RSP, RAO and WIPO are united in one organization for fees in favor of the right holders

On September 18, 2015, the Ministry of Culture of Russia will determine an organization that will charge for personal use of phonograms and audiovisual works in favor of their authors, performers and producers. The tax is collected from manufacturers and importers of equipment, since it is difficult to collect it from people who listen to music and watch movies. Since 2010, the Russian State Union of Rights Holders (RSP), which has been founded by the Russian Authors' Society, the All-Russian Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) and the Filmmakers Union of the Russian Federation, has collected deductions.

WIPO, RSP and the Russian Authors ’Society (RAO) will unite in the“ Trade Union of Cultural Workers, Russian Authors ’Society (MPC RW)”. Film director Nikita Mikhalkov will join the board of the new organization. Culture Minister Vladimir Medinsky supported the idea of ​​unification.

The Russian authors' society collects payments from television channels, radio stations, cinemas, restaurants and other public institutions in favor of composers and songwriters. The All-Russian Intellectual Property Organization collects taxes in favor of performers and manufacturers.

In 2013, the RSP collected 4.3 billion rubles, at the end of the year he concluded 92 contracts with organizations for the payment of the author's fee. In 2013, RAO collected almost 4.4 billion rubles, of which 3.2 billion amounted to payments to authors, and the organization spent 1 billion rubles on its own needs. At the end of the year, RAO concluded 27,000 contracts with copyright users. WIPO collected 939 million rubles and paid out to legal owners 278 million in 2013. The organization has concluded 14.8 thousand contracts with companies that make payments to performers and phonogram producers.
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Three organizations are managed by one team. The President of the Russian Union of Rights Holders is Nikita Mikhalkov, the chairman of the council is his son Artem Mikhalkov, and the general director is Sergey Fedotov, the general director of the Russian Authors' Society. The First Deputy Director General of the RSP Andrei Krychesky is the President of WIPO and is the Deputy Chairman of the Board of Directors of RAO.

For the implementation of fees, organizations need state accreditation. According to RSP lawyer Alexei Kubyshkin, the issued accreditations will be transferred to the new structure in the order of universal succession. The lawyer Svyatoslav Pats does not agree with him: legal entities reorganized in the form of a merger are considered to have ceased operations since the registration of a new person, and lose state accreditation. The new structure will need to go through the procedure for obtaining accreditation again.

This is not bad, but their very existence in the present form of supposedly public organizations that forcibly control the rights of right holders-entrepreneurs, while discriminating them in the right to membership in these structures. They will eliminate the imitation of "competition" in the market of compulsory collective management, as a result, the redistribution of "shares" during consolidation may occur, and Fedotov's role will increase. Ombudsman for the protection of the rights of entrepreneurs in the field of intellectual property Anatoly Semenov on the association of organizations

According to the Minister of Culture, the rector of the Moscow Conservatory. P.I. Tchaikovsky and Alexander Sokolov, a member of the Council of the All-Russian Intellectual Property Organization, who was not allowed to attend a joint conference of organizations on the topic of unification, have a corruption component in the reorganization of RAO, WIPO and RSP. For one and a half hours he was in the “President Hotel”, where he was not allowed into the hall, citing the absence of his last name on the lists. Not all were informed about the conference, but for its holding they chose a regime object. Sokolov is confident that this decision is illegitimate.