What is the Meaning of Copyright Management? – A Complete Guide

Copyrights give the actual owners the exclusive rights to claim ownership and other related rights to certain acts. Such exclusive rights give the owners the capability to make the right decisions on how to use the work and permit them to look for remuneration for the work. Also, it gives them the right to prohibit any illegal utilization of the work. Let’s understand the meaning of Copyright Management.

As a person, it’s not easy to manage Copyrights and other associated rights. Once the work is safeguarded under Copyrights, illegal use of work can lead to Copyright Infringement. Hence, any individual who wishes to use the actual work has to look for consent from the true owner before using it for any reason. It may not be practically possible to do that always. For example, suppose an individual wish to use any work. In that case, it may be practically difficult for them to contact the work owner and the same way, it might be hard for the owners to contact every organization to negotiate & looks for remuneration for their work. At this level, Collective Copyright Management proves to be useful, and they make the complete process of negotiation & authorization easy.

Collective Management of Right vs Individual

In most scenarios, the owners of Copyright will choose separate management of rights, which entails defining the legal relationship between the producer & owner who will give the work a public presence. Such rights are otherwise called “Primary Rights”.

One good example here is of the novelist: when a novel is written, the novelist wishes to publish the work. Before that, the publisher and the author will enter into the contract all by themselves without any mediator. This establishes the 1^st relationship between the parties.

There are three different ways in which rights can have a trade:

However, when it comes to collective management of rights – two statutory relations are established. Collective Management usually deals with “Secondary Rights” involved in several uses of safeguarded works. But, the line between primary & secondary rights is not definite, and in today’s media scene, it’s getting even more blurred.

An Overview of Collective Copyright Management

It’s the single stop in the Copyright system where Copyright owners can permit to administer their rights in this Collective Copyright Management System. It is an essential function to carry out by the Collective Copyright Management Organisations as it enabled the rights owners to exercise their rights around the world effectively.

The procedure for managing such collective rights of Copyright work and simplify the process of rights management is called Collective Copyright Management. By mandating professional Collective Management Organizations (CMOs) to manage their rights, producers, performers, authors, and other right owners can simplify the management of those rights.

What is Collective Management Organizations (CMOs)?

CMOs are professional organizations that act as a mediator between the owner of the work and the work user. Primarily from the link between them and ensure the owner’s rights are used in their best investment. But, the Collective Management Organisations can only negotiate with those rights for which there are mandates. Licensing users is one of the significant functions of a Collective Management Organisation. When it is practically not possible for the individual right owners to manage their rights & promptly exercise them for their financial advantage, approaching the Collective Management Organisation is the most viable option. In short, Collective Copyright Management can summarise as a system that makes legal and easy access to safeguard works by users possible, while according compensation to rights holders.

In other terms, the task of the Collective Copyright Management Organisation can be classified into three different categories:

• It finds out, where, how, when the works can be used;
• Negotiate the terms with the work’s user;
• Gather the amount & distribute it to the actual holder of the concerned Copyright.

What are the Benefits of Collective Copyright Management?

As described early, the primary function of the Collective Copyright Management Organisation is to simplify the rights management of the right owners. From the above talk, the following benefits can be accessed:

Benefits to the Actual Owners of the Copyright

• Monetary benefits from the use of works;
• Helps in the bargaining of the terms between user and holder;
• Reduces the cases of Copyright Infringement;
• Clarifies the compliances concerning Copyright.

Benefits to the Copyright User

• Copyright users will save from getting into the burdensome legal process as the whole process carries out by the third party;
• They can save time as the owner’s details can attain easily.

Collective Management Organizations are available in the following sectors:

1. Visual arts;
2. Radio;
3. New media;
4. Television;
5. Photography;
6. Music & sound recording;
7. Theatre & dramatic;
8. Reprography.

Creative Commons License for Copyright Management

These common licences help the creator preserve rights while permitting others to copy, distribute, print, and use their work. Creative Commons Licenses ensure that the creators of the work get sufficient credits for the work. It mainly permits using the work for non-commercial purposes. The license continues as long as the Copyright on that exists & can be used worldwide. One vital thing to keep in mind while using this license is that the license has to give credits to the creator of that work so as to maintain their identity as the licensee, and the creator cannot limit others to use the work.

Creative Commons is not Anti-Copyright or even an option to Copyright; it is just an option of various way to share works, and it primarily relies on Copyright; you should own a Copyright in work to make it available under a Creative Common License.

Regardless of Creative Commons being Popular, it’s always better to have Copyright Registration because:

• It’s not easy to keep track of who is using the original work & to what level. The proprietor will be uninformed of the whereabouts of their work. Thus, if the work is for a reason unwanted to the owner, then there is no resource for it.
• It is not clear how the Indian legal system will respond if the owner brings a claim against a user who violates the license. Because ownership proof may be apparent evidence part in building a violation of the agreement, the owner probably will require to show proof of Copyright ownership, which means Copyright Registration.
• When we consider the financial factor of Copyright Registration, it is more valuable than creative commons as the investment return is more as compared to creative commons.

Copyright Societies – Meaning

The Copyright Collective Administration by society is an idea where protection & management of Copyright in different works. They are undertaken by the proposed society of authors and other owners of such works. In India, a Copyright Society is incorporated under the Copyright Act, 1957^[1]. Such a society is by authors and other owners of Copyright which may comprise licensing companies. This is by asset of an assignment from the actual author. The business of issuing license concerning literary, artistic, and musical works registered in cinematograph films or sound recordings will execute only via a Copyright Society duly with Registration under this Act. Generally, only a single society can register to do business concerning the same class of work.

Conclusion

Managing Copyrights and concerning rights separately may not be realistic always. A performer, producer, or author, for example, cannot contact every single radio station to negotiate compensation and license for the use of their songs. Other than this, it’s not practical for a radio station to looking for certain consent from every performer, author, and producer for the use of songs. Collective Management Organizations delivers rights clearance in the interest of both parties & economic reward for right owners.

Read our article:Copyright Protection for Software – A Complete Guide