Month: November 2015
Removing Restrictions to e-Commerce. Territorial restrictions and geo-blocking: goods and services (official)
There are two common types of market practices and territorial restrictions which differentiate between consumers within the Internal Market: geo-blocking, i.e. simple refusal to sell or automatic re-routing and geo-filtering, i.e. unjustified diversifying of sale conditions. These practices are commonly based on the location of the consumer, which is for instance determined by means of the IP address used by the consumer, the country which is registered for the customer’s means of payment or the postal or delivery address indicated by the consumer. Companies tend to apply geo-blocking for three reasons: (a) compliance with legislation, (b) contractual arrangements, and (c) unilateral commercial decisions.
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The essence of private copying levy is compensation to right holders for copies made by private persons. As long as it is impossible to prohibit copying (reproduction) of phonograms and audiovisual works by private persons and in practice there is no opportunity to collect private levy personally from each natural person. Therefore such remuneration is to be paid by manufacturers and importers of equipment and mediums capable of copying (players, personal computers, phones, compact disks, tape recorders). In its turn, in order to reimburse paid remuneration, importers and manufacturers include paid levy in selling price and eventually customers, when buy equipment and mediums capable of copying, pay indirectly this private copying levy and compensate harm incurred by right holders from private copying.
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Roskomnadzor can block domains in .ru and .рф zones under current and effective Russian law. But this blocking is effective in Russia, in other countries web-sites, included in black list in Russia, can be accessible. In order to make blocking faster and more effective, new idea to make Roskomnadzor’s authority broader has been proposed. Would it be better, if Roskomnadzor had authority to block domains worldwide without court order? Certainly it relates to domains in .ru and .рф zones.
Comments closedGrigory Pirumov, deputy of Russian minister of culture, has written a letter to control office of presidential administration. In his letter he considered few issues relating to activity of Russian collecting societies. Right holders must receive royalties in accordance with actual usage of their musical works, statistical data is not suitable for these purposes. Besides, Russian CMOs have to distribute at least 75% of all collected royalties among right holders, whose rights are managed by CMO.
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Direct deals by consolidated music publishers are de facto anticompetitive, lacking in transparency and potentially harmful for songwriters. At the recent round of music licensing hearings before Congress, BMI addressed the issue of “interim licensing.” Both ASCAP and BMI have the ability to negotiate interim fees. While FMC acknowledges that the addition of interim licensing may be an equitable solution, any modification regarding interim licensing or fees must preserve direct payments to songwriters, the 50/50 splits, and promote greater transparency for the benefit of songwriters who require accurate royalty statements and services seeking clarity on what repertoire is available to perform. FMC, however, also acknowledges that interim licensing could shift the “holdout” problem, demotivating PROs to come to reasonable fee agreements. Combined with the proposals for mandatory arbitration, interim licensing could potentially leave songwriters and end-users in a dead-zone without any recourse, stuck with payments under new interim licenses and lacking any bargaining power to arrive at reasonable licensing through an equitable or meaningful grievance mechanism.
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Online intermediaries (official)
One of the key elements of the e-Commerce Directive (2000/31/EC), and one that has underpinned the development of the internet in Europe, is the principle that intermediary service providers (ISP) are not liable for the content of “illegal” information that they transmit, cache or host, provided that they do not modify the information or have actual knowledge of its illegality and act expeditiously to remove or disable access on becoming aware of it. This exemption from liability is sometimes referred to as the “mere conduit” exemption.
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