Collective copyright management in light of Directive 2014/26/EU of the European Parliament and the Council of 26 February 2014 on collective management of copyright and related rights

Abstract

The paper deals with a recent EU directive regulating activities of collecting societies on the one hand, and granting multiterritorial online licences to musical works on the other hand. First, the 10-year long preparatory process is presented, followed by a discussion of the resulting directive. It is concluded that the definition of collective societies provided in the directive is not contrary to the provisions of Polish copyright law. Further in the paper, the relationships between collecting societies, their members, licensees and other collective management organisations are presented. It is also pointed out that collecting societies are obliged to secure equal treatment of all persons they represent as well as the licensees, and to maintain a transparent finance policy. They are also recommended to subject collective management disputes to arbitration.