Collective Management of Copyright and Related Rights

Collective Management of Copyright and Related Rights, currently in its fourth edition, provides an exhaustive analysis of the various operational collective management organization (CMO) models, their rights and obligations vis-à-vis authors, other rightholders and users, the acquisition of the legal authority to license and (most importantly) the rights to license digital uses of protected material, and the creation (or improvement) of information systems to deal with the increasingly complex tasks of rights management and licensing. Over the past three decades, CMOs have become the nerve centres of copyright licensing in virtually every country. Their expertise and knowledge of copyright law and management have proven essential to making copyright work in the digital age. However, they have also been at the centre of debates about their effectiveness, transparency and governance.


What’s in this book:

In this edition, all chapters have been updated and several new chapters have been added, including a new chapter on the economics of collective management and a chapter on limitation-based remuneration rights. Factors considered include the following:


cases where the unavailability of adequate licensing options makes authorized use of material protected by copyright or a related right difficult or impossible taking transaction costs into account;
the growing importance of extended repertoire systems and different forms of collective licensing with extended effect;
transnational and multi-territorial licensing;
the relationship among collective management, rights to remuneration, and how CMOs acquire authority to license;
the threat of monopolies or regional oligopolies for the management of online music rights;
the impact of new technologies on collective rights management and licensing; and
the role of 'families' such as the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC) and the International Federation of Reproduction Rights Organizations (IFRRO).

The analysis covers the 1996 WIPO Copyright Treaties, the US Digital Millennium Copyright Act, the Santiago Agreement, relevant EU policy documents and legislative instruments – including the 2014 Collective Rights Management Directive and 2019 Copyright in the Digital Single Market Directive – and the work of the UN Committee on Economic, Social and Cultural Rights. Part I presents several horizontal issues that affect collective management in almost every country. Part II is organized geographically, focusing on systems that are representative of the main models used in different countries and regions. Each country- or region-specific chapter provides a historical overview and a description of existing CMOs and their activities, provides financial information where available, describes how CMOs are supervised or controlled by legislation, and offers reflections on the challenges facing CMOs in that country or region. Some of these national and regional commentaries are the only such sources of information available in English.