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Dissertation
Immaterialgüter- und Wettbewerbsrecht

The Trans-Frontier Management of Musical Rights in Europe: A European Regulation of Territoriality

The fragmentation of rights and of their management systems among right-holders and national laws has reached a critical point in Europe, especially in the music sector. Is the recently proposed European Directive on copyright collective management able to bring the necessary solutions?

Letzte Änderung: 10.09.13

In the context of the exercise of copyright and neighbouring rights, the management of rights, and more particularly the collective management of rights, is of crucial importance for rights holders and users. Collective rights management organizations (CRMOs) have managed to cope with the cross-border nature of rights management since more than a century. However, this old system based upon territoriality principles and reciprocal representation agreements, needs to adapt to the online environment. The complexity resulting from this mis-adjustment is especially noticeable in the music sector and within the European market, where the diversity of right-holders and of licensing models is prominent. This research aims at demonstrating how licensing practice and regulation can guide towards a solution.

In the meantime, this research suggests to explore the role of the rules of conflict of laws in cross-border licensing of copyright and related rights. Whether and to which extent the law applicable to contracts may be critical in the parties’ choice, also influenced by the collective management framework, deserves closer scrutiny. The purpose of the demonstration is to show the interaction between cross-border licensing practice and private international law, to highlight the possible influence of this interaction on trans-national (EU) regulation on copyright management. Even if this demonstration may conclude that copyright cross-border licensing should not be considered as a conflict of law issue, this approach proposes a new way of addressing the collective management of copyright, while highlighting the economic function of private international law in the field of copyright (which so far has been considered by only few studies).

The legal harmonization effort conducted by European policy-makers and the recent draft Directive on the collective management of copyright and related rights and multi-territorial licensing of rights in musical works for online uses in the internal market (COM (2012)372) indicate how the issue, primarily focused on the licensing technique, tends to become more political. The issue is not only about multi-territorial but also about multi-repertoire licensing. This content oriented approach infers a renewed perspective on the competition between national collective rights management organizations (CRMOs), departing from the approach favored by the EU Commission so far and revealing the cultural functions of CRMOs.

Personen

Doktorand/in

Anne-Catherine Lorrain

Betreuung

Dr. Sylvie Nérisson

Doktorvater/-mutter

Prof. Dr. Pierre Sirinelli

Forschungsschwerpunkte

Zielsetzungen der Europäischen Union