Αρχική Νόμος για τη συλλογική διαχείριση δικαιωμάτων πνευματικής ιδιοκτησίαςΆρθρο 56-Συλλογική διαχείριση από νομικά πρόσωπα με δεσπόζουσα θέση στην αγοράΣχόλιο του χρήστη ICMP | 13 Ιανουαρίου 2016, 19:21
  • Σχόλιο του χρήστη 'ICMP' | 13 Ιανουαρίου 2016, 19:21

    To whom it may concern, I am writing on behalf of the International Confederation of Music Publishers (ICMP) concerning Greece’s implementation of the European Directive on Collective Rights Management (EU Directive), and in relation to the Draft Law proposed by the Ministry of Culture in December 2015 in this regard. We have taken the liberty to respond to this public consultation in this format as we are not in a position to answer some parts of the questionnaire. However, in our capacity as the world trade organisation representing music publishers around the world, this consultation is of great interest to our membership. For your information, our Greek member is the Hellenic Music Publishers Association (HMPA) and has also responded to the public consultation. Music publishers are the bridge between the creative process and the market. They discover, nurture, develop, promote and invest in composers and ensure that their work finds a commercial outlet. Music publishers protect the interests of authors and composers and guarantee that their creative output is rewarded. As the global voice of music publishing, ICMP welcomes the actions of the Greek Government to implement the EU Directive. We believe that some provisions in the Draft Law will help to improve the collective management of copyright in your country. ICMP welcomes any initiative to promote greater transparency, better governance and high standards of efficiency and accountability of collective management organisations (CMOs). This will ensure that revenue is collected promptly and correctly, and is fairly distributed to all rightsholders, including music publishers for the benefit of authors and composers. Unfortunately, the Hellenic Society for the Protection of Intellectual Property (AEPI) has not been adhering to these international best practise principles, and for many years now, music publishers have been raising their concerns accordingly. We see the proposals in the Draft Law as an opportunity to ensure that AEPI is finally controlled by rightsholders, including music publishers, and observes the aforementioned standards, as any democratic society should. ICMP believes that strengthened reporting obligations and increased rightsholders’ control will ultimately translate into more income for authors and composers and improved access to cultural content for consumers. We also believe that CMOs should be held to high standards of operation, governance and scrutiny by competent authorities, while being accountable towards their members. Furthermore, CMOs must treat the rights with which rightsholders have entrusted them with reasonable care and any action coming from a CMO must benefit the rightsholders they represent and/or for whom they provide the service of rights management. With the above in mind, below are the key principles that we feel should govern the functioning of any CMO: Governance: CMOs should be open to all categories of members, including music publishers, who should be allowed to participate and have a voice in the decision-making process of the organisation. Fair representation of all categories of members in the governing bodies of the organisations is key for a democratic CMO. Transparency: The compilation and wide availability of accurate information on rights ownership ensuring efficient data processing, monitoring and control of works is indispensable for the accurate distribution of royalties. It is also important to have an effective and transparent licensing process, an efficient and reliable monitoring of the use of licensed rights and the related invoicing of service providers for the distribution of amounts due to rightholders. It should be borne in mind that music publishers rely on a fast and fair distribution of their royalties by CMOs in order to be able to distribute them to the thousands of authors and composers they represent, whose lives depend on these revenues. Accurate information would greatly benefit niche repertoire and smaller rightsholders who often lose out as a result of irregular justice allocation schemes. Furthermore, in order to ensure that the data that CMOs processes is as accurate as possible, CMOs should be required to update their databases on a regular basis. They should establish easily accessible procedures to enable rightsholders to inform them about any inaccuracy these databases may contain. CMOs should also have the capacity to process the registration of works and authorisations to manage rights electronically. Given the importance of information automation for the fast and effective processing of data, CMOs should ensure that their electronic systems take into account the relevant industry standards or practices developed at international level. Accountability: ICMP believes that CMOs are service providers and as such, they should provide information on the rights they manage to rightsholders, their members, other collecting societies and users. This information should remain publicly available. In this regard, CMOs should also make available information on deductions made by hub or sister societies at least once a year. We also believe that rightsholders should have the right to request an external audit. Distribution: In relation to the distribution of the amounts due to rightsholders, it should be ensured that CMOs regularly and diligently distribute and pay amounts due to all rightsholders they represent. The sooner the CMOs distribute, the sooner authors and composers will receive their royalties. ICMP believes that CMOs should carry out such distribution and payments accurately, ensuring equal and non-discriminatory treatment of all categories of rightsholders. We also believe that distributions should be based on the actual usage of works. Concerning the accurate and timely reporting, invoicing and payment to rightsholders, it should be obligatory for CMOs to perform diligent search and apply standard income tracking means to find missing income streams. In addition, ICMP believes that CMOs owe it to the rightsholders who vest their rights in the organisation to conduct their services in an as efficient and as cost effective manner as possible. In this regard, we are convinced that the administrative rates of the CMOs should be as low as is reasonably possible. We would ask you to take the above comments into consideration when discussing the Draft Law implementing the EU Directive, and to ensure that AEPI is fully compliant with the EU Acquis. In particular, ensuring that AEPI becomes a not-for-profit association controlled by rightsholders would resolve many of our serious concerns about its method of collecting and distributing royalties to rightsholders. It should be noted that the EU Directive represents the minimum threshold of obligations for Member States to adopt. In view of AEPI’s lack of transparency concerning collections and distributions, we call upon the Greek Government to remain adamant that AEPI falls within the notion of not-for-profit association controlled by rightsholders.