SIA AKKA/LAA (SIA “Autortiesību un komunicēšanās konsultāciju aģentūra/Latvijas Autoru apvienība” –Copyright and Communication Consulting Agency ltd./Latvian Authors Association) is a non-profit organisation founded in Riga by a separate non-profit organisation, the Latvian Authors Association, whose members are various Latvian artists.
Comments closedCategory: CMO rules
Under Russian copyright law, and not only under Russian law, the owner of copyright, the author, publisher has a property right to receive remuneration for exploitation of its rights in work. Economical rights of creators must be protected under national laws of different countries, including Russia, and under international law. But Russian government decided to simplify the law concerning mandatory licensing of public performance right and provided three-year term for economical rights of copyright owners.
Comments closedMandatory 100-percent licensing of jointly owned works would contravene the basic rule adopted in the 1976 Act that ownership of copyright, and the exclusive rights comprised in a copyright, are divisible without limitation. The Act provides that a copyright may be transferred to another person “in whole or in part,” and that exclusive rights, “including any subdivision of any of the rights,” may be transferred and owned separately. Thus, as one court has described it, a copyright may be “chopped up and owned separately, and each separate owner of a subdivided exclusive right may sue to enforce that owned portion of an exclusive right, no matter how small.”
Comments closedTraditionally, in areas where there are many creators and users of copyrighted works, collective licensing bodies or collective management organisations (“CMOs”) have managed the copyrighted works for the creators. This is because it is impractical for a creator to negotiate and license the use of his or her works to numerous users individually.
Comments closedAmong the options proposed in consultation paper for reform to the copyright board of Canada it could be outlined some of them with regard to collective rights management and tariff setting procedure, including the practice of individual agreements or the analogue of interim license in USA.
Comments closedNAB members are both creators and users of copyrighted works and, as such, recognize the important need to balance the rights of copyright owners against the public interest. The blanket licensing of performance rights is inherently anti-competitive because the very nature of the PRO’s blanket license involves the fixing of a single price for all music, irrespective of which songs are actually used.
Comments closedThe Office believes that an interpretation of the consent decrees that would require these PROs to engage in 100-percent licensing presents a host of legal and policy concerns. Such an approach would seemingly vitiate important principles of copyright law, interfere with creative collaborations among songwriters, negate private contracts, and impermissibly expand the reach of the consent decrees. It could also severely undermine the efficacy of ASCAP and BMI, which today are able to grant blanket licenses covering the vast majority of performances of musical works – a practice that is considered highly efficient by copyright owners and users alike.
Comments closedThe four points on which SGA lends its full support to the PROs are: (1) the need to shift performance royalty rate-setting from rate court judges to private arbitrators; (2) the imperative for recognition of an evidentiary presumption that direct, arms-length licenses (the terms of which are fully disclosed) voluntarily negotiated by copyright holders who have withdrawn rights from a PRO provide the best evidence of reasonable market rates; (3) the related Congressional adoption of the “willing-buyer/willing seller” standard in rate setting for musical compositions, and; (4) the extension to PROs of the ability to license bundled rights beyond the singular right of public performance to new media services.
Comments closedThe network of reciprocal representation agreements developed by CISAC and signed by its members ensures that author’s rights are protected and administered around the world and that each CMO is in a position to offer licensing solutions that cover broad repertoire. This system also ensures that royalties flow to authors wherever they are in the world.
Comments closedPublic comment by National Music Publishers Association on collective rights management rules review
NMPA believes the consent decrees have become a significant impediment to a well-functioning market for licencing the performances of musical works, resulting in inefficient licencing and failing to provide fair market-based compensation for songwriters and music publishers.
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