Examining the Regulatory Framework of Collective Management under the Ethiopian Copyright and Neighboring Rights Law

Abstract

The roles played by literary, artistic and other creative works are indispensable in enhancing cultural, social, economic, scientific and technological development of a country. To achieve this objective countries in different parts of the world have granted protection to copyright by entitling owners of creative works with certain exclusive exploitation rights. Accordingly, the owners of copyright and neighboring rights have exclusive rights of doing, authorizing, or prohibiting certain acts in relation to such works. This enables the owners of the protected works to directly control the utilization and distribution of their works, personally decide the terms and the manner of remuneration for the use of their works and oversee whether their moral and economic rights are properly respected. Nevertheless, the advent of technology and digitization has caused the individual management of copyrights extremely difficult if not impossible. The system of collective rights management was developed as a means to relieve the difficulty encountered by the right holders in personally administering their rights. The collecting society by representing right holders negotiates the terms of license with users of the copyright works, collects royalty and distributes the same to its members. It also benefits users by enabling them access the protected works for a reasonable price as it reduces transaction costs. However, since the collecting society holds a monopoly power, countries have come up with regulatory framework to minimize and prevent the negative effects of monopoly against the interests of the society’s members and users of the copyright work. Similarly, the Ethiopian government has provided regulatory framework for collective management of rights. The aim of this study is to critically examine and explore the loopholes in the regulatory framework of collective management under the Ethiopian copyright and neighboring rights proclamation No.872/2014. The research indicates that there are regulatory challenges regarding the collective management organization’s establishment, relationship with members and users, and its roles and functions. The study also shows the problem of organizational arrangement existing in the Ethiopian Intellectual Property Office. This on the other hand indicates that there is a need to improve the collecting societies’ regulatory framework in order to have the effective and functional societies in the country.