As reported by the Kommersant newspaper, the relevant Committee of the State Duma proposed to reduce the number of criteria by which content (musical works, etc.) would be considered orphan. A bill on such works has been under consideration by the State Duma since the end of last year. Now the Duma committee is proposing, in particular, to abandon the idea of recognizing works as ownerless only on the basis that their copyright holder does not participate in official correspondence. Industry associations also consider the updated list of criteria not to take into account all the realities of the market.
The draft amendments, adopted in the first reading in December 2023, presuppose the emergence of a state-accredited organization for collective rights management (CMO), which will issue licenses for the use of orphan content.
Deductions for such use will have to be transferred to a nominal account. The copyright holder, if he shows up, will be able to collect the deductions, but before that, the CMO will have the right to transfer this money to "special funds".
The most painful thing for the media industry in the process of discussing the bill was the list of criteria that would allow the content to be classified as orphen. So, in the first reading version, it was suggested, among other things, that the copyright holders did not respond to legally significant messages from a potential licensee. The National Federation of the Music Industry (NFMI; unites the labels Black Star, Lotus Music, etc.) and the Media Communication Union (MKS; unites telecom and media companies) proposed not to use this criterion.
The Committee on State Development proposed to leave three signs of an orphan work: the name of the copyright holder is unknown; or his address for correspondence is unknown; or the copyright holder himself has given permission to recognize the work as an orphan. Thus, one of the industry's proposals was taken into account.
However, another request from the media industry is not to classify as orphan any works published less than 30 years before the issue was considered (see Kommersant on October 5, 2023), was not included in the text of the amendments.
Nikita Danilov, Director General of the NFMI, told Kommersant that the association hopes to further narrow the concept of orphan works: "It is now stated that an orphan work is considered if the author's name or place of residence is unknown. Thus, almost all user-generated (UGC) content published on the Internet under pseudonyms falls under the concept of orphan." This, as Alexey Byrdin, General Director of the Internet Video Association, adds, "creates the risk that CMO will massively add millions of units of UGC content to the register of orphaned works, and then force Internet sites to delete them or pay deductions." The MKS also fears "the risks of recognizing works that are not orphan," but admits that the union's comments are "partially taken into account."
The order of deductions for orphan works also remains a topic of discussion. The NFMI, according to Mr. Danilov, advocates allowing nominal accounts to be opened only in banks with preferential state participation.
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