Copyright legislation provisions cause concern

Hotel owners, vintners and the night club industry have united to oppose some provisions of the proposed new copyright legislation which is aimed at preparing the law for the electronic era.

More than 7,500 commercial premises, represented by the Irish Hotels Federation, the Vintners Federation of Ireland and the Irish Nightclub Industry Association, claim the Bill would give multinational record companies and their copyright collecting agencies such as Phonographic Performance Ireland (PPI) more power than the Revenue Commissioners.

"These collecting agencies would be able to act in a completely unfair and high-handed manner against commercial premises and their patrons, many of which are small family-owned rural business," said the IHF chief executive, Mr John Power.

The lobby's key argument is that the proposed legislation being considered by the Dail Committee on Enterprise and Small Businesses, would allow the collecting agencies to levy charges "as they wish", and to enforce their efforts if necessary by court injunctions.

"They would have this power in advance of the State Officer, the Controller of Industrial and Commercial Property, having ruled on the equity of these charges in relation to intellectual property.

"The new legislation would also permit the collection agencies to claim payment in advance of any music being played and to have the right to levy charges and collect payments without having to show legal entitlement to do so. If this power is not limited, it would allow unscrupulous collecting agencies that may be set up in the future to abuse their position to the detriment of many small businesses."

As proposed, Mr Power said, the legislation would overturn a key Supreme Court ruling made in 1995 which decided that while the collecting agencies were entitled to seek equitable remuneration when recordings were played in public, the monies could be collected in arrears. The Bill would "essentially leave all of our members in a position of being guilty until proven innocent", said Mr Tadgh O'Sullivan, the Vintners Federation of Ireland chief executive. "The PPI could demand payment for music when the pub owner has no means of knowing whether they are entitled to it or not." Meanwhile, print journalists are opposing a proposal in the Bill which would remove the protection they enjoy under Section 23 of the 1963 legislation. This means that the ownership of a piece of written work is shared between employer and employee. In effect, employers have the right to publish an article in their newspaper or magazine, but then ownership of the piece reverts to the journalist.

The National Union of Journalists has made a strong submission to the Minister to extend the protection provided under existing legislation. The employers' lobby, however, the National Newspapers of Ireland, has made a contrary submission, arguing that such intellectual property should belong to the organisation which employs the journalist.

A spokesman for the Minister of State for Labour, Trade and Consumer Affairs, Mr Tom Kitt, said last night that he had proposed a compromise which would involve a limited "right of use" of such published material by employee journalists. The Minister was reviewing this and all the proposed amendments in the light of changes in EU and international law affecting copyright and related rights, the spokesman said.