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UK government makes final amendments to new collective licensing regulations
By Chris Cooke | Published on Monday 29 February 2016
The UK’s Intellectual Property Office last week published a report that summarised the feedback it received on plans to implement new European collective licensing regulations into British law.
The EU directive on collective licensing was passed in 2014 and included various new regulations for collecting societies, like music industry bodies PPL and PRS, the aim being to provide better protection and provision for creators, rights owners and licensees. Member states must implement the new rules into their own copyright laws by 10 Apr.
Last year, the IPO announced plans to cut and paste much of the EU directive directly into UK law, but at the same to “take advantage of flexibilities in the directive to give our CMOs more choice about how they operate”. One of those trendy consultations on the IPO’s plans then took place.
Last week a summary of the feedback given during that consultation was published, alongside confirmation that some amendments were now being made to the final regulations being put forward by the IPO. These include amends on staff training, alternative dispute resolution and compliance notices. Feedback will also inform guidance notes that will accompany the new regs.
Although the new regulations should overcome some of the issues creators, rights owners and licensees have had with collective licensing in the past, all over Europe, as soon as the EC published it’s directive two years ago many key societies put out statements to the effect “we’re already doing all that”, so it will be interesting to see whether any actual changes of practice result.
You can download the IPO’s report here.
