The Directorate General for the Internal Market and Services has asked stakeholders for their opinion about copyright levies.

CEPIC has been invited to contribute its opinion.
CEPIC  is the European organisation for press, stock and heritage picture agencies in Europe. It represents more than 1,000 companies in 17 countries.

In several earlier statements to the EU we have pointed out that we are not fond of Collection Societies for all kinds of reasons. In this case of private copying we cannot find any solution other than levies.

But it is important that the EU should make the rules for collecting societies similar and transparent and open, with some kind of European control system, before adding more work for existing collecting societies and problems for some of the copyright owners.

We would refer you to the statement on Collecting Societies we sent to you on August 9th, 2005.
 
We would also like to point out that in your paper on levies, pictures are not mentioned. This is despite pictures probably being the copyright work most used and downloaded by private persons. They are used as screen savers, on mobile telephones, on greetings cards, as additions to email, on homepages and in galleries. Pictures are among the most stolen and used copyright works in the world today.

If the 20th century was the Century of words, the 21st Century is the Century of Images.

We appreciate that CEPIC - the biggest player in the picture world – has been given the opportunity to put forward our views. We believe that around 80 percent of the world’s picture business goes through our members in Europe.

In answer to your questions

Question 1
A.We agree with the description of levies but it is important to point out that this description only goes for levies on private copying. In many other fields it is possible for the copyright owner to negotiate for himself remuneration for usage of his work.

B. It is important that there are some common rules in the EU both about where to put levies on and also that the levies do not differ too much from country to country. Already the users of data media are buying the data media where it is cheaper. And if this is to be a rule only for Europe, then the EU has to work for it to become the same in countries outside the EU. There should be taxes on importing from outside the EU any kind of data media that has an EU levy on. We are also of the opinion that the earlier statement about transparency of collecting societies and transparency of laws in EU countries has to be harmonized. In Sweden, to take one example, there is no remuneration for photo copyright owners for private copying. Also, some of the photo organisations cannot join Collecting Societies because of unreasonable regulations in Collecting Societies that give each member a veto.

C.We do not think that there are any problems with that if the answers to B are fulfilled. The person that uses private copying is paying from the beginning and it does not matter that there are several companies between. And you cannot say that they control the private copying.

Question 2
 A. Yes
 B.No
C.No. because there are so many distribution levels.                                                                              Several collecting societies are often involved each taking their own share of the money so that less remains for the copyright owners in countries outside the country where the money was collected.

D.If you want it to really reflect how much is copied by private persons and from whom, you need new technical systems. If we are only talking of copying on the Internet one possibility could be use of “intelligent software”. This would mean, for example, that if you copy a picture, that picture will keep the download information. Then you can see that one picture from one copyright owner was downloaded five times in a day whereas another picture was only downloaded once. It can be described as similar to book lending libraries. Authors with books that are borrowed more than others, according to record the library holds, gets more remuneration than the others. Of course there are always thieves who can hack the picture - but that you have in the analogue world too. Such “intelligent work” software could also be reporting to the copyright owners every day on legal and illegal downloads. Clearly it is not possible to say what usage is made of the picture once it is in a private home... What a new system will do is at least give a view of what is the most popular work today. (See 4B)

E.       It cannot.

F.Yes There should be some authority above them that copyright owners can go to claim their rights. At present you have to go to court, which is very costly. There should also be an authority that gives a group of copyright owners the right to become a member of a Collecting Society if they are qualified... There should also be rules on how much Collecting Societies can spend on their own administration.

Question 3
A.The administration cost differs too much between the collecting societies. In the example given from 0 to 20 percent. The last figure is too much; probably around 10 percent could be fair but if one collecting society takes 10 percent and they are sending it to another that takes 10 percent just to deliver it to the copyright owners, soon very little remains.

B.The figures show that small countries send more money to big countries than they receive. As there is so much administration cost involved it could be questioned if this is really a good way of doing this.

Question 4
A.Yes probably.

B.But we have to be aware of a trend by young people to break the law when it comes to illegal downloading and also uploading unlawful products. More publicity is needed about this unlawful conduct... In Sweden there is a new party “Pirate party” who say that they are going to contest elections to parliament in the autumn... If there is only to be a levy on broadband in Sweden then the copyright owners could have a difficult time receiving any remuneration at all.

C.Licensing models through digital sales.

D.Yes, and definitely if it is developed further.

Question 5
A.Yes

B.Yes, but how you estimate it we cannot say. But it goes without saying that if you can get a picture for free instead of buying it the choice is easy for most people.

C. Sales figures do not tell the whole story. It goes without question that there has been harm to copyright holders.

D.Unable to answer.

E.There are technical measures coming if the market is allowed to grow. (See 4B and 2D)

Question 6
A. Yes

B.They are multifunction but of course they are used for illegal activities as well.

C.No

D. No

E.There is a case in Sweden regarding Ipods

Question 7
A.No

B.Yes, but only when it can be used to store copyright material.

C. No

D.No

E.Yes

Question 8
A.Yes but there is free trade within the EU so it should not affect the single importer. It is better to harmonize the levies within Europe. If you import from outside EU it is another matter.

B.Only levies can be harmonized.

C. Small harmonized levies would not contribute to that effect.

Question 9
A.The only way to find out the right figures is that the collection societies have to report them to a body that can evaluate them. Both groups have different interests when they answer these questions.

B. Cannot answer.

C.Could well be so, but we have no answer to that. The collected money has to be compared with how many inhabitants there are in each country. You should come to a figure per inhabitants. If the figures then differ it could be depending on how the IT is used in that particular country.

Question 10
Could well be so, but you have to keep in mind that the copyright owners differ from each other. Our organisation, CEPIC, has among its members news, stock and heritage companies and organisations which have for many years administered their own rights to copyright works. It should be those that get the money from Collecting Societies, but that is not the case throughout Europe. Many of the national organisations of picture agencies who market their wholly owned copyright material have been refused entrance to Collection Societies and have received no money from them. Some receive some money depending on their share of the market but as many levies are only gathered collectively this means that the real rights owners remain unidentified. But this is a question the collecting societies do not want to discuss. That is why our opinion is that there must be a harmonisation within Europe for all Collecting Societies. It should not be possible to prevent real rights owners joining a Collection Society.
Please bear in mind that the picture industry is different to the other industries you are considering and that it is now – to all intents and purposes – 100% on the internet.
When the EU makes decisions it is important that the picture industry has a chance to give its opinion. 

And we have welcomed this opportunity to do so.

Berlin the 13th of July 2006.
On behalf of CEPIC

Staffan Teste
Treasurer

Office of Cepic
Lietzenburger Strasse 91
107 19 Berlin
Germany