Access and Reward in the Information Society: Regulating the Collective Management of Copyright
CIPPM Working paper, 2007
29 Pages Posted: 1 Mar 2016
Date Written: February 1, 2007
Abstract
Copyright Collecting Societies have proliferated, with more than 150 organisations now collecting and distributing licensing fees for rights in music, literary, audio-visual and graphic works within the European Union. From the perspective of Competition Law, collecting societies may be viewed as price-fixing cartels under Art. 81 EC, and as vulnerable to challenges under Art. 82 EC (i.e. abusing a dominant position as the sole provider of a management infrastructure to right holders, and as the only supplier of licences to copyright users). Yet, collective administration of copyright has important policy benefits: (i) From a user perspective, collecting societies may offer a single point licence providing easy and wide access to copyright protected contents. This can be a solution to innovation issues in an information society where major right holders otherwise may dictate problematic terms. (ii) Creators at the margins of commercial viability have access to a mechanism of collective bargaining against major rights exploiters, such as publishers, record labels and broadcasters. This may support a culturally diverse society. This article develops principles for regulating the collective management of copyrights from a critique of EC competition jurisprudence.
Note: Various conference versions of this paper have been in circulation since 2005. This version was submitted to a journal in 2007 and rejected. I never got around to revising it but colleagues occasionally cite the paper. So I thought it would be useful to make the latest 2007 version available here. It can be referenced as a CIPPM Working Paper: Centre for Intellectual Property Policy & Management, Bournemouth University, UK.
Keywords: copyright, collecting societies, collective administration, competition, information society
JEL Classification: K21
Suggested Citation: Suggested Citation