Copyright reform must be fair and transparent

11/ 02/ 2021

Listen to online Stop   Transparency and fairness must be the basis of any reform, otherwise, the changes can hardly be called effective for the protection of the market players’ interests. It was the key message of the EBA Roundtable Copyright Reform: How to Ensure the Interests of Business and Authors?, where the business representatives and content creators addressed to public authorities to reform the work of collective management organizations (CMOs) and copyright fees system. Thus, the participants of the event discussed the most painful and problematic issues existing in the field today, which include: · problems with accreditations of collective management organizations; · the need to introduce an effective and transparent mechanism for the distribution of royalties between authors at the legislative level; · the need to reform the system of deductions from the cost of electronics for the so-called private copying; · the need to solve problems with Internet piracy; · further development of streaming resources and technology of protection against unauthorized copying of authors works. It was emphasized that, unfortunately, the shadow market in the country is not undergoing radical reform. For example, every third smartphone enters illegally to Ukraine’s market. And the introduction of additional deductions can increase the shadow economy sector. Besides, it imposes an additional financial burden on the consumer because of deductions will be included in the price of devices. At the same time, the system of distribution of collected royalties among the authors should no longer remain non-transparent, when it is not known to whom these or those funds were transferred and by what methodology and criteria. Although there are different distribution models of remuneration for private copying and reprographic reproduction, none of the proposals is perfect as they all are based on certain assumptions. But the draft law №4537 can be a solution. It stipulates that accredited CMOs must have an electronic system that would allow all interested parties to register in it in the personal account and have constant access to information about the funds raised, the criteria for their automatic distribution among authors, and the amount received for a particular authors composition. Besides, the draft law will abolish the additional tax on consumer equipment, leaving such a fee only for certain types of media devices that can be used to make and store copies of copyrighted works. After all, it is strange to impose an additional tax on the printer, assuming that it can be used to copy the book. View the discussion at the link.  We hope that the representatives of public authorities will listen to our proposals.   Be the first to learn about the latest EBA news with our Telegram-channel – EBAUkraine.

Transparency and fairness must be the basis of any reform, otherwise, the changes can hardly be called effective for the protection of the market players’ interests. It was the key message of the EBA Roundtable “Copyright Reform: How to Ensure the Interests of Business and Authors?”, where the business representatives and content creators addressed to public authorities to reform the work of collective management organizations (CMOs) and copyright fees system.

Thus, the participants of the event discussed the most painful and problematic issues existing in the field today, which include:

· problems with accreditations of collective management organizations;

· the need to introduce an effective and transparent mechanism for the distribution of royalties between authors at the legislative level;

· the need to reform the system of deductions from the cost of electronics for the so-called “private copying”;

· the need to solve problems with Internet piracy;

· further development of streaming resources and technology of protection against unauthorized copying of author’s works.

It was emphasized that, unfortunately, the shadow market in the country is not undergoing radical reform. For example, every third smartphone enters illegally to Ukraine’s market. And the introduction of additional deductions can increase the shadow economy sector. Besides, it imposes an additional financial burden on the consumer because of deductions will be included in the price of devices. At the same time, the system of distribution of collected royalties among the authors should no longer remain non-transparent, when it is not known to whom these or those funds were transferred and by what methodology and criteria.

Although there are different distribution models of remuneration for private copying and reprographic reproduction, none of the proposals is perfect as they all are based on certain assumptions.

But the draft law №4537 can be a solution. It stipulates that accredited CMOs must have an electronic system that would allow all interested parties to register in it in the personal account and have constant access to information about the funds raised, the criteria for their automatic distribution among authors, and the amount received for a particular author’s composition. Besides, the draft law will abolish the “additional tax” on consumer equipment, leaving such a fee only for certain types of media devices that can be used to make and store copies of copyrighted works. After all, it is strange to impose an additional tax on the printer, assuming that it can be used to copy the book.

View the discussion at the link. 

We hope that the representatives of public authorities will listen to our proposals.

Be the first to learn about the latest EBA news with our Telegram-channel – EBAUkraine.