EDRI - Collecting societies

EC wants to provide freedom for the authors from collecting societies

Wed, 30 Jul 2008 17:28:58 +0100

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Against the high pressure from rights managers, the European Commission decided to ban certain copyright handling practices, mainly the obligation of an author not to move from a collective society to another.

On 16 July 2007, Competition Commissioner Neelie Kroes asked 24 European collecting societies managing copyright on behalf of music authors to eliminate the clause from their contracts preventing authors from moving to another collecting society.

The Commission had opened an investigation following complaints from broadcasting group RTL and the UK online music provider Music Choice. In February 2007, the Commission sent a formal statement of objections to the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC)

ENDitorial: The battle for Sound Copyright

Wed, 12 Mar 2008 20:35:29 +0000

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Commissioner Charlie McCreevy's announcement in February 2008 that he proposes to nearly double the term of copyright protection for sound recordings from 50 to 95 years came as a shock to UK digital rights campaigners. Back in 2006, here in the UK, the case against copyright term extension was robustly made - by campaigners such as my organisation, the Open Rights Group, and more importantly, by economists from one of the UK's leading universities. It led to a firm commitment from our Government that they would never seek to extend copyright term retrospectively.

There is no case for copyright term extension. Term extension would reduce, yet again, the size of the public domain, harming public

EC public consultation of Creative Content Online

Wed, 16 Jan 2008 19:34:40 +0000

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On 3 January 2008, the European Commission (EC) launched a public consultation for the preparation of a recommendation on Creative Content Online to be adopted by the European Parliament and Council that calls for a common legal environment for online content, proposing multi-territory licences.

In the opinion of the European Commission, EU policies should support the rapid implementation of "new services and related business models for the creation and circulation of European content and knowledge online."

As a result of the public consultation on "Content Online in the Single Market" launched by the EC in July 2006, there were several calls for the encouragement of the cooperation between industry, right holders and

No decision yet from the EC on the status of the online music market

Wed, 19 Dec 2007 19:27:20 +0000

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During a conference on creative rights and cultural diversity organised by EUobserver on 6 December 2007, José Manuel Barroso, the President of the European Commission, stated the European Commission (EC) was not yet ready to take any short-term decision related to the management of the online music market.

Despite new calls at the conference to review the voluntary guidelines on the collective management of online music rights issued in 2005 by the EC and supported by collective rights managers (CRMs), Barroso said the EC needed some time to find the right solutions based on a balanced, sustainable consensus of all the involved stakeholders.

The guidelines are not legally binding for the EU states and, according to

European Commission investigates Apple's European prices

Wed, 26 Sep 2007 20:15:14 +0100

The representatives of the European Commission (EC) had a closed meeting last week with Apple and other four major record companies, regarding the different pricing schemes used in different countries in Europe.

The meeting should have lasted for two days, but two record companies EMI Group and Warner Music Group decided they didn't need to show up in the oral hearings, considering the EC had been "persuaded that they are not responsible for how Apple prices songs". Therefore the meeting lasted just one day with Apple's iTunes global president Eddy Cue and general counsel Donald Rosenberg that joined Universal Music and Sony BMG.

According to a Reuters source, an Apple representative said during the meeting that "there was nothing in its contract with Universal obliging it to operate national stores or to set a higher price in countries such as

Allofmp3.com director acquitted by Moscow Court

Wed, 29 Aug 2007 17:56:24 +0100

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Denis Kvasov, head of Mediaservices, owner of music website Allofmp3.com was acquitted by a Moscow court after having been brought to trial by entertainment companies EMI Group Plc, NBC Universal and Time Warner Inc. for copyright offences.

On 15 August 2007, district judge Yekaterina Sharapova ruled that Denis Kvasov had not infringed the Russian law. "The prosecution did not succeed in presenting persuasive evidence of his involvement in infringing copyright law," said the judge. She considered the arguments of the plaintiffs as unconvincing and contradictory. Also, no evidence was produced to prove the purchase and storage of counterfeit phonograms or the conversion of the

Media and telecom companies oppose CISAC proposal

Wed, 18 Jul 2007 17:38:17 +0100

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On 10 July 2007, the EU Commission received a letter from a large group including some of Europe's biggest media groups and telecom companies urging for the rejection of an offer made by EU national royalty-collecting societies to settle an anti-trust case.

The Commission started examining a model contract for public performance rights between the collecting societies members of CISAC (the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers) as a result of a complaint made in 2003 by digital music distribution platform Music Choice Europe.

