MusicMatic - The French Supreme Court’s Decision on Creative Commons Plus (CC+) Commercial Licensing and Mandatory Collective Management of the Right to Remuneration for Communication to the Public of Commercial Phonograms

The International Review of Intellectual Property and Competition Law (IIC), 2020, 51(5), pp. 668-679

Centre for International Intellectual Property Studies (CEIPI) Research Paper 2020-03

16 Pages Posted: 18 Jun 2020

See all articles by Oleksandr Bulayenko

Oleksandr Bulayenko

Université de Strasbourg - CEIPI; Institute of Information Law (IViR)

Date Written: June 4, 2020

Abstract

The French Supreme Court established that businesses using on their premises devices provided by third parties for making background music are per- forming an act of communication to the public in the sense of Art. L214-1 of the French Intellectual Property Code (CPI). The Court qualified commercially licensed phonograms, also published under Creative Commons non-commercial licences (CC BY-NC-ND 3.0) on the Jamendo online platform, as ‘‘phonograms published for commercial purposes’’. According to the Court, the right to remuneration for communication to the public of phonograms published for commercial purposes cannot be contractually waived by performers. The right to remuneration is subject to mandatory management by a collective management organisation (CMO) regardless of whether rightholders have explicitly contractually entrusted the exercise of their rights to the CMO. Mandatory collective management of the right to remuneration for communication to the public of phonograms published for commercial purposes is compatible with EU law. The Supreme Court declined to refer the question of the compatibility of mandatory collective management to the Court of Justice of the European Union (CJEU), considering that the law is sufficiently clear in this regard.

Keywords: Copyright and related rights, Equitable remuneration, Mandatory collective management, Creative Commons, France, Music, Phonograms published for commercial purposes

Suggested Citation

Bulayenko, Oleksandr, MusicMatic - The French Supreme Court’s Decision on Creative Commons Plus (CC+) Commercial Licensing and Mandatory Collective Management of the Right to Remuneration for Communication to the Public of Commercial Phonograms (June 4, 2020). The International Review of Intellectual Property and Competition Law (IIC), 2020, 51(5), pp. 668-679, Centre for International Intellectual Property Studies (CEIPI) Research Paper 2020-03, Available at SSRN: https://ssrn.com/abstract=3630449 or http://dx.doi.org/10.2139/ssrn.3630449

Oleksandr Bulayenko (Contact Author)

Université de Strasbourg - CEIPI ( email )

7 rue de l'Ecarlate
CS 20024
Strasbourg, 67082
France

HOME PAGE: http://www.ceipi.edu

Institute of Information Law (IViR)

Rokin 84
Amsterdam, 1012 KX
Netherlands

HOME PAGE: http://https://www.ivir.nl/

Do you have a job opening that you would like to promote on SSRN?

Paper statistics

Downloads
71
Abstract Views
572
Rank
699,427
PlumX Metrics