Jun 20, 2006

Time to review copyright management in Europe-June2006

The European Commission has set out a clear strategic challenge for European industry: to create new, innovative services which can remain competitive in the global market and can create new jobs. This challenge requires all stakeholders to modernise their way of working if they are to realize the full potential of an Information Society rich in original, European content.

Creators of original works that are eligible for copyright protection enjoy an exclusive right to permit or prohibit any communication or making available to the public of these works. The rights of performing artists, producers of phonograms and broadcasters are entitled to a similar form of protection. Copyright protected works can only be communicated or made available to the public if and to the extent that, the rights-holders grant permission to do so. Rights-holders can exercise their rights either individually or collectively through a Collecting Society.

Collecting Societies' activities are therefore of direct concern to European copyright users and other organisations, each in its own specific sector. All users believe that more needs to be done to improve and modernise the collective management of copyright in the European Union. Failure to do so would prevent rights users from playing our full role in delivering the potential of the EUís strategy for more growth and jobs.

Following the publication of the Commission Communication on the Management of Copyright and Related Rights in the Internal Market in April 2004 (COM(2004)261final), various organisations representing copyright users set up a forum to exchange information and views on the Commission document and its potential impact on collective rights management systems in the EU. These associations are: ACT, AER, ECCA, EBU, EICTA, HOTREC and PEARLE*. Under the name of the Copyright Usersí Platform (CUP) we would like to raise national and EU policy-makersí awareness of the need for reform of the collective management system.

In spite of the diversity of the industries involved, the complexity of the relationships of each of these sectors with rights-holders and collective rights management organisations, general consensus on the following points exists:

ß Need to maintain, and where necessary extend, possibilities for one-stop-shop licensing;
ß Need for good governance of Collecting Societies in order to increase the whole systemís efficiency and transparency;
ß Need for appropriate accountability and dispute resolutions mechanisms where necessary.

In 2004, all involved organisations warmly welcomed the Commission Communication on the Management of Copyright and Related Rights in the Internal Market as a first encouraging step to improve and facilitate efficient collective management of rights in the European Union. As a follow-up to that Communication, DG MARKTís Copyright Unit published in October 2005 a Recommendation on the Management of On-line Music Rights. It stopped short of dealing with the fundamental and increasingly critical issues affecting copyright users, and a serious risk of new problems now exists.

This is why we decided to hold a Copyright Users Seminar in June 2006 and to produce a joint publication describing some of these risks. Unlike other events dominated by rights-holders and Collecting Societies, the Seminar is the first opportunity for rights users and their organisations to raise awareness and understanding of some of the urgent issues currently at stake.

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