Collective rights management

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Collective rights management is the licensing of copyright and related rights by organisations acting on behalf of rights owners. [1] Collective management organisations (CMOs), sometimes also referred to as collecting societies, typically represent groups of copyright and related rights owners, i.e.; authors (such as writers, composers, painters and photographers), performers (such as musicians, actors and dancers), publishers, phonogram producers, film producers and other rights holders. [2] At the least, rights holders authorize collective rights management organizations to monitor the use of their works, negotiate licenses with prospective users, document correct right management data and information, collect remuneration for use of copyrighted works, ensuring a fair distribution of such remuneration amongst rightsholders. [3] CMOs also act on legal mandates. Governmental supervision varies across jurisdictions.

Contents

History

Collective rights management is almost as old as copyright law itself. Collective rights management through a CMO first occurred in France in 1777 for the use of dramatic and literary works in theatre, attributed to the efforts of Pierre Beaumarchais. [4] The first CMO in music was established in 1850 in France. [5] [6] In the early 2020ies, CMOs function in approximately 130 countries around the world. [7] The term collective management organization (CMO) has been preceded by different references, such as “collecting society,” a term still used in a number of countries. Other terms include “collective administration societies” and “licensing bodies.” [7]

Types of rights under collective management

Collective rights management through CMOs may cover a range of exclusive rights granted under copyright law, whether licensed by rights holders or subject to statutory collective management, including:

Different creative sectors often use their sector-specific terms, including: [7]

Collective management organisations

The collective management of copyright and related rights is undertaken by various types of CMOs. CMOs act on behalf of their members, which may be authors or performers, and issue copyright licenses to users authorising the use of the works of their members or foreign rights holders they represent. CMOs also negotiate the royalty rates and other licence terms on behalf of their members and members of foreign CMOs which whom they have agreements, collect royalty payment on behalf of rights holders and document right management data and information. Royalties are then distributed by the local or foreign CMO to their members, who, as individual rights holders, are generally not directly involved in the negotiation of the licence [2]

CMOs typically exist in a situation where it would be impossible or impractical for owners of copyright and related rights to manage their rights directly, and where it is to their advantage that the licensing of the rights that they own or represent be aggregated with a CMO. The CMO's authority is typically conveyed by its statute (if membership-based), by voluntary mandates, by representation agreements with other CMOs and/or by national law. In most cases, CMOs are organized on a not-for-profit basis and are owned or controlled by their members.

A key concern for CMOs is the correct management of the vast amounts of data and information that they collect about their members, their works, other creative contributions and their usages. Documentation is thus vital for a smooth functioning of CMOs at the national, regional, and the international level. CMOs need to collect information about right holders and works, such as identifiers, names and pseudonyms, titles, shares, sub-publishing and licensing agreements, as well as information about usages in various media. This information allows CMOs to collect royalties and match and distribute them to right holders. Many CMOs use IT solutions aiming at facilitating CMOs' day-to-day operations and their cooperation with CMOs from other countries.

Different models of collective management

Different models of collective management are available, depending on types of works and rights to be managed and national law. Three typical collective management schemes are outlined below, but there are also other models, and in some cases these co-exist, depending on the national legal and licensing framework at hand.

Under voluntary collective management, a CMO issues licenses on behalf of rights holders it represents, who have given a mandate to the CMO to act on their behalf. The voluntary collective management system is based on the principles of freedom of association and freedom of contract. [8]

Under the mandatory collective licensing model, rights holders do not have the choice of granting permissions on an individual basis. All claims must be made through a CMO, under this system. The mandatory collective licensing system is usually established by national legislations or regulations.

The mandatory collective management is usually considered as a limitation of exclusive rights of copyright or related rights, because, under this system, rights holders cannot decide how to exercise their rights. Therefore, the mandatory collective management might be applied only to the extent allowed by the three-step-test of the international copyright-related treaties.

On the other hand, for rights to remuneration, the mandatory collective management is usually not considered as a limitation but an enabler of efficient management of such rights; because the rights holders of rights to remuneration are not in a position to decide whether or not they authorize the acts covered and, thus, the objective is just to collect the remuneration. This is the reason why mandatory collective management is often applied to rights to remuneration, including but not limited to, cases of transfer of rights by authors and performers to producers, or to private copying levies, in many countries.

Under the extended collective licensing model, agreements between users and a CMO in a given category of works will be extended by virtue of the law to cover all rights holders in the same category. This is called the extension effect and it also covers the works of those rights holders that have not mandated the CMO (non-members of the CMO), unless they have prohibited the use of their works.

