Czechia

[CZ] Amendment of the Copyright Act

IRIS 2017-6:1/10

Jan Fučík

Česká televize

The Parliament of the Czech Republic approved an amendment to the Copyright Act (Act no. 121/2000 Coll., On copyright, rights related to copyright and amending some laws, as amended) The amendment to the Copyright Act has two main reasons. The first is the obligation to implement Directive 2014/26/EU on the collective management of copyright and related rights and the granting of multi-territorial licenses for the rights to musical works online in the Internal Market and in the framework of the Czech legal order to better regulate collecting societies. The second reason is the intention of legislators to adjust some other issues of copyright based on the experience of its application in practice. These adjustments are in many aspects related to the collective management of rights, but the directive is not the main impetus for their solution. This legislation is trying to achieve the implementation of EU rules and to remove existing problems. The aim of the amendment is to achieve a comprehensive and balanced regulation of rights and obligations of the collective management. On the one hand, rightsholders (authors, performers, and others), whose interests are usually represented by the collective management societies, would obtain more legal certainty. On the other hand, users of protected objects and licensees would benefit from a more coherent framework. The second objective of the proposed amendment is to solve specific problems regarding the application of collective management. The legislation spells out some rules of conduct for collective management societies and users to better secure collective management, both in terms of safeguarding the interests of rightsholders, whose rights are managed by the collective management societies and the interests of users and other stakeholders. For example, the modification of tariffs obliges collective management societies to provide for greater transparency, while ensuring that users have the opportunity to participate in the negotiation of rates of remuneration. Newly introduced administrative fines increase the enforceability of the obligations of collective management societies and the efficiency of supervision.