On January 12th, 2010, the Third Reading of the Legislative Yuan approved the Amendment of Copyright Law. During the time of “secondary transmission”, hotels, shopping outlets, tourist coaches and other users in the future just need to pay management fees for common use to the single copyright collective management organization, and they will be free from criminal liabilities in spite of infringements.
The so-called “secondary transmission” refers to the action of rebroadcasting original works in public or using loudspeakers and other equipments to transmit sounds and images of the original broadcasting to the public. For example, through the system of Broadcast on Demand, a hotel provides copyrighted movies for its guests. This behavior belongs to “secondary transmission”. As for the televisions in noodle shops, restaurants and other similar business establishments, where cable television watching is available for their dining guests, since that belongs to “original machine broadcast”, it is not illegal.
Tourist coaches, beauty salons, hypermarkets, shopping outlets, restaurants, hospitals, hotels and other similar business establishments that often amplify and broadcast contents of televisions or radios to their guests for appreciations by using retrofit loudspeakers, stereos, video devices, etc.; such “secondary transmission” behavior will hold no criminal liabilities, as in the future the penalties under the Copyright Law do not apply. Any infringement disputes in this regard may be resolved by means of civil remedy approach.
The Intellectual Property Office explains that the Copyright Law violation circumstance only applies to those shops that have not paid for “secondary utilization”. The main judgment criterion is whether the shop “broadcasts contents on a large-size screen”. If the purpose of the shop is to create an atmosphere, instead of earning profits, such behavior is not regarded as a secondary utilization. If a restaurant uses an overhead projector to project sports programs on a large-size screen for viewing among its guests, it is regarded as a secondary utilization. In addition, a hypermarket or a shopping outlet playing music through stereos equipped at different spots of the market is also regarded as a secondary utilization.
On the same day, the Third Reading of the Legislative Yuan also passed the amendment of Copyright Intermediary Organization Act, renamed as Copyright Collective Management Regulations. It added a provision that more than two collective management organizations ought to set a “common royalty rate” and should designate one of the organizations to collect the fees from users. After the amendment, users of “secondary transmission” can avoid the tiredness of handling charges requirements of multiple copyright intermediary organizations. The amendment also stipulated that a collective management organization, once permitted to be established, should be made known to the public via the internet with a charter that lists out the rate of charge and amount, etc.
Currently, different charging methods of the 7 copyright intermediary management organizations in Taiwan have been bringing lots of troubles to the “secondary transmission” users, who would have to respectively negotiate with various organizations in order to get authorizations, which is very inconvenient and may even lead to a phenomenon that “multiple layers of skin are being peeled off a cow”. The passing of the new law will effectively solve the inconveniences and disputes of users.
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