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CREA TIVEFIRST COPYRIGHT 101

A copyright society is a registered collective administration society under
Section 33 of the Copyright Act for the management and protection of the
copyright of the authors and owners of works and is entitled to grant licenses in
respect of any work in which copyright subsists. Such a society is formed by
authors and owners. A copyright society can issue or grant licences in respect
of any work for which it is authorised to by the authors or owners of the work.

The purpose of copyright society is to provide a one window license and
administration system for the speci c works it is set up for. Absence of such
copyright societies would result in users going to each owner of works
independently making it an impossible and impracticable exercise to track each
owner and negotiate terms with them. Typically organizations / users who wish
to exploit works would prefer taking a blanket license from a one stop shop
which is a copyright society. Ease of doing business increases the revenue
generation avenues and results in a win-win situation for creators, owners and
users.

Membership with a copyright society bene ts both authors and owners of
works as they would be entitled to collect their share of royalties from the
copyright society which in turn would collect it from users of the copyright
society’s repertoire. Additionally, authors’ share of royalties cannot be collected
by owners of copyright (where they are assignees of the Author) as this is
restricted under the Copyright Act. Such a role can however be ful lled by the
copyright society.

A copyright society is generally registered for a particular class of work and is
subject to the collective control of the authors and owners of speci c class of
work. The rights of such works (such as issue or grant of licences in respect of
any work for which it is authorised) are administered by the society . The
governing body of such society consists of equal number of authors and
owners.
The rate of royalty for the licenses issued by the copyright society is
determined by the tariff scheme of such society and such royalties are distribut-
ed to the authors and owners of the rights comprising such society in
accordance with its distribution scheme. With respect to works included in
cinematograph lms or sound recordings, the business of granting licenses can
only be carried out by a registered copyright society. Copyright societies are

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