Tuesday, 20 January 2015

OSA and Article 102 TFEU: a way of attacking excessive collecting society fees?

Fellow 1709er Eleonora is far too modest to mention it, but she has just had a Current Intelligence note published online in the Oxford University Press publication, Journal of European Competition Law & Practice (JECLAP).  It's "OSA (the Czech Spa case): Article 102 TFEU as a Means to Attack Excessive Copyright Fees of Collecting Societies?" and it will appear in the print version of JECLAP at (2015) 6 (2): 96-97.

The case in question is Case C-351/12 OSA – Ochranný svaz autorský pro práva k dílům hudebním o.s. v Léčebné lázně Mariánské Lázně a.s., 27 February 2014 and Eleonora's abstract reads as follows:
Even where national law reserves collective management of rights to a certain collecting society, this does not exclude application of competition law rules, notably Article 102 of the Treaty on the Functioning of the European Union (TFEU): a collecting society may be found to abuse its dominant position if in a particular Member State it imposes fees that are appreciably higher than those charged in other Member States, or imposes a price that is excessive in relation to the economic value of the service provided.
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1 comment:

  1. John R walker20 January 2015 at 13:15

    Jeremy ,hi from Hoi An! Wonderful place and people.

    When a collection society ( or a group of societies) has a mandated compulsory management right/ power over right-holders' and the use of the right is also compulsory,then the societies 'collection fee' is not by definition, a cost based fee for service, rather it is a tax : a duty ,hypothecated to the 'costs 'of the collection society.

    In classic Adam Smith terms these collection societies are 'rent seekers' to a tee.

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