Over €100 million is collected annually by collective management organizations in Romania, director general of the Romanian Copyright Office (ORDA) Andrei Simion Ijac announced in a public debate hosted by IPN News Agency. According to him, a large part of the artists from the Republic of Moldova are members of collective management organizations of Romania and are remunerated depending on how passive or active their repertoire is.
In Romania, the collective management organizations are legal entities established by free association, whose object of activity is to manage copyright or related rights. The ORDA head said the collective management organizations remunerate an artist according to the periodicity of use of the work.
“Many artists from the Republic of Moldova are members of collective management organizations of Romania. I think most of them are members there. In Romania, there are 15 collective management organizations divided by both copyright and related rights domains. Compared to the Republic of Moldova, we have a very extensive experience with collective management organizations. The legislation stipulates that an artist is paid for actual use. If in your career you have been a very big artist and you have 1,000 works in your repertoire, research still must be done to see if those songs are still used, broadcast on radio or TV. On the other hand, a young artist who is on the crest of the wave can have 20 works in the repertoire, but is much better remunerated by a collective management organization than a more established artist whose repertoire is not used,” said the director of the Romanian Copyright Office.
The head of ORDA also said that Romania implemented the eORDA project, which contributes to improving work processes and reducing the administrative burden in the field of copyright and related rights. Through the eORDA platform, electronic systems and services were introduced to optimize the decision-making processes within the Romanian Copyright Office.
“In Romania, we have implemented a project called eORDA thanks to European funds. It is a platform where collective management organizations upload their repertoire, the playlist of each artist. The artist creates an account and then information and data cross-references are made to help us apply the current methodologies and see if the artist received less money than they deserved, but there were also cases when the artist received more money than they were entitled to and had to give it back to the collective management organization. We implemented this project with European support. It helps us a lot in terms of expertise, findings. The collective management fee in Romania is of at most 15%,” said Andrei Simion Ijac,
According to the ORDA head, the collective management system in Romania is well developed and millions of euros is collected annually in the field of copyright. The money is partially redirected to those who own the works.
“Of the money collected by the 15 collective management organizations, there is over €100 million annually from which this collective management fee of 15% is withdrawn and the rest of the money goes to the rights-holders. We have experience in the field of collective management organizations and we have always provided support to counterparts from the State Agency on Intellectual Property of the Republic of Moldova to set up this system of collective management,” explained Andrei Simion Ijac.
The public debate entitled “Romania-Republic of Moldova, strengthening partnership in the field of intellectual property” was the eighth installment of the project “Double integration through cooperation and information. Continuity”, which is funded by the Department for Relations with the Republic of Moldova. The content of this debate does not represent the official position of the Department for Relations with the Republic of Moldova.
