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Media
IFPI file complaint over Russian collecting society
By CMU Editorial | Published on Wednesday 29 July 2009
The boss of the International Federation Of The Phonographic Industry, John Kennedy, has sent a letter to Russian prime minister Vladimir Putin expressing concern that a Russian collecting society is collecting royalties for labels represented by the IFPI, even though the society doesn’t have deals in place with those labels.
Presumably there’s a concern the collecting society has dodgy motives and won’t pass royalties back on to actual rights holders, or will dish out licenses at rates not agreed to by the record companies (when rouge Russian download service AllofMP3.com was big news, it was often reported it was actually licenced, but through some dodgy Russian collecting society that allowed them to sell DRM-free music at a fraction of the usual cost).
The collecting society causing concern is a privately owned operation called VOIS. The IFPI is appealing to Putin because a copyright law introduced in Russia last year regulated collecting societies, and societies now have to be accredited by the country’s government. VOIS is not, it seems, accredited. It remains to be seen in the Russians will investigate VOIS on Kennedy’s behalf.
A spokesman for the society denied the IFPI’s claims, telling Russian business paper Kommersant: “We only collect royalties for rights holders we have direct agreement with”.
But the boss of a rival Russian collecting society told Billboard: “There are questions about transparency of operations of VOIS. For instance, it collects royalties from Russian RailWays [on music played on the stations and trains operated by the state-run company], but it is not clear, what rights holders actually receive from them”.