A CMO may combine and operate under any or a combination of these different models for different rights, as provided for under national law.

See also

Related Research Articles

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Copyright</span> Legal concept regulating rights of a creative work

A copyright is a type of intellectual property that gives the creator of an original work, or another owner of the right, the exclusive, legally secured right to copy, distribute, adapt, display, and perform a creative work, usually for a limited time. The creative work may be in a literary, artistic, educational, or musical form. Copyright is intended to protect the original expression of an idea in the form of a creative work, but not the idea itself. A copyright is subject to limitations based on public interest considerations, such as the fair use doctrine in the United States.

Copyrights can either be licensed or assigned by the owner of the copyright. A copyright collective is a non-governmental body created by copyright law or private agreement which licenses copyrighted works on behalf of the authors and engages in collective rights management. Copyright societies track all the events and venues where copyrighted works are used and ensure that the copyright holders listed with the society are remunerated for such usage. The copyright society publishes its own tariff scheme on its websites and collects a nominal administrative fee on every transaction.

A performance rights organisation (PRO), also known as a performing rights society, provides intermediary functions, particularly collection of royalties, between copyright holders and parties who wish to use copyrighted works publicly in locations such as shopping and dining venues. Legal consumer purchase of works, such as buying CDs from a music store, confer private performance rights. PROs usually only collect royalties when use of a work is incidental to an organisation's purpose. Royalties for works essential to an organisation's purpose, such as theaters and radio, are usually negotiated directly with the rights holder. The interest of the organisations varies: many have the sole focus of musical works, while others may also encompass works and authors for audiovisual, drama, literature, or the visual arts.

The Rome Convention for the Protection of Performers, Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting Organisations also known as the International Convention for the Protection of Performers, Producers of Phonograms and Broadcasting Organisations and the Rome Convention, 496 U.N.T.S 43, was accepted by members of the United International Bureaux for the Protection of Intellectual Property (BIRPI), the predecessor to the modern World Intellectual Property Organization, on 26 October 1961. The Diplomatic Conference was jointly convened by BIRPI, the International Labour Organisation, and the United Nations Educational, Scientific and Cultural Organization. The agreement extended copyright related rights protection for the first time to entities or individuals who are not the author but have a close relationship to a copyrighted work, including performers, sound recording producers and broadcasting organizations. As of August 2021, the treaty has 96 contracting parties, with a party defined as a State which has consented to be bound by the treaty and for which the treaty is in force.

A compulsory license provides that the owner of a patent or copyright licenses the use of their rights against payment either set by law or determined through some form of adjudication or arbitration. In essence, under a compulsory license, an individual or company seeking to use another's intellectual property can do so without seeking the rights holder's consent, and pays the rights holder a set fee for the license. This is an exception to the general rule under intellectual property laws that the intellectual property owner enjoys exclusive rights that it may license—or decline to license—to others.

The International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers is an international non-governmental, not-for-profit organisation that aims to protect the rights and promote the interests of creators worldwide. It advocates for strong legal protection of copyright and authors' rights. It is the world's largest international network of authors' societies, also known as Collective Management Organisations (CMOs), copyright / royalty collection societies, collecting societies, or Performing Rights Organisations (PROs).

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Phonographic Performance Limited</span> British music licensing company

Phonographic Performance Limited (PPL) is a British music copyright collective. It is a private limited company that is registered in the UK. PPL was founded by Decca Records and EMI and incorporated on 12 May 1934, and undertakes collective rights management of sound recordings on behalf of its record-company members, and distributes the fees collected to both its record company members and performer members. As of 2022, PPL collected royalties for over 140,000 performers and recording rightsholders.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society</span>

The Authors' Licensing and Collecting Society (ALCS) is a British organisation that works to ensure that writers are fairly compensated for any of their works that are copied, broadcast or recorded. It has operated in the United Kingdom since 1977. From that year to 2016, the ALCS distributed over £450 million to authors, and at the end of 2016 had in excess of 90,000 members.

Spanish copyright law, or authors' right law, governs intellectual property rights that authors have over their original literary, artistic or scientific works in Spain. It was first instituted by the Law of 10 January 1879, and, in its origins, was influenced by French authors' right law and by the movement led by Victor Hugo for the international protection of literary and artistic works. As of 2006, the principal dispositions are contained in Book One of the Intellectual Property Law of 11 November 1987 as modified. A consolidated version of this law was approved by Royal Legislative Decree 1/1996 of 12 April 1996: unless otherwise stated, all references are to this law.

The current Copyright law of the Russian Federation is codified in part IV of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation. It entered in force on January 1, 2008.

