Education, legal and lobbying for creators brings societies to Croatia for the CISAC Legal Committee
The CISAC Legal Committee (CJL) took place on July 3rd and 4th in Split, Croatia hosted by the music society HDS ZAMP. The CJL is an advisory committee of CISAC, consulting on copyright issues and litigation for CISAC members on international and national levels. The meeting is a periodical update on CISAC legal, education and lobbying initiatives. These include the Economic Analysis of Safe Harbour Provisions study from Professor Stan Leibowitz and an in-progress study on buy out provisions. For the first year in a long time, partner organisations such as WIPO and ALAI Czech Republic joined the first day of the CJL as observers. On global scale, WIPO Copyright Law Division Senior Counsellor Geidy Lung provided a report on the Standing Committee on Copyright and Related Rights (SCCR).
In addition, APRA AMCOS Head of Legal, Corporate & Policy Jonathan Carter compared copyright safe harbour schemes around the globe and how they operate. Misapplication of safe harbours have led to the issue of value gap, which has distorted the licensing negotiation process. This has led to an issue at the core of debates for the EU Copyright Directive draft, which, if properly drafted and adopted into law, would correct these misinterpretations. The CJL examined these current legislative developments in European Parliament.
In regards to Europe, the committee discussed the recently enacted EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR). A roundtable allowed societies to discuss GDPR implementation and other data protection legislation. The CJL also discussed recent European Court of Justice decisions on communication to the public right, the Zurs.net case’s impact on cable retransmission and Network Private Video Recorders (nPVR) services. Outside of cases in Europe, the meeting examined situations in Spain with SGAE as well as in Greece.
The CJL examined country-specific copyright environments. Host society HDS-ZAMP reviewed Croatia’s collective management of copyright and related rights systems from Media Department Head Romana Matanovac Vuckovic and Head of Legal and General Administration Sector Davorin Penc.
Related to CISAC and its membership, the CJL discussed Membership Criteria Reform implementation, particularly the terms and conditions for Client RMEs. Client RMEs are rights management entities that have signed a representation agreement with a CISAC member. The committee also discussed the new CIS Tools user contract for both members and Client RMEs.
Finally, committee members discussed the 2019 ALAI annual congress on collective management draft programme. The congress will be held on September 19th and 20th, 2019 in Prague. CISAC will collaborate as a premium partner.