Ukraine has launched an innovative platform for developing a transparent market of copyright and neighboring rights –Ukrainian Service for Authors. This is a collective management organization to collect and distribute royalties among all market stakeholders based on the principle of full transparency. This was stated by Vladislav Mitsovskyi, development director, Ukrainian Service for Authors, at a briefing held at Ukraine Crisis Media Center. “Today Ukraine has 18 collective management organizations. They gathered and allocated UAH 60 million over the current period. In Poland, where the population is about the same as in Ukraine, only one of the organizations collects EUR 80 million – it is 40 times more than all Ukrainian organizations. According to estimates, we can receive and distribute up to two billion royalties. The money is already on the market, but the non-transparency of distribution prevents them from reaching the right holder,” stated Mr. Mitsovskyi. According to him, a huge amount of counterfeit product and the non-transparent collection and distribution of royalties confirm the Ukrainian status of one of the main pirates. This significantly hinders entering the European market. The idea of the service is to bring the author and the consumer of products as close to each other as possible.
Vladislav Mitsovskyi informed that the author places his works on the platform accessible to the user. And the user can conveniently get a license for using them. The author controls the way they are used, sees statistics, and receives online payments. “The platform is based on a new principle of allocation of collected funds. According to it, 80 percent of funds are automatically transferred online to the authors’ accounts,” he explained. Provision is also made for the execution of packages for purchasing a certain number of songs. “It is difficult to control the use of works by various kinds of cafes and bars, especially by the remote ones. They can visit our service, create a package of songs used by them and pay all royalties to the author,” said Mr. Mitsovskyi.
Roman Kirdanov, IT project director, Ukrainian Service for Authors, informed that the right holder must register on the site, specify the bank account and sign a contract in paper format. “We must identify the right holder for the money to be transferred exactly to the person entitled to certain tracks,” he explained. The user can execute all documents, including the agreement, in electronic format. According to Mr. Kirdanov, the pricing of works is based on the principles that already exist in the collective management organizations. Prices vary depending on the cities and places where the tracks are played over.
