Performing Rights Tribunal decides on Copyright Remuneration Duty for Personal Computers

According to the proposal for a settlement, which the Performing Rights Tribunal has decided on January 31, 2003, manufacturers and importers of personal computers (PCs), also under certain circumstances retailers, are generally obliged to pay remuneration to authors of words and pictures or to exploitation companies, which administer the copyrights in a fiduciary capacity. The Tribunal, which is part of the German Patent and Trademark Office, considers PCs to be apparatus liable to remuneration as defined under § 54a paragraph 1 Copyright Act; the Tribunal considers an amount of € 12.00 per apparatus plus VAT (single remuneration rate) to be appropriate.

Background: § 16 of the Copyright Act fundamentally allows the author an exclusive right of reproduction. Reproductions for private and personal use (§ 53 Copyright Act) are excluded therefrom, but as a compensation the author may claim for remuneration (§§ 54 seq. Copyright Act). However, these claims are not to be asserted directly against the private users, but rather against manufacturers and importers of relevant apparatus (tape recorders, video recorders, photocopiers, etc.) and carrier materials (audio tapes, video tapes, etc), possibly also against retailers. Aside from that, a so-called operator’s charge (§ 54a, paragraph 2 Copyright Act) exists in the field of reprography. It is assumed that the persons obliged to pay will take the charges into consideration when calculating their prices and therefore pass them on to private users.

Due to the technical developments in the years since the questionable regulations have come into force and the possibilities of utilization changed hereby, the question often arises as to whether certain apparatus not known at that time or had not played a significant role, are subject to the existing regulation. With reference to the above cited regulation of § 54a, paragraph 1, Copyright Act, this means: are these apparatus – as conventionally the case with photocopiers – determined to reproduce a work by copying a piece of work or during a method of a comparable effect? The German Federal Supreme Court has already affirmed this question in view of reader printers facsimile apparatus and scanners. The Tribunal has affirmed it within the course of precedent proceedings (serial number: Sch-URH 8/01) also in view of PCs.

For further information, please contact Reinhard Knauer.
knauer@grunecker.de