released for public consultation a few days ago, contains a surprise provision, which has the potential to reverse the…

Introduction The SGAE case recently resolved by the Spanish Competition Authority ended in a settlement agreement, as we previously reported . As we indicated in that article, this case did not just examine relations between the collecting society and users regarding the establishment of licensing terms and conditions. The initial analysis also tackled the complex…

An interesting case about the legality of a regulation issued by the Estonian Government on the “blank tape levy” The Estonian Authors’ Society, Estonian Performers’ Union and Estonian Association of Phonogram Producers (right holders’ collecting societies) filed a complaint in the administrative court claiming monetary damages (income loss) from the Government of the Republic of…

When considering whether a collective management organisation had abused its dominant position by imposing unreasonably high licence fees, it was justifiable to compare its fees with the fees in other markets. These markets should be comparable to the Latvian market in order to achieve the correct outcome. As well as having a similar gross domestic…

Introduction 9 July 2015 saw the resolution of the umpteenth case involving Spain’s National Commission for Markets and Competition (CNMC) versus a Spanish collecting society (judgment here). On this occasion, the society was SGAE, responsible for managing music copyright. The proceedings examined a complaint made by various composers regarding the measures that the society had…