Lawmakers Back Use Of Music On Television Without Rights Holders’ Permission At First Reading

Musical works will be allowed to be used on television without the permission of rights holders, provided that remuneration is paid to them. This provision is contained in the draft law “On Amending Laws on the Legal Protection of Intellectual Property Objects,” which the House of Representatives adopted at first reading on Tuesday.

“This is due to the specifics of television production, where it is very often necessary to obtain consent from rights holders or authors of musical works quickly, but this is far from always possible. Therefore, the right of free use is granted, but I emphasize once again — on the condition of mandatory payment of fair remuneration,” said Deputy Chairman of the House of Representatives Standing Commission on Education, Culture and Science Viachaslau Danilovich.

The draft provides that music may be used “in the creation and/or distribution by television media editorial offices of individual television programs that are part of television program packages included in the mandatory publicly accessible package of television programs.”

The draft law also provides for:

• the optimization of administrative procedures carried out by the patent authority, the National Center of Intellectual Property, within the framework of activities related to granting legal protection to intellectual property objects;
• the establishment of a procedure for registering with the patent authority pledge agreements for exclusive rights to inventions, utility models, industrial designs, plant varieties, layouts of integrated circuits;
• the clarification of the procedure for paying remuneration to authors for the use of official scientific works, inventions, utility models, industrial designs, plant varieties, layouts of integrated circuits, and production secrets (know-how);
• the clarification of certain terms and the duration of exclusive rights to works of science, literature, and art (for the author’s lifetime and 70 years after death).