CRSEA participates in the seminar of the Ministry of Justice of Kazakhstan

On August 26, at the initiative of the Ministry of Justice of Kazakhstan, an online workshop “Collective management of copyright and related rights. Collection and distribution of remuneration for the reproduction of audiovisual works and phonograms for private copying” was held. The event was dedicated to the problems of administration of royalties and private copying.

The Confederation of Rightholders’ Societies of Europe and Asia (CRSEA) was represented by the Deputy Secretary General Irina Yakovleva. She expressed the opinion that it is very important to introduce the system of collection in the field of private copying at the level of national legislation, because without a regulatory framework this system will not function by itself.

Sergey Filippov, Deputy General Director of the Russian Union of Rightholders (RUR), explained how the process of collection and distribution of royalties for private copying works in Russia.

“In Russia this mechanism is regulated by the current legislation, which provides the proportion in the distribution of remuneration such as 40-30-30. In other words, 40% is paid to authors, 30% to performers, and another 30% goes to producers. This rule applies to both audiovisual and musical works. The collection of remuneration is implied on the payers – importers and manufacturers of equipment that can be used for private copying. The amount of remuneration is 1% of the customs value for importers and the selling price for manufacturers, respectively,” Filippov explained.

Chairman of the Association of legal entities “Eurasian Union of Rightholders” Aset Bliev complained that Kazakh copyright holders do not receive remuneration for private copying: “In Kazakhstan the legislative norm on such remuneration has been introduced since 1997 to the law “On Copyright and Related Rights”. The remuneration rate was approved by the decree of the Government of the Republic of Kazakhstan of June 26, 2019 in the amount of 0.7% of the customs value of equipment, and the list of equipment and material carriers was approved by the Order of the Minister of Justice of the Republic of Kazakhstan of March 17, 2015. However, the rightholders of Kazakhstan do not receive remuneration for this type of use of rights so far.”

The meeting was attended by Deputy Minister of Justice of the Republic of Kazakhstan Akerke Akhmetova, Head of the Department of the Caucasus, Central Asia and Eastern Europe, Department of developed and transition economies of the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) Ilya Gribkov, Director of Legal and Public Affairs of the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC) Christina Perpiñá-Robert Navarro, a representative of the Council of Societies for the Collective Management of Performers’ Rights (SCAPR) Gregor Stibernic, Ieva Platpere-Oxenbury, Senior Executive Director for licensing of the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) and other experts.

Remuneration for private copying is an imputed tax that is included in the cost of hardware and equipment that allows the user to work with protected objects. Since it is impossible to control the use of works for personal usage, the fee for the benefit of rightholders is paid by manufacturers and importers of electronics, such as tape recorders, phones, TV and computers.

Most countries across the world have been introducing this fee since 1966. In Russia, it is 1 percent of the cost of equipment.