Scale of equitable remuneration due to authors/copyright holders and holders of related rights for the recording of works and television broadcasts

Presentation

Law no. 1.472 of 2 July 2019 on the retransmission and recording of television broadcasts accessible on the territory of the Principality without subscription has adapted Monegasque legislation on copyright protection to the new digital uses of television programmes, by allowing deferred access to these programmes and their recording on different media for varying lengths of time.

As an exception to the author's exclusive rights, Law no. 1.472 allows the private use of works from television programmes retransmitted in Monaco which are accessible free of charge and without subscription (use for strictly personal purposes or within the family circle, without the purpose or effect of making a profit from the works concerned).

To ensure that this private copy exception does not lead to excessive infringement of copyright, the rights holders concerned benefit, in return, from equitable remuneration, the amount of which is determined by the Minister of State after consultation with a consultative commission, and collected by SACEM MONACO (organisation for the collective management of copyright established in the Principality). In order to claim payment of this equitable compensation, right holders must be affiliated to this organisation or, failing this, appoint a representative established on Monegasque territory.

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SUMMARY

Ministerial Order no. 2024-470 of 9 August 2024 (JDM no. 8708 of 16 August 2024) sets the tariffs payable to authors and holders of related rights for the recording of works and broadcasts, namely the:

• A) Schedule of equitable remuneration applicable to NPVR (Network Personal Video Recorder) Services. The amount of the equitable remuneration is fixed per capacity level and according to the number of users or subscribers having access to the said Services, and takes the form of a monthly remuneration per user or subscriber. The NPVR services are made available by MONACO TELECOM (operator of the service which ensures the retransmission of television broadcasting programmes in the Principality under the terms of the Electronic Communications Public Service Concession Contract dated 26 September 2011, amended by means of amendments). Provision to subscribers, via remote access, of : - the ability to record, store and make available for private use programmes contained in linear retransmitted television streams; - access to a service offering free of charge, as part of the commercialised offer, at the request of subscribers and for a limited period, recordings of works from linear retransmitted programmes.
• B) Scale of equitable remuneration applicable to multimedia storage boxes with hard disk or memory. The amount of equitable remuneration is set per level of recording capacity allowed by the devices, and takes the form of a flat-rate payment when the boxes are made available to the broadcaster by its supplier. Storage on external recording media integrated or connected to a box providing the interface between the incoming television signals and a television set and which are not exclusively dedicated to the recording of videograms.

The amount of equitable remuneration is made up of 2 parts, 1/3 for authors/copyright holders ("titulaires de droits d'auteur") and 2/3 for holders of related rights ("titulaires de droits voisins") .

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Related texts:

• Law no. 1.472 of 2 July 2019 on the retransmission and recording of television broadcasts accessible on the territory of the Principality without subscription
• Sovereign Order no. 7.726 of 9 October 2019 on the retransmission and recording of television broadcasts establishing a Consultative Commission responsible for issuing an opinion on equitable remuneration for the reproduction of television broadcasts
• Deliberations of the Consultative Commission dated 4 December 2023 and 4 July 2024;

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Authors/Copyright holders are the creators of original works of the mind (which bear the imprint of their author's personality) such as literary, dramatic and choreographic works, musical compositions, cinematographic works, graphic and plastic works, photographic works, original stage designs, original software, etc.

Holders of related rights are the people who revolve around the creation of works: performers, producers of phonograms and videograms, audiovisual communication companies, publishers and press agencies.