Brussels, 05/07/2011 (Agence Europe) - The remuneration payable to authors in the event of public lending (from libraries or resource centres) cannot be calculated exclusively according to the number of borrowers registered in these establishments on the basis of a fixed rate sum per borrower per year. The amount of remuneration should also take account of the number of works made available to the public, so that large public lending establishments pay a greater amount of remuneration than smaller establishments.
With this ruling delivered in Case C-271/10 on 30 June, the Court of Justice of the EU gave its response to the question for a preliminary ruling from the Belgian Raad van State (Council of State) which, following an action brought by VEWA, a Flemish copyright management society, asked about the compliance with Directive 92/100/EEC on rental right and lending right and on certain rights related to copyright in the field of intellectual property of a royal decree which sets a flat-rate remuneration of €1 per adult per year and 50 cents per child per year registered with the lending institutions. VEWA submits that this system infringes the provisions of European copyright law which requires that “equitable remuneration” be paid for a loan or a rental.
The Court found for VEWA noting, firstly that the remuneration “must enable authors to receive an adequate income”, the amount of which cannot, therefore, be “purely symbolic”. On the contrary, the amount of the remuneration must be proportionate with the harm caused to authors by reason of the use of their works without their authorisation. In the case of public lending, “the higher the number of protected works made available by a public lending establishment, the greater will be the prejudice to copyright”. It follows “that the amount of remuneration to be paid by such an establishment should take account of the number of works made available to the public” and, consequently, that “large public lending establishments should pay a greater level of remuneration than smaller establishments”.
The Belgian royal decree “takes into account the number of borrowers registered with public lending establishments, but not the number of works made available to the public”, the Court states, noting that, while the criterion of the number of borrowers registered is relevant in the calculation of the amount of the remuneration, it does not have sufficient regard for the extent of the harm suffered by authors. The Court says, too, that the remuneration is not levied uniformly: where a person is registered with a number of establishments, the remuneration is payable only once in respect of that person. (F.G./transl.rt)