IRZ expert, lawyer Markus Scheufele, during his lecture (screenshot)
IRZ expert, lawyer Markus Scheufele, during his lecture (screenshot)
Kazakhstan

On 15 and 16 October 2020, IRZ organised an online seminar on the collective management of copyright and related property rights, alongside the World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the Ministry of Justice for the Republic of Kazakhstan.

Around ninety participants from the business community, the Ministry of Justice for Kazakhstan and international copyright collectives discussed topics including:

  • Efficiency and transparency in managing copyright and related property rights in connection with WIPO practices and the EU Directive on the collective management of these rights
  • Specific features of the collective management of copyright in various fields and the experiences of international copyright collectives.
  • Pricing policies of copyright collectives from the perspective of the EU
  • The practice of assigning rights and the related challenges involved in various aspects of the collective management of copyright

IRZ was able to recruit lawyer Markus Scheufele as an expert in copyright issues. In his lecture on “Fair compensation for private copies in Germany and the EU – legal and historic background, fees and charges and their implementation”, Scheufele outlined German copyright law, which was changed as a result of a 2001 EU directive on copyright law in the information society. He explained the Padawan judgement delivered by the ECJ in 2010 on basic issues concerning the private copying levy and the EGEDA judgement passed by the ECJ in 2016. At the time, the court affirmed its Padawan ruling, according to which companies cannot be charged with private copying levies. To conclude his lecture, Markus Scheufele presented the German fee policy in this context.

The two-day seminar was met with a great deal of interest from the participants, and so IRZ wants to continue supporting other opportunities for cooperation on copyright issues in the future.