The Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation (the CC RF) has spoken on one of the requests of the Intellectual Property Rights Court (the CIP). Please let us kindly remind that the CIP had previously sent a request to the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation to verify the constitutionality of the rules of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation. Due to these rules: 1) authors alienate exclusive rights in favor of music majors; 2) collective management organizations charge a fee for public performance or broadcast and cable playback of a musical work.
The CIP directly stated in the request that: payments in favor of Russian Copyright Society (the RAO) from cinemas are not justified, violate constitutional guarantees of equality. The CIP also noted that the authors receive money twice: the first time – from the copyright holder of the film for use as part of an audiovisual work, the second time – from persons who use the film for public perfomance. In addition, the CIP casted doubt on the constitutionality of recognizing the right to remuneration for copyright holders, and not the original authors. The CIP pointed out that "this rule began to serve not the purposes of protecting the interests of authors, but the interests of secondary copyright holders of musical works, which are most often experienced, commercial market participants." The CIP also noted that assigning the obligation to pay remuneration to one group of turnover participants and giving one of the authors an advantage over other authors and participants in civil turnover (for example, script authors) has no basis.
The CC RF issued a ruling, where it indicated that the rules of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation in question do not contradict the Constitution of the Russian Federation. In its position , the CC RF noted:
- The acquisition by one person of exclusive rights to an audiovisual work and the works included in it does not affect the legal protection of the relevant intellectual property objects and the ability to dispose of exclusive rights to them in the future. Such regulation takes into account the specifics of audiovisual work as a complex object.
- During the public performance of the audiovisual works, the authors of the musical work used in the audiovisual works retain the right to remuneration for this type of use of their musical work. Accordingly, the composer retains the right to remuneration even if the exclusive right is alienated.
- The right to remuneration for the public performance of the musical work was established by the Law of the Russian Federation "On Copyright and Related Rights" and subsequently, in order to prevent the diminution of the legitimate interests of composers, reproduced in the Civil Code of the Russian Federation.
- The right to receive remuneration belongs not only to those authors whose musical works were specially created for this audiovisual work, but also to authors whose musical works existed earlier and became an integral part of the audiovisual work.
- The rule of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation contested by the CIP is aimed at ensuring reasonable stability of legislative regulation by preserving the right to remuneration granted to composers in it and thereby achieving a balance between the rights and obligations of participants in civil legal relations regarding the creation and use of audiovisual works. The rule does not contain uncertainty and cannot be regarded as violating constitutional rights.
- Cinemas do not bear an excessive property burden on payments, since they conduct business activities.
We are ready to promptly answer media questions, provide journalists with the necessary information about the work of the Association, comment on news issues related to music and related areas.
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