Music Copyright And Neighboring Rights Collective Management System Study

Collective administration of copyright and neighboring rights have been practiced for decades in China, but until November 5, 1997, Taiwan area did not issue " The Regulations of Copyright Collective Administration" to do the concrete norm to the collective management organization of copyright; Mainland area did not issue " The Collective Management Rule of Copyright " until December 28, 2004, and implement formally since March 1, 2005. With the implementing of these two regulations, the management organizations of the copyright had clear norms, but meanwhile, the differences about the collective management system of copyright and neighboring rights between straits were formally appeared. Also, the collective administration system of copyright and neighboring rights of our country has met some questions in practice, The Music Copyright Society of China authorized Nanjing audio & video press to use the pop singer Tang Lei' s " lilac " with 200 yuan on December 2004, causing the disputes from all walks of life; In addition, many authors and composers complain that The Music Copyright Society of China idle on claim for their rights. I once kept in touch with the executive of a famous record company before engaged in this research, this record company once joined The Music Copyright Society of China, but the rights and interests were unable to obtain guarantee at the end, so the company determine to withdraw from this association. All these present that it is necessary to make a self-criticism to the copyright and neighboring rights administration system of our country.Music copyright and neighboring rights administration systems of various countries at present depend on the difference of its competition degree, can be roughly divided for " monopolizing type" and " competing type ". The monopolizing type, because its management is comparatively centralized, usually greater on scale than the competition ones. The result that resources concentrate, not only make the collective management organization can give play to the influence power even more in the society, can also make the collective management organization have favourable status with the utilizing people while negotiating; In addition, in respect to the copyright owners, perhaps benefit even more by the single collective management organization of copyright. Because essential management expenditure are relatively regular, the larger the scale of the management organization is, the lower the management cost that each member needed to pay; on the other hand, the utilizing people needn't to confirm while utilizing the works.As to the competing type, can be more efficient by competition. Such as U.S.A., because the organizations, like ASCAP, BMI and SESAC, etc. compete for each other, American music copyright collective management organizations charge lower administrative expenses than other countries that adopt monopolizing type collective management. Taking ASCAP as an example, this organization only account for 12% of the gross income in the part of administrative expenses in 2006.Comparing with other monopoly type collective management organizations, ASCAP is obviously better on benefit. To copyright owners, collective management organization promotion of efficacy means the increase of income that each member can get. Secondly, if there are more than one collective management organizations of copyright at the same time, copyright owners will have more choices. They can choose their own favorable collective management organization .As for utilizing people, can prevent the collective management organization from abusing its monopolize status raises and authorizes the expenses wantonly through competition way.The collective management systems of monopolizing type and competing type, the two do not have inevitable quality better or worse, various countries adopt different systems, often consider because of its politics, economy, culture, etc. Take Japan as an example, it is early in way that the administration controls, only permit JASRAC to manage copyrights and neighboring rights of the music. But with the enlargement of scale and the development of society, after 2001,Japan turns to competition way. In my opinion, adopt monopolizing mode or competing type, should depend on one country's market scale and developing stage in collective administration system. The mode of the competition type can be in the successful development of U.S.A., Canada and Japan, is mainly that the three countries'music market has already reached the suitable scale. The same mode may not be feasible to apply mechanically this mode to the countries, such as ltaly, Argentina, etc. The reason is, the collective administration of the copyright is essentially needing some quantity of members, in order to improve the efficiency of management, must reach certain scale, its benefit could appear. The relatively smaller country in the market scale, adopting the management of the competition type, will disperse the strength of the collective management organization, and lose benefit of collective management. In addition, develop in initial stage in the collective management system, because organize the scale not to take shape yet, it contributes to combining every member early to adopt the management mode of the monopoly at this moment, in order to give play to the influence power of the collective management organization. But as the maturity of the collective management organization and enlargement of the utilizing market scale, should consider to introduce competition mechanism appropriately, in order to get the result of checking and balancing and raising the efficiency each other. Under the circumstances that the utilizing market reaching considerable scale and prerequisite with relatively ripe collective management system, if still insist on adopting the management of the monopoly mode, will present the result with low efficiency. Mainland area and Taiwan area of China at present choose different collective management modes, just monopolizing and competing for two extremes, but may not accord with the market scale of the two and the best choice of system development, there should be space of adjustment. Secondly, when Mainland area modify the collective administration of copyrights and neighboring rights, might adopt the dispute resolving mechanism, assumption of authorization, and even mandatory allotting in public good etc.