WIPO Working On Voluntary International Collective Management Standards

Collective management organisations have often been the subject of criticism both from artists and end users. Some international federations have set up professional rules, but there is no international standard. The World Intellectual Property Organization is working to set up a voluntary international recognition of good practice for those organisations.

The TAG of Excellence project (TAG) was started in 2013 at the initiative of WIPO. The initiative is now supervised by a Consortium of International Federations of Collective Management Organisations and WIPO, according to WIPO.

The TAG (transparency, accountability and governance) initiative aims to provide guidance to collective management organisations (CMOs) on how their transparency, accountability and governance might be improved, according to WIPO.

According to David Uwemidimo, director of the Copyright Infrastructure Division at WIPO, the idea of the initiative was to put into place a system that would award some recognition to collective management societies having good practice in place, without an international standard.

“This recognition system would be purely technical, non-political and on a voluntary basis,” he told Intellectual Property Watch. “We are trying to demystify the collective management system and give deserving collective societies a tool through which they can identify themselves as following good practices.”

The TAG of excellence would be examining the possibility of establishing a standard to which collective societies willing to get that standard could apply, on a purely voluntary basis, much like those that exist for most businesses, he said.

Collaboration with International Federations

WIPO has been in contact with international collective management federations to help set up the TAG process. An informal working group of WIPO and international federations was set up to work on a compendium, which is a consolidation of best practices of transparency, accountability and good governance in the collective management field.

Several source documents were used to develop this compendium, he said, including the European Directive, the International Federation of Reproduction Rights Organizations (IFRRO) code of conduct, the International Federation of the Phonographic Industry (IFPI) code of conduct, and the International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers (CISAC) professional rules, and SCAPR’s code of conduct along with national and regional legislation such as the Belgian law.

This allowed the working group to come up with this compendium of recommendations on what can be considered as best practices in the field of collective management, Uwemidimo explained.

The compendium is divided into eight main sections: Information about collective management organisations (CMO); membership information; members’ rights and obligations; issues concerning the CMO/Member relationship; relationship between CMOs; relationship between CMO and users; governance; and financial administration, distribution of revenue and deductions.

“The TAG initiative is not an attempt to introduce an international collective management treaty,” he said. “This is simply a technical assistance tool which helps governments and CMOs to establish international standards in this field.”

If adopted, the TAG Standards would work as a certification programme. “It is not going to change the world but it will be a significant contribution to the improvement of standards in collective management,” he said, adding that in many territories, collective management is the only form of copyright, the only method by which a creator can receive money.

IFRRO, CISAC, Different Approaches

According to Olav Stokkmo, chief executive of IFRRO, the copyright sector is fundamental to cultural diversity and economic development.

Collective management organisations are necessary to make copyright work, he told Intellectual Property Watch. Through their activities, they also channel substantial amounts of money to right holders: a billion USD annually by IFRRO members alone.

CMOs in the text and image sector are, relatively speaking, new organisations, mainly developed over the past 30-40 years, he said. “When they emerge, they cannot always, in all countries, jurisdictions or contexts take for granted that they are known and immediately accepted as the natural new partner that user groups shall trust and interact with.”

“They fill a gap, that is true. Nevertheless, there may be sound and understandable scepticism to new players in the market, which, in some cases, a statement from an impartial [organisation] could alleviate,” he explained.

According to Stokkmo, the industry is currently lacking “a good document for benchmarking, training and, when required, improving the governance and transparency” of reproduction rights organisations.

“A compendium to address those issues, developed as a part of the TAG initiative, has the potential of remedying this,” he said.

CISAC is interested in cooperating with WIPO to help CMOs to achieve a higher level of professional standards, Kimani Goddard, senior policy advisor, told Intellectual Property Watch.

“For us there is no objection to the compendium and to help CMOs meeting professional standards that already have been developed by international federations, such as the CISAC code of conduct developed in 2009,” she said.

However, she specified that CISAC “would hope that WIPO focuses on technical assistance funding, education and training of CMOs.”

CISAC’s concern about the TAG project is to avoid duplication of effort and the fact that the WIPO-developed TAG of excellence might indicate different suggestions to CMOs than those included in standards already existing in the field.

All should cooperate on technical assistance and international rules, she said, citing WIPO Academy as an excellent forum to provide help in education and training of CMOs.

A number of CMOs in developing countries and economies in transition struggle from lack of access to technology, legal and economic training, and an adequate legal training, she added.

WIPO Member States Ask for Involvement

The Latin American and Caribbean Group (GRULAC) and the African Group asked that member states be involved in the TAG initiative at the last Program and Budget Committee (PBC) meeting earlier this month (IPW, WIPO, 21 September 2015).

A decision by the PBC said that the TAG project will involve a prior consultation process with WIPO’s member states, national copyright offices and “other key stakeholders.”

A performance indicator should measure the number of national copyright offices “actively engaged in the TAG consultative process.” The indicator sets “a target of 25 copyright offices, with 2 CMOs applying for accreditation by or in 2017.”