KopinorNews 2003-1

Kopinor News
No. 1 Volume 7 Summer 2003
ISSN 1500-0729

Amendment of the Copyright Act:

Major changes proposed

On 2 April, the Norwegian Ministry of Culture and Church Affairs circulated its draft amendments to the Copyright Act for comments. The draft aims at implementing the EU Information Society Directive, but also contains other proposals such as extended collective licenses for digital copying.

Many responses
The deadline for submitting comments on the draft was 24 June. The Ministry received more than 100 submissions, all of which can be accessed at the Ministry’s web site at www.odin.dep.no/kkd/. Hopefully, a bill will be submitted to and passed by Parliament before year end.

The Ministry proposes a number of new extended collective licenses, e.g. anthologies, special uses in libraries and for certain uses of material in the archives of broadcasters. Of vital importance to Kopinor are proposals in Sections 13 & 14 (which currently deal with photocopying in schools, institutions and commercial enterprises etc.), which the Ministry proposes to expand to encompass digital uses.

The present Act is available in English at http://clea.wipo.int.

Private use
Sec. 12 of the Act permits free copying for private use. The EU directive presupposes that fair compensation must be paid for such use. The Ministry sees two alternatives: Rightsholders may be compensated over the State budget or by a levy on storage media.

The Ministry further proposes limiting the scope of copying for private use in respect of personal, professional (institutional) use. This would preclude any private copying levy for reprography. In its comments, Kopinor proposes that this retrenchment be reflected in the Act itself. (Kopinor’s licenses for photocopying currently allow deductions for personal, professional use.)

Copies from legal copies?
The Ministry further proposes that copying for private use only be permitted from legal copies. Other organisations representing rightsholders applaud the proposal, hoping it will help combat file-swapping systems on the Internet. Kopinor questions the wisdom of the proposal, and recommends that it be postponed pending further study. Kopinor’s comments point out that it is difficult if not impossible for users to know when an "original" is a legal copy, and that there is a risk of branding unwitting users as lawbreakers. It is also extremely difficult for rightsholders to enforce such legislation. Where enforcement is attempted, one risks violating the sanctity of private life and ultimately bringing copyright into disrepute with the general public.

The problem of unauthorised web-publising and file-swapping
Indeed, those who make works available on the Internet without the rightsholder’s authorisation are breaking the law today, and they can be prosecuted. Kopinor has caused many sites to be closed down and unauthorised material to be removed from the web (see KopinorNews no. 1, 2002).

Kopinor agrees that unauthorised file-swapping on the Internet is a serious and growing problem that must be addressed. Today’s focus is on unauthorised uses of audio (musical) and audiovisual works, but unauthorised file-swapping of texts (books) is on the increase.

However, in countries where rightsholders threaten private individuals with lawsuits, peer-to-peer file traders are increasingly using methods that seek to hide identities or that encrypt what they trade. It is doubtful that legislation will be able to provide an answer to this problem!

It seems that compensating rightsholders through levy systems would be a viable temporary solution. However, if legislation requires that copying, for example for private use, only be permitted from legal copies, it will of course not be possible to collect compensation for copies made from illegal copies. Hardware producers see this, so they fight the introduction of levy systems and support legislation requiring that copying only be permitted from legal copies to keep the levy small, if it cannot be avoided.

Rightsholders have different views on this issue of legislation, and the debate will no doubt continue for quite some time.

Kopinor has of course commented on a number of other issues raised in the government’s draft. However, space does not allow us to mention further details here.

Annual General Meeting 2003:

2002 was another good year

Result: USD 29.4 m

Kopinor licenses and collects remuneration for copying from books, newspapers, journals, sheet music, etc. in all areas of society, then distributes this remuneration to rightsholders in Norway and abroad.

In 2002, Kopinor reported total revenues of NOK 204.7 million (USD 29.4 million, €EUR 28.1 million), compared with NOK 182.4 million in 2001, an increase of 12.2 per cent. Of this amount, NOK 1.5 million (USD 0.2 million) in remuneration came from abroad. Domestic collections were equivalent to USD 6.53 per capita.

Kopinor's ordinary operating expenses increased by 8.1 per cent, to NOK 20.1 million in 2002, which is comparable to 9.8 per cent of revenues (compared with 10.2 per cent in 2001).

Norwegian rightsholders received a total of NOK 184.3 million in collective remuneration from Kopinor in 2002, i.e. the highest sum ever in the history of Kopinor (NOK 145 million in 2001). In addition, NOK 1.5 million was paid to Saami rightsholders. Disbursements were larger than usual in 2001 and 2002, mainly due to the restructuring of the agreement system.

Some 20 per cent of the remuneration Kopinor distributes is based on the copying of foreign works and paid to foreign rightsholders. Altogether, Kopinor's payments to rightsholders abroad totalled NOK 27.8 million in 2002 (USD 3.8 m), compared with NOK

24.2 million in 2001.

Bilateral agreements:

NLA, UK Chief visits Norway

Each year in late winter or early spring, Kopinor’s Executive Board and management retreat for two days to a mountain resort near Oslo to discuss Kopinor’s goals and strategy. Guest speakers are often invited. This year, Guy MacNaughton, Managing Director of the UK Newspaper Licensing Agency, was invited to give a presentation on NLA’s history, structure and functions. The NLA offers rights to photocopy/fax and digitally copy and transmit cuttings for internal use – even specialised rights to distribute externally – all under one licence, and collected €EUR 15 million in 2002.

Kopinor is currently negotiating a bilateral agreement with NLA.

International News

The Balkans:
In October and November 2002, Kopinor participated in a copyright workshop in Belgrade, Serbia & Montenegro, and organised two two-day workshops, one in Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, the other in Pristinë, Kosovo. All workshops were funded by the Norwegian Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Ghana:
Kopinor has signed a three-year funding agreement with COPYGHANA, the reprographic rights project of the Copyright Society of Ghana. Ben Nyadzi has been employed as COPYGHANA’s managing director.

Nigeria:
Kopinor has signed a two-year funding agreement with REPRONIG, Nigeria’s new RRO. A Managing Director is presently being hired.

Study Days in Oslo
During the first week of July, Kopinor held an intensive training seminar for six rightsholders’ representatives and copyright experts from Russia, Serbia & Montenegro and the Ukraine.

Editor: John-Willy Rudolph
July 2003