The complaint concerned the fact that the authors were obliged to transfer their rights only to their own national collecting society and that the

Recommended Action

Wed, 09 May 2007 18:30:00 +0100

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Public consultation on the Regulation regarding public access to European Parliament, Council and Commission documents (Regulation 1049/2001).
http://europa.eu/rapid/pressReleasesAction.do?reference=IP/07/511&...
http://ec.europa.eu/transparency/revision/index_en.htm

For Dutch readers - Petition for more flexible contracts for members of the rights collecting society which allow them to choose the conditions under which to release their own music and use CC licenses.
http://www.ipetitions.com/petition/bumawakeup/

Copyright clearing for EU digital libraries project

Wed, 25 Apr 2007 19:40:28 +0100

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On 18 April 2007, a copyright handling model for digitalised works was agreed by EU High Level Expert Group on Digital Libraries including major stakeholders such as the Federation of European Publishers, the British Library, the German national library and Google.

The High Level Expert Group, founded in 2006 by Viviane Reding, the Commissioner for Information Society and Media, advises the Commission on issues regarding digitisation, online accessibility and digital preservation of cultural material. This action is part of the European Digital Library initiative adopted by the European Commission in June 2005 in order to preserve European cultural and scientific heritage making them available

Belgium court backs decision against Google

Wed, 14 Feb 2007 19:00:35 +0000

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In the case brought by Copiepresse, a trade group representing 17 Belgium newspapers, against Google for publishing links to newspaper articles without permission, the Brussels Tribunal upheld its previous decision and ruled that Google violated the copyright law.

Google was ordered to remove Belgian newspaper content from its search engine results. The search engine is no longer allowed to refer to articles, pictures or drawings of Copiepress members without previous agreements that are to be negociated, non-compliance being fined by 25 000 Euros per day.

The ruling also says that any other copyright holder could get in touch with Google and notify its copyright infringement. In this case Google has

IPRED Directive Implementation in Italy

Wed, 05 Jul 2006 19:38:18 +0100

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By Legislative Decree no.140 of 16 March 2006, with more than one month before the deadline, Italy implemented Directive 2004/48/EC on the enforcement of intellectual property rights (IPRED) by amending law no.633/1941, which has already been the subject of so many modifications since its inception that several parties are calling for its complete re-drafting.

The most notable modifications to the Italian copyright law include the presumption of ownership of the neighbouring rights, as it was already the case for author's rights; the possibility for collective and "representative" organizations to independently promote judicial actions in order to defend their members' rights; the possibility to ask judges to

Google's victory in court against German publisher

Wed, 05 Jul 2006 19:35:10 +0100

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Google has just obtained a significant victory against the German publisher Wissenschaftliche Buchgesellschaft (WBG), having asked an injunction in a German court to stop the giant from scanning books in its Books Library project.

WBG dropped their case on 28 June after the judge told them they had poor chances in winning. Although backed by the German publishers associations, the publisher failed to bring arguments in support of its action and the court ruled that there was no copyright violation resulting from the development of Google's project.

Google has undertaken to digitize library books and place the contents on its search engine working within this process with six US libraries and one

Private copy system under scrutiny

Wed, 07 Jun 2006 15:54:05 +0100

The issue of the private copy remuneration system is becoming a subject of debate for interest groups from all over the world. L'AEPO-ARTIS grouping 27 associations of artists of Europe, the International Federation of Musicians and the International Federation of Actors took a stand in the support of the present private copy levy system.

According to the artists associations, the present private copy system "significantly supports the cultural domain" as "a flexible system combining freedom for consumers and legitimate revenues for the copyright owners" being "vital for interpreters in the exploitation of their interpretation". Replacing the fees on private copy, which brought income to the artists, with DRM, which allows copying only within a system approved by its producer, is profitable only for the industry selling DRM systems and not to

Content flatrate is feasible according to French study

Wed, 07 Jun 2006 15:47:07 +0100

Nothing in the national law and international obligations prevents states from permitting file-sharing as long as they subject it to a levy. This is the conclusion of a legal feasibility study under the supervision of Prof. André Lucas, the most renowned copyright scholar in France.

The study on the feasibility of compensation for peer-to-peer file-sharing, first released in French in June 2005, has been translated into English for wider accessibility. The translation has been conducted at the initiative of the German advocacy group privatkopie.net with the support of BEUC, the European Consumers's Organisation, and Stiftung Bridge.

The analysis concludes that downloading is covered by the private copying exception, provided that the existing system of remuneration is adapted.

Three Spanish courts uphold validity of music free licenses

Wed, 10 May 2006 19:22:04 +0100

Spanish courts have upheld three times already the validity of music free licenses. In the three cases, the Sociedad General de Autores (SGAE), Spanish music copyright collecting society, sued some open public premises on alleged rights to the music listened therein.

In all the three cases, the defences demonstrated that the music played was downloaded from the Internet and was under free licenses. The Spanish system presumes that SGAE holds the right to represent all authors, unless the contrary is proven.

The defendants in the three cases proved that the music downloaded from Internet and burnt into CDs was carefully chosen as free licensed music.

In the first resolution, dated on the 2 February 2006, the term "Copy left" appears for first time in a Spanish resolution. The SGAE