The Executive Yuan recently approved a draft revision of the Copyright Intermediary Organization Act to strengthen the operations of Taiwan’s copyright intermediaries by defining standards for the establishment of cross-category “copyright collective management organizations” and adding provisions for such operating mechanisms as common rates of royalty and standards for temporary payment during adjudication. These measures strengthen copyright protection and simplify copyright authorization procedures.

Since the substantive content of the Copyright Intermediary Organization Act is the provision of regulations governing collective management of copyrights, the name of the law will be changed to “Copyright Collective Management Organization Act.” The Intellectual Property Office (IPO) points out that Taiwan divides copyrights into 10 categories, of which the musical works, sound recordings, audiovisual works, and oral and literary works categories have the greatest need for collective management. In the past, these different categories of copyrights were assigned by the regulations to different kinds of collective management organizations; but with changes in the social environment, copyright use is often carried out in a cross-category manner that requires the user to negotiate with each organization involved. This adds a lot of time and trouble to the process.

The IPO notes that the focus of the current revision is on breaking away from the requirement that only copyright holders of the same category can form a collective management organization, and allow owners of different categories of copyrights or owners who simultaneously hold copyrights in different categories can form cross-category copyright collective management organizations. This will save on the cost of copyright management and transaction.

At the present time each of the different collective management organizations has its own standard for the calculation of fees. The draft revision provides that when a copyright involves two or more collective management organizations, its user can negotiate with collective management organizations designated by the IPO to set a common royalty rate, with one of the organizations serving as a single window for collecting the fee. This simplifies the authorization procedure.

The IPO points out that when a collective management organization sets or changes the rate of royalty, it should take into consideration market factors such as the opinion of the user and the conditions of use and management, should report to the IPO, and should wait 30 days after announcing the arrangement before putting it into force. If the user objects to the rate of payment, it can ask the IPO for a review; once the rate is reviewed and a decision made, however, the rate cannot be changed for three years.

Most royalty fees today adopt general authorization, with the fee calculated as a set amount or a ratio. This is unfavorable for users with a relatively small amount of use. The IPO indicates that in the future, collective management organizations will be required to set up two fee calculation models at the same time—one providing payment of a set amount or ratio, the other payment per use—to make the collection of compensation more reasonable.

For royalty fee cases that are undergoing review by the IPO, the draft revision strengthens the temporary payment mechanism whereby the user can pay according to the original rate or make a temporary payment approved by the IPO, thus avoiding civil or criminal liability for infringement. Once a review decision is made, the amount of payment will be adjusted to conform to that decision.