Currently, the Intellectual Property Rights Court (SIP) is considering a case on the claim of the Russian Copyright Society (RAO, Russian CMO) against the City Palace of Culture of the city of Meleuz of the Republic of Bashkortostan. The case may have a precedent character, for which the SIP has sent requests to leading scientific institutions.
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.
As is known, in accordance with the Civil Code of the RF, when publicly performing or broadcasting, including by retransmission, an audiovisual work, the authors of a musical work (with or without text) used in an audiovisual work retain the right to remuneration for these types of use of their musical work.
In the request, the SIP also reminds that according to judicial practice and the Civil Code, the right to remuneration is a part of the exclusive right. In cases established by the provisions of the Civil Code, the right to remuneration remains with the author, performer, phonogram producer, producer of an audiovisual work even when the exclusive right does not belong to him, as well as with the owner of the exclusive right, if it is limited.
However, the SIP drew attention to the fact that the information provided by RAO about the authors of musical works and their copyright holders does not coincide. In this regard, the judges had a question: does paragraph 3 of Article 1263 of the Civil Code (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?
As a result, the SIP posed the following questions to scientific organizations:
1) Is the exclusive right of the author of a musical work to remuneration provided for in paragraph 3 of Article 1263 of the Civil Code alienable?
2) If the answer to the first question is positive, then does the above-mentioned RAO accreditation include the right to recover remuneration not only to the authors, but also to the copyright holders of musical works (with or without text) used in an audiovisual work?
The positions of scientific institutions on these issues are expected to be prepared in the near future.
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