Justice – Photo © Yanchenko – Fotolia
(LUXEMBOURG) – A Spanish scheme for fair compensation for private copying finance by the state was contrary to the EU’s copyright directive, the European Court of Justice ruled Thursday.
In its ruling, the Luxembourg-based EU Court said the copyright directive precluded fair compensation due to authors for private copying of their works from being financed by a budgetary scheme such as that established in Spain, saying such a scheme “does not guarantee that the cost of that fair compensation is ultimately borne solely by the users of private copies”.
The EU copyright directive established a harmonised legal framework on copyright and related rights based on a high level of protection for right holders. EU Member States must therefore guarantee the exclusive right to authorise or prohibit the reproduction of their works to authors.
They may however establish exceptions to that exclusive right of reproduction, in particular in relation to reproductions made by a natural person for private use and for non-commercial ends (‘the private copying exception’). In that case, the right holders should receive fair compensation.
Since 2012, under Spain’s fair compensation for private copying, financed by the General State Budget, the amount of that compensation is determined annually within the budgetary limits established for each financial year.
In February 2013, a number of intellectual property rights collecting societies, entitled to collect that fair compensation, brought an action for annulment of the Spanish legislation at issue
The EU Court’s judgement rules that the directive precludes such a scheme in so far as the scheme does not guarantee that the cost of the fair compensation is ultimately borne by the users of private copies.
However, the Court emphasises that the directive does not, in principle, preclude EU Member States which have decided to introduce the private copying exception from opting to finance it from their budget (a solution which has also been adopted in Estonia, Finland and Norway).
European Court of Justice legal documents – C-470/14 – EGEDA and Others
