Collective management is the exercise of copyright and related rights by organisations known as collective management organisations (CMOs) or collecting societies, which act in the interest and on behalf of the owners of rights and ensure that creators receive payment for the use of their works.
On July 11 the European Commission published its first official draft of the Proposal for a Directive “on collective management of copyright and related rights and multi-territorial licensing of rights in musical works for online uses in the internal market” (the “Proposal”). According to the Commission’s Press Release, the Proposal’s two complementary objectives are those…
“The Radio Company cannot be declared guilty for breach of copyright (illegal use of musical works), although no written agreement has been concluded. In Latvia, criteria for stipulation of the amount of remuneration are not given in the Copyright Law.” In 2006 the Autortiesību un komunicēšanās konsultāciju aģentūra / Latvijas Autoru apvienība, the Copyright and Communication…
German Court of First instance rules that YouTube is only liable for secondary liability for user’s infringing uploads, but must prevent future infringements of identified works by screening of and implementing a word filter for new uploads. In this test run case the German composers and lyricists collecting society GEMA claimed that 12 songs of…
Without much noise, France recently adopted Act Nr. 2012-287 of 1st March 2012 relating to the digital exploitation of unavailable books of the 20th century. Contrary to past initiatives from the French lawmaker, the Act does not relate to orphan works, but rather to out-of-commerce works. Or, more precisely: books. According to the explanatory memorandum…
On 15 March 2012 the CJEU has ruled two cases where it had been asked to decide whether producers of phonograms (or the collecting society on their behalf) are entitled to obtain equitable remuneration when a user allows its clients to hear the phonogram by way of background music in a place subject to his…
The Proposal for a Directive on certain permitted uses of orphan works, introduced in the European Parliament on 24 May 2011, has been following its merry way through the legislative meanders ever since. The debates around the text of the proposal are heating up right now, for the European Commission pushes for rapid adoption while…
By dr. Anikó Grad-Gyenge, Károli University of Budapest Only the final voting is needed for passing the amendment of copyright law in Hungary, which is intended to abolish the legal monopoly of collective rights management organisations (CMOs). This amendment might seem surprising after the infringement procedure launched by the European Commission in this question against…
A new proposal of law on the digital exploitation of (commercially) unavailable books of the 20th Century (proposition de loi relative à l’exploitation numérique des livres indisponibles du XX° siècle) has been introduced quasi-simultaneously in the Senate and in the National Assembly. According to the preamble of the proposal, about 500 000 books published during…
In the presence of Michel Barnier, European Commissioner for the Internal Market and Services, a Memorandum of Understanding (MoU) was signed yesterday between European libraries, publishers, authors, and their collecting societies. The MoU comprises a set of key principles that will give European libraries and similar cultural institutions the possibility to digitize and make available…
Court of Appeal The Hague, 28 June 2011, Stichting Leenrecht v. VOB Lending rights. Plaintiff, the Dutch Association for Lending Rights, argues that an extended loan of library books should be considered a new loan and that therefore public lending rights are due. The Court of Appeal The Hague disagrees and concludes by referring to…
