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Intellectual Property and Commercial Court

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2012 Xing Zhu Su Zi No. 2

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Decision No. 2012 Xing Zhu Su Zi No. 2
Date August 22, 2012
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The legislative purpose of the Copyright Collective Management Organization Act is to inspect and provide guidance upon establishment, organization and rights/duties of the Copyright Collective Management Organization (hereafter referred as CMO), and the services of the CMO is to manage economic rights on behalf of multiple economic rights holders, in which uniform royalty rates and methods for distribution of royalties are adopted as the basis for collection and distribution of royalties, and in which license agreements with users are established in the name of those providing the management, and in which royalty rates represent the criteria for calculation, the ratios, or the amounts of royalties that the CMO collects for providing the economic rights it manages for exploitation by users, all of which are stipulated by Article 3 of the Copyright Collective Management Organization Act. However, because copyrights are considered as private rights, and the exploitation of copyrights through license and the amounts of the royalties thereof are considered as private law relations between the CMO and the users, in general, the licensed exploitation and the amounts of the royalties shall be negotiated by both parties while respecting the well-established mechanism by the market. Further, royalty rates serve as the criteria for calculating the royalties to be paid by the users and thus are essential information for license agreement, so even though license negotiation is considered as private right matters, in light of the facts that the market still exists cases where the CMO and the users cannot reach any agreement, if there is not any proper coordinating mechanism for resolving disagreements, establishment of the license agreements will be delayed, and furthermore, as the worst scenario, the work will be prevented from being legitimately exploited. As a result, the specialized agency in charge of copyright matters is expected to provide assistance when the CMO and the users cannot reach any agreement, and for this reason, Article 25, Paragraph 1 of the Copyright Collective Management Organization Act stipulates that a copyright user (including the organization of the users) who objects to a royalty rate set by a CMO may apply to the specialized agency in charge of copyright matters for a review, and Paragraph 4 of the aforesaid Article stipulates that when the specialized agency in charge of copyright matters performs its review, it may change the criteria, ratios, or amounts for calculation of royalties originally adopted by the CMO. Nevertheless, the amendment reason for Article 25, Paragraph 4 of the Copyright Collective Management Organization Act has exemplified the so-called “change the criteria, ratios, or amounts for calculation of royalties” to be “for example, if the charge for public broadcasting by broadcasting television is not differentiated by the nature of the channel, such charge can be further differentiated during the review; and if the originally adopted royalty rate is calculated by the floor area, it can be changed to calculate by the number of the rooms during the review,” it is therefore that the matters for a user to apply for a review in accordance with Article 25, Paragraph 1 of the Copyright Collective Management Organization Act shall be limited to the criteria, ratios, or amounts for calculation of royalties. It is not considered as a matter for the user to apply for a review but shall be negotiated by the CMO and the users in the case regarding which user should pay for the royalties if there are multiple users, so as to simplify the license and lower the cost for negotiation while maximizing the profit for both the users and the CMO. Accordingly, the matters to be changed for the Defendant in accordance with Article 25, Paragraph 4 of the Copyright Collective Management Organization Act shall be limited to the criteria, ratios, or amounts for calculation of royalties, rather than the matter regarding which user should be collected with the royalties.

Relevant statutes Articles 3 and 25 of Copyright Collective Management Association Act
  • Release Date:2020-11-13
  • Update:2020-12-07
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