Maxim Ali told Novy Prospect how to avoid fines for public performance of musical works

Under current legislation, the public use of musical works requires payment of royalties, the collection of which is delegated to collective rights management organisations (CMOs), including the Russian Authors’ Society (RAO), the Russian Organization for Intellectual Property (VOIS) and others. Entrepreneurs can be charged hundreds of thousands of roubles for violating this requirement. However, court practice is not in favour of establishment owners. Among recent high-profile cases is a dispute between RAO and McDonald’s LLC, in which the court sided with the plaintiff (RAO) despite the lack of clear evidence of an alleged wrongdoing by the defendant.

Specially for the online edition of “Novy Prospect” Maxim Ali, Partner and Head of IP/IT Practice of Maxima Legal, told how entrepreneurs can protect their establishments from claims of CMOs. One of the ways is to use special services that provide services for development and provision of such music. According to the expert, such services allow playing music legally, promising purity of rights, no claims from CMOs and even readiness to sue them in case of claims. “Another option is to use music under a free license, in particular Creative Commons: a license and part-time non-profit organization that helps share free content,” said Maxim Ali.

To read the full article (in Russian) please visit Novy Prospect website >>>