Tudor Chirilă, Irina Rimes, Loredana Groza and many other well-known artists protest against a copyright ordinance: “Payment of rights becomes optional”
More than 300 artists, authors and professionals from the music industry, including Tudor Chirilă, Irina Rimes, Loredana Groza, Adrian Despot and Damian Drăghici, signed a letter of protest against a draft Emergency Ordinance that would amend the Copyright Law. The signatories warn that the proposed changes could affect the way royalties are collected and paid for music played in public spaces.
Several well-known Romanian artists, including Tudor Chirilă, Irina Rimes, Adrian Despot, Dan Bittman, Damian Drăghici or Loredana Groza, signed a letter of protest against a GEO that would amend the Copyright Law (Law no. 8/1996).
The letter is addressed to the Government and the Ministry of Culture and concerns, in particular, how copyrights are collected for music broadcast in public spaces, such as restaurants, bars, hotels, malls or means of transport.
What displeases the artists
According to the signatories, the draft GEO would eliminate extended collective management, the mechanism by which copyrights are collected centrally through specialized bodies, even for artists who are not members of them.
“It is desired to change the way of collecting the rights of the owners of the environment – by eliminating the extensive collective management – also in such a way that they no longer fully benefit from the rights they are entitled to,” the letter states.
The artists claim that this change is justified by the Ministry of Culture through the application of a European directive, but, they say, the current law already allows individual rights management.
What is extended collective management
Currently, restaurants, hotels or other venues that play music do not have to sign contracts with each individual artist. They conclude a single contract with a collective management body, which collects and distributes money to artists, including non-members.
According to the artists, this system is necessary because individual licensing is “impossible or too expensive”, given the large number of songs broadcast daily from sources such as radio, TV or the Internet.
What would happen if the system were removed
Artists warn that removing extensive collective management would lead to an “inefficient and easily circumvented” system.
“Payment of rights becomes optional in practice,” the letter states. A user could declare that they have direct contracts with one or two artists, to avoid collective payment, and then “broadcast any other repertoire”, without the management organizations being able to verify what music is actually being used.
In this context, the authors say that artists would end up being forced to search for their own music through hotels, restaurants or bars. “Authors (…) cannot be turned into hunters of the uses of their own music,” the document states.
What artists ask for
The signatories challenge both the elimination of the extended collective management and the proposal to create a new joint collection body, financed from the sums that should go to the artists. They warn that this solution would generate additional costs and demand that, if there is to be a “single collector”, it should be designated from among existing bodies.
“The law must protect the rights holders, not create the framework to avoid or reduce the payment of their rights”, the artists emphasize. Finally, they request the preservation and regulation of extended collective management for music broadcast in public spaces and show that “no European directive proposes to diminish the rights due to artists”.
The reaction of the Ministry of Culture
The Minister of Culture, Andras Demeter, previously told Agerpres that the purpose of the changes is to provide more freedom to rights holders. “Each author can manage his own compositions in several ways,” the minister said, listing both direct management and that through collective bodies or mixed solutions.
