Austria reorganizes rights exploitation
The Austrian cultural associations generally welcome the new version of the Collecting Societies Act. However, the planned extensive reporting obligations and their potential follow-up costs give rise to skepticism.
According to the associations, the reporting obligations to other collecting societies and the public provided for in the law will lead to "an extremely increased administrative burden with no additional information value", which will be at the expense of the authors as it will be deducted from their income. The associations anticipate additional expenditure of around one million euros for the changeover, with significantly increasing running costs.
The associations, including the Musicians' Guild, the Composers' Association and the Austrian Music Council, are disconcerted by the "repeated practice of not involving those affected in the considerations that preceded the draft law".
The amendment intends to implement the European Directive 2014/26/EU on collective management of copyright and related rights and multi-territorial licensing of rights in musical works for online use in the internal market, which must be implemented nationally by April 10, 2016.
More info:: kulturrat.at/agenda/brennpunkte/20160302
