Home -> Law Blog Directory -> Intellectual Property Law Blogs -> IPKat

Intellectual Property Law

: IPKat

Collecting societies find new way of spending their money

By Johanna Gibson, David Pearce, Jeremy Phillips and Ilanah Simon.

Displaying a previously unrevealed talent for reading legal decisions in Dutch, and with only a tiny bit of help from his friend Kristof Neefs (Laga), the IPKat brings news of a dramatic development in the Netherlands. In essence, a Dutch interim judge in Haarlem has issued a preliminary injunction prohibiting BUMA (a Dutch copyright collecting society) from granting any further licences for the online sale of the repertoire of works administered by the Performing Rights Society (PRS), in so far as those licences extend beyond the territory of the Netherlands. BUMA had previously granted a licence for the territory of the entire European Community to beatport.com.

PRS maintained that the reciprocal agreements between collecting societies did not grant BUMA any royalty-collecting rights beyond the Dutch territory. In its defence, BUMA attempted to rely on the Commission's recent decision in CISAC (see IP Finance post here). BUMA argued that any territorial restriction in its reciprocal representation agreements is null and void, as these restrictions are anticompetitive and infringe Article 81 EC. The judge in the interim proceedings rejected BUMA's argument, stating that even if the territorial restrictions in the agreements are invalid, BUMA still has no right to license the PRS repertoire beyond the territory of the Netherlands.

This is (says Kristof) an interesting ruling in light of the CISAC decision and the Commission's paper on creative content online. The IPKat agrees, though he is a little surprised to see collecting societies breaking rank like this rather than all being on the same side. Yes indeed, says Merpel: when copyright collecting societies litigate against one other, the cost is borne by the rights owners whom they are supposed to benefit.

BUMA goes beyond the European Union here, and also here
Naughty meaning of BUMA here

Full post as published by IPKat on August 26, 2008 (boomark / email).