Cyprus must submit EU copyright bills by end June or face fine

The House commerce committee on Tuesday discussed the urgent need to submit bills that will bring Cyprus into line with EU copyright law before the end-of-June deadline, or incur a fine.

The new bills will clarify who is entitled to receive copyright and how much they are entitled to receive. They propose that an authority with more power than the existing body will be set up to monitor all companies so that the control mechanism becomes more stringent. Mediation will be applied where there are misunderstandings.

Most of the committee’s members expressed frustration at the delay in filing the copyright bills.

President of the committee, Angelos Votsis said that the whole problem was exacerbated when a bill signed by the attorney general was passed by the Council of Ministers but the legal service filed five-pages of problems with the proceedings.

“The representatives of the Legal Service did not inform us on their reasoning,” Votsis said. “The debate will continue so that the deadline will not be missed and to send the two pieces of legislation to the plenum, which we think will help in the management of the copyright issue,” he added.

Akel MP Costas Costa said that while the executive is calling on parliament to vote through the legislation the legal service is calling for significant changes to the texts.

Disy MP Andreas Kyprianou said he hopes the new legislation will manage to correct misunderstanding, exploitation and speculation in this sector of Cypriot society.

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