Month: March 2015

ASCAP became the first PRO in the world to announce record-breaking revenues of more than $1 billion for calendar year 2014. ASCAP also delivered historic high royalty distributions of over $883 million to its songwriter, composer and music publisher members, up $32.3 million, a nearly 4% increase from 2013. In addition to historical revenues and record breaking distributions to its members, the number of musical performances captured, identified, matched and processed for payment by ASCAP doubled from 250 billion in 2013 to 500 billion in 2014.

According to Vedomosti, such idea has been discussed at the meeting in administration of Russian president. But not only Google was under fire. Other foreign internet companies have been also considered as a target for new taxes. If EU wants more tax revenues from IT companies, why Russia should forget about similar opportunity? At the meeting participants have come to common opinion that Google and Apple certainly don’t pay enough taxes to Russian budget. When Russians buy apps, music or movies in such online store like AppStore, iTunes or GooglePlay, their payments are not imposed in Russia because they buy directly from foreign companies. Google pays taxes much less than Russian Yandex, for example.

In the light of coming copyright reforms in EU the draft impact assessment concerns some important copyright issues. One of them is enforcement.

Pirated material can literally be sent by everybody from everywhere to anybody anywhere. Moreover, infringements of copyrighted content online have become do frequent that they are no longer considered by consumers as illegal or even if illegal, as causing economic harm. At the same time, given that technology allows for almost perfect copies at low cost, piracy has become an even more profitable business. The exclusive rights that are recognised, with the appropriate boundaries, should be meaningful in the online environment, and the tools to enforce those rights should be available. At the same time the framework should guarantee the protection of fundamental rights, namely the right to property, the protection of personal data, the right to privacy and to information as well as the freedom of expression of all citizens.