Confusion surrounds enforcement of copyright laws

Confusion surrounds the enforcement of copyright laws, lawmakers said on Tuesday, urging the government to bring forward new legislation.

In June last year Cyprus passed a law geared to harmonise with EU Directive 2014/26 (collective management of copyright and related rights and multi-territorial licensing of rights in musical works for online use in the internal market).

But still pending are the accompanying legal ordinances as well as the establishment of a copyright regulatory authority – although MPs heard that the government is poised to announce the authority’s creation on March 14.

A major problem is the absence of uniform copyright licensing fees, said house commerce committee chair Angelos Votsis.

Moreover, it is unclear in which cases users of audiovisual material must pay a licensing fee.

The issue relates to copyright and to “neighbouring rights,” also known as “related rights.” Neighbouring rights is a term in copyright law used to describe the rights of performers and master recording owners (record labels). They refer to the right to publicly perform, or broadcast, a sound recording.

Under the law, as it stands, anyone broadcasting music in public spaces must pay a licensing fee to the performer or record label. This concerns hotels, restaurants, radio and television stations, as well as waiting areas in offices.

Lawmakers have received contradictory advice from the attorney-general’s office and from the police.

The former advises that licensing fees should be paid by all users of copyrighted material, whereas the police says that only users who benefit financially from such broadcasts should pay.

Disy MP Andreas Kyprianou said parliament was seeking to resolve a long-running and complex issue.

He said European legislation is clear on the point that only those benefiting financially from broadcasting music should pay copyright fees.

“But not a dentist or butcher’s shop which has the radio on,” he said.

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.