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Kopinor broke off the negotiations on a new copying agreement for public schooling and the municipal sector on 28 November. This was caused by a demand from The Norwegian Association of Local and Regional Authorities (KS) to cut prices by 30 per cent.
The agreement comprises reprographic reproduction in the municipal and regional authorities and the entire public school system (below university level). A new statistical survey shows a yearly volume of 260 million copyright protected copy-pages in this sector.
The copying agreement between Kopinor and KS (The Norwegian Association of Local and Regional Authorities) includes all public schools below university level. (Photo: Focus/Hernera)
An agreement based on KS’ demand would lead to a NOK 25 mill. (more than € 3 mill.) reduction of the rights holders’ remuneration annually for the next agreement period. In the negotiations, KS referred to the level of remuneration in Denmark and Sweden, and to an alleged reduction of book prices, following the new Norwegian book selling agreement. Kopinor rejected both of these arguments as being without foundation.
Immediately after the breakdown of negotiations, Kopinor demanded that the disagreement should be put before the State Mediator. If the two sides do not reach a solution before year-end, the impasse could result in a ban on copying in Norwegian schools and municipalities. In such a case, reprographic reproduction from books, newspapers or magazines, and printing out from the Internet, would be illegal without a direct permission from the rights holder concerned.