Brussels, 09/06/2016 (Agence Europe) - EU rules preclude fair compensation due to authors for private copying of their works from being financed by all taxpayers through non-specific state resources, explained the European Court of Justice in a decision made on Thursday 9 June (C-470/14).
The vast majority of member states finance "fair compensation" through a levy paid to rights holders to compensate their lost income due to reproductions of their work by a natural person for private use (apart from "the private copying exception"). Nonetheless, Estonia, Finland, Norway and Spain have chosen another solution that consists in financing this compensation through their budgets.
The European Court of Justice has been called on to examine the Spanish system in force since 2012. According to this system, the directive on copyright (2001/29/EEC) does not, in principle, preclude such a system as long as the payment to rights holders is ensured and that the detailed arrangements guarantee actual recovery. Nonetheless, the Court points out that in the case of Spain, the compensation system does not comply with the directive because it does not guarantee that the cost of fair compensation is ultimately paid by the users of private copy.
The court stipulates that the private copying exception is effectively devised to "exclusively" benefit the natural persons who carry out or have the capacity to carry out private reproductions of protected works. Legal persons are excluded from this. Moreover, the system in Spain does not allow legal persons to demand exemptions from the obligation of contributing to the financing of compensation or demand reimbursement. EU law therefore precludes a financing system that is paid for by all taxpayers through the general resources of the state budget. (Original version in French by Jan Kordys)