Collective management of copyright in the view of recent EU directives. Threats to the culture and authors’ property rights
Copyright collecting agencies were established to protect the property rights of authors that were threatened as a result of the development of reprographic techniques. They are subjects of special status. Responsibilities of such copyright collecting agencies were defined in the directive 2001/29/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council of 22 May 2001 on the harmonization of certain aspects of copyright and related rights in the information society. This directive, however, proved not to correspond to the current requirements of the fast-growing market and the new technical possibilities. Consequently, another directive was adopted by European Parliament and by the Council, directive 2014/26/EU, which content became the subject of discussion in this paper. Issues related to the representation of entities eligible for copyright and related rights, issues related to membership in the copyright collecting agencies the structure of such agencies, issues related to the management of revenues, as well as issues related to the transparency of the activities of these agencies, reporting and multi-territorial licensing on the rights of online use of musical works were subjects of regulations of this directive. The content of the directive is to be implemented into Polish law by the 10th of April 2016. However, it seems to carry significant risk for the development of Polish culture.
