CISAC Delegation Visits Russia
On 10-12 February, at the invitation of its member Russian Authors Society (RAO), CISAC Director General Gadi Oron and Regional Director for Europe Mitko Chatalbashev went to Russia for a series of meetings with CISAC Russian members RAO, RUR and UPRAVIS, as well as the Russian government agency ROSPATENT to review the situation of copyright protection and collective management of rights in the country, in light of recent legislative initiatives.
Mr Oron and Mr Chatalbashev met with RAO’s Director General Sergey Fedotov and the society's senior management to discuss the protection of authors’ rights. Mr. Fedotov described the activities of RAO in the context of the Russian legislation on authors’ rights and recent initiatives in this area. He highlighted that, despite a difficult economic environment, RAO’s royalty collections have doubled over the past five years. Stressing the society’s efforts towards greater transparency and efficiency in data processing, he explained that both Russian and foreign authors whose rights are managed by RAO can gain access to detailed information about the society’s collection and distribution of royalties.
Mr Oron highlighted the role of RAO in implementing and promoting international standards of authors’ rights protection to Russia. He also pledged his support to RAO, offering to provide technical expertise to help RAO meet the highest standards in collection and distribution of royalties. He said:
In a rapidly evolving Russian market, RAO has carried out tremendous work. CISAC is committed to lending its full support to Russian collective management organisations in general, and to RAO in particular, with the aim to strengthen the system of collective management of rights and the protection of authors’ interests in Russia.”
The participation of RAO creators in CISAC’s International Council of Music Authors (CIAM) was also discussed.
The CISAC delegation then met with the head of the Russian Federal Service of Intellectual Property ROSPATENT Grigory Ivliev. They discussed the new role of ROSPATENT as the centralized IP agency in Russia. Both parties acknowledged that digital use of cultural works will eventually become the main source of authors’ remuneration. Against this background, CISAC encouraged ROSPATENT to continue to support the accreditation system that was adopted back in 2008, which has helped foster close cooperation between the three accredited Russian authors’ societies RAO, RUR and UPRAVIS.
The CISAC delegation also met with provisional member Russian Union of Right holders (RUR) to appraise the situation of private copying in Russia, with provisional member Intellectual Property Rights of Authors of Visual Arts Works (UPRAVIS) to assess the visual artist’s resale right in Russia, and with First Music Publishing, the biggest local Russian publisher and sub-publisher of Sony/ATV Music, BMG, Peer Music, amongst others.