Copyright Review Commission Report - ICT Law and Regulation ...

TERMS OF REFERENCESNO’SREQUIREMENTS7. Assess all licensing agreements thatuniversities, other institutions of higherlearning and training institutions havewith collecting societies, relating toroyalties (in relation to copyrightwork/literary work that are distributed tocollecting societies, and further to artists,composers, authors and/or publishersfrom the collecting societies. The CRCshould assess, advise and makerecommendations.8. Assess if all the collected money isdistributed and assess the remainingmoney, if any, that is not distributed bycollecting societies, e.g. foradministration, social pension or for anyother purposes. The CRC should assess,advise and make recommendations.THE CRC HIGH LEVEL RESPONSESThe matter is addressed in Chapter 9. The CRC has determined that effective licenceagreements are in place between DALRO and institutions of higher learning andtraining institutions. The collection of royalties is done efficiently. However, neitherDALRO nor the publishers have the authority of all authors to collect royalties on theirbehalf (i.e. in cases where authors did not assign their rights to published works to thepublishers). DALRO distributes all the royalties to the publishers without any recourse tothe authors of the works’ right to remuneration.The CRC recommends that DALRO obtain the right to collect royalties for thereproduction of works from authors. DALRO should also ensure that authors receivetheir share of royalties of past payments erroneously made to publishers only.The CRC analysed the amounts collected. Thereafter distributed the amounts whichcould not be distributed, because the persons entitled thereto could not be identifiedand the efficacy of the attempts made to trace such persons.The cost- to- royalty income ratio (administration costs as percentage of totalcollections) for the collecting societies selected for international benchmarking variesbetween 10% and 24%, bearing in mind that the maximum allowable ratio is 20% interms of the current local regulations for needletime collecting societies (which the CRCregards as appropriate).The CRC believes that SAMRO’s current ratio of approximately30% is excessive in relation to the international average. The CRC recommends thatSAMRO should be given three years to resolve this matter.SAMRO is the only collecting society in the country which sets aside monies for socialand cultural activities.REFERENCES TO CRC REPORTChapter 9Chapter 10 with specific reference toparagraph10.8Paragraph 10.11.6.- 210 -