The Association of International Collective Management of Audiovisual Works (AGICOA) is a non-profit organization that negotiates, collects, and distributes royalties from the use of audiovisual works, whether via cable, satellite, mobile or any other similar means.

Japanese copyright laws consist of two parts: "Author's Rights" and "Neighbouring Rights". As such, "copyright" is a convenient collective term rather than a single concept in Japan. Japan was a party to the original Berne convention in 1899, so its copyright law is in sync with most international regulations. The 1899 law protected copyrighted works for 30 years after the author's death. Law changes promulgated in 1970 extended the duration to 50 years. However, in 2004 Japan further extended the copyright term to 70 years for cinematographic works. At the end of 2018, as a result of the Trans-Pacific Partnership negotiations and a requirement stemming from the EU–Japan Economic Partnership Agreement., the 70 year term was applied to all works. This new term was not applied retroactively; works that had entered the public domain between 1999 and 29 December 2018 (inclusive) due to expiration remained in the public domain.

<span class="mw-page-title-main">Limitations and exceptions to copyright</span> Provisions which allow for copyrighted works to be used without a license from the copyright owner

Limitations and exceptions to copyright are provisions, in local copyright law or the Berne Convention, which allow for copyrighted works to be used without a license from the copyright owner.

Grand rights is a type of music licensing, specifically covering the right to perform musical compositions within the context of a dramatic work. This includes stage performances such as musical theater, concert dance, and arrangements of music from a dramatic work.

Extended collective licensing (ECL) are collective copyright and related rights laws and licensing agreements. ECL agreements by law apply to all rights holders in a class, whether they are members of the collecting society or not, and establish terms of licenses with users or classes of users. The first ECL laws and agreements were established in the Nordic countries in the 1960s for television and radio broadcasting.

Collection administration of copyrights describes the use in Canadian law of collective societies to manage licenses for copyrighted material belonging to more than one copyright owner. These collective societies are responsible for granting permission to use the works they manage and setting out what conditions users of their works must follow. Examples of collective societies in Canada include: Christian Video Licensing International and the Canadian Broadcasters Rights Agency

Provisions related to Italian copyright law are found in Law no. 633 of 22 April 1941. Certain fundamental provisions are also found in the Italian Civil Code of 1942, Arts. 2575–2583.

The Society of Authors, Composers and Music Publishers in Israel, known by the acronym ACUM, is a non-profit copyright collective which engages in collective rights management for authors, poets, lyricists, composers, arrangers, and music publishers in Israel. As a member of the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC), ACUM is affiliated with more than 100 similar rights organizations around the world, with which it engages in reciprocal royalty collection agreements. It also holds an annual prize ceremony which honors authors and musicians in many categories, including lifetime achievement.

The Korea Music Copyright Association (KOMCA) is a South Korean non-profit copyright collective for musical works, administering public performance and broadcasting rights, and mechanical recording and reproduction rights. Founded in 1964, it is the second collective rights management organization for musical works in Asia, after JASRAC in Japan. It is also one of the largest in Asia, with over 40,000 members. In 2021, it collected ₩289 billion in licensing fees and distributed ₩256 billion in royalties to its members.

References

  1. ↑ "Collective Management Organisations". www.ipos.gov.sg. Retrieved 2022-02-28.
  2. 1 2 3 "Collective Management of Copyright and Related Rights". World Intellectual Property Organisation. Archived from the original on 2013-07-16. Retrieved 28 Feb 2022.
  3. ↑ Ficsor, Mihaly (2002). Collective Management of Copyright and Related Right. Geneva: World Intellectual Property Organization. p. 17. ISBN   9789280511031.
  4. ↑ Gervais, Daniel (2010). Collective Management of Copyright. Netherlands: Kluwer Law International. p. 4. ISBN   978-90-411-2724-2.
  5. ↑ "Collective Management in Reprography" (PDF). WIPO & IFRRO. p. 9. Archived from the original (PDF) on 2011-07-17.
  6. ↑ FICSOR, Mihaly (2002). COLLECTIVE MANAGEMENT OF COPYRIGHT AND RELATED RIGHTS (PDF). World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO). pp. 18–20.
  7. 1 2 3 En, Tarja Koskinen-OlssonENEN. "Collective Management of Text and Image-Based Works". www.wipo.int: 15. doi:10.34667/tind.47985 . Retrieved 2023-12-04. Creative Commons by small.svg  This article incorporates text available under the CC BY 4.0 license.
  8. ↑ "Overview of collective licensing models and of DRM systems and technologies used for IPR protection and management" (PDF). pro-europeana.eu. 31 Oct 2009.

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