At present, the Intellectual Property Rights Court (SIP) is considering a case on the claim of the Russian Copyright Society (RAO) against the City Palace of Culture of the city of Meleuz of the Republic of Bashkortostan. The case may have a precedent character.
In the framework of this case, the courts on the claim of RAO recovered from the defendant the amount of remuneration to be paid to the copyright holders of musical works performed in films for a certain period.
However, the SIP drew attention to the fact that the information provided by RAO about the authors of musical works and their copyright holders do not coincide. In this regard, the judges had a question: does paragraph 3 of Article 1263 of the Civil Code of the Russian Federation (the right to remuneration) apply to copyright holders who have acquired the corresponding exclusive rights from the authors? Or does this rule apply only to the authors of musical works, regardless of who owns the exclusive rights?
SIP has previously sent requests to leading scientific institutions, a number of them have taken a position in favor of RAO and copyright holders. However, there was no consensus among scientific institutions.
In this regard, the SIP decided to seek clarification from the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation (CC RF). The question is how legitimate it is to collect deductions in favor of not specific foreign authors, but legal entities to which musicians transfer the rights to their songs. The outcome of the case depends on the further practice of collecting deductions from cinemas for music.
In February 2023, the NFMI submitted its position on the constitutionality of the provision in question to the Constitutional Court of the Russian Federation. NFMI substantiates that the provision of the Civil Code does not conflict with the provisions of the Constitution of the Russian Federation, does not violate or infringe on the constitutional rights and interests of the state, citizens and legal entities. At the same time, a similar provision has been used for many years in other jurisdictions.
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