Ukrainian agency of author’s rights plans to get 502 thousand UAH from TV companies

The function of the Ukrainian agency of author’s and adjacent rights (UAAAR) consists in the pre-trial and court consideration of the cases connected with the payment of author’s emoluments. The agency works in all oblasts of Ukraine, in Kyiv and the Crimean republic.

During 2001 the juridical department of the UAAAR took part in the consideration of 42 cases on collecting the author’s emoluments from users; more than 300 thousand hryvnas were collected.

In 2002 the juridical department considered 78 cases on the total sum of 1.4 millions hryvnas. All in all, in 2002 the department worked with 78 claims against theaters, circuses, philharmonics, TV and radio companies connected with the non-payment of royalties to authors for public performance of their compositions or the use of the compositions without the agreements with authors. There were 6 cases concerning the invalid state registration.

On the basis of the Law of Ukraine “On author’s and adjacent rights” and the instructions of the State department of intellectual property, the UAAAR conducts the monitoring of TV and radio space concerning the observance of author’s and adjacent rights by the users of the objects of these rights. According to the results of the monitoring, a number of the violations of author’s rights were disclosed. 12 claims against TV channels were compiled on the total sum of 502 thousand hryvnas.

The UAAAR presented 11 claims on the sum of 113.7 thousand UAH (among them 4 suits on 80.8 thousand UAH) after the complaints of the authors, who had turned to the agency.

The total amount of the claims and suits in 2001-2002 was 2.2 million hryvnas. 500 thousand hryvnas were collected, these money were transferred to the UAAAR accounts and paid to the authors.

State department of intellectual property
28 July 2003, Institute of mass information, www.imi.org