The public is aware that a reform is underway in the field of copyright and related rights management in Georgia. On July 26, 2023, amendments to the Law on Copyright and Related Rights entered into force, providing for the regulation of the activities of Collective Management Organizations (CMOs) in accordance with modern international standards, in order to ensure a transparent and fair process for the collection and distribution of royalties.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
The changes were preceded by a lengthy process, including various studies and analyses of the activities of existing organizations. The audit conducted at GCA by order of Sakpatenti was particularly challenging for authors. Its conclusions confirmed assumptions repeatedly expressed by artists that the distribution of royalties was unclear and unfair. The audit findings, together with a number of other identified violations, showed that in several cases collective management organizations\u2014or rather, certain members of their administrative staff\u2014used almost half of the collected royalties for their own benefit. This once again clearly demonstrated the necessity of reform.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It should be regarded as a significant achievement that, under the current law, only accredited organizations are authorized to manage the rights of artists.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Considering the above-mentioned circumstances, the common position of authors affiliated with all CMOs operating in Georgia is that, in a small country like Georgia, it is unjustified to have several organizations separately collecting royalties for authors based on different categories of rights. The greater the number of such organizations, the higher the administrative expenses that authors must bear from their royalties, including the salaries of administrative staff, the costs of appropriate technical equipment, and infrastructure expenses.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Therefore, Georgian authors and performers have agreed that there is a need for a single, well-managed organization that would unite authors and performers from all collective management organizations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Accordingly, we\u2014the artists united from all CMOs operating in Georgia\u2014consider it necessary to establish a single, new platform. In this context, it is logical to bring the organizations we represent under common governance. All of these organizations were founded by authors at different times, and both tangible and intangible assets were acquired using income generated from the management of authors\u2019 rights.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
It should be noted that, in order to obtain accreditation, in addition to the unification of authors and performers, an essential prerequisite is the existence of appropriate material, technical, or other infrastructure. Therefore, both for the purposes of meeting accreditation requirements and for future rights management, we intend to utilize the tangible and intangible property owned by all organizations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
Despite this position, the current head of GCA, Giga Kobaladze, appears to disregard the present reality and has unsuccessfully attempted to be elected as chairman of the organization for the fourth time within the past four months, seeking to continue the state of disorder that, in the authors\u2019 view, has existed in this field for the past 12 years.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
First of all, we would like to inform the public, as well as all interested parties, that at this stage an agreement has been reached with the authors and the current leadership of GERA. The organization will be transferred to the management of the artists united within the CMO, so that the new platform will have an appropriate legal and material foundation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
By decision of the authors and performers, the composition of the organization\u2019s board, authors\u2019 council, and supervisory board will be renewed. These governing bodies will bring together authors who currently represent all CMOs operating in Georgia.<\/p>\n\n\n\n
At the invitation of the authors and performers, an experienced German professional, Stefan Schulz, founder of Universal Mobile<\/em>, will be appointed Director of the Organization\u2019s International Relations Department. At the same time, in order to ensure the smooth handling of the accreditation process and ongoing administrative matters, and at the request of the authors, the Acting Director General will assume the position of Chairman of the Board. He will remain in this role at least until the next general meeting, in accordance with Georgian legislation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n We would like to note that the creation of the new unified platform is not aimed solely at obtaining accreditation, but rather at the development of the artistic field. Its ultimate goal is to strengthen the protection of intellectual property rights in the country while simultaneously fostering the growth of the artistic sector.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" The public is aware that a reform is underway in the field of copyright and related rights management in Georgia. On July\u2026<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":27811,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[81],"tags":[],"acf":[],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipoa.ge\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27717"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipoa.ge\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipoa.ge\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipoa.ge\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipoa.ge\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=27717"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/ipoa.ge\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27717\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":27718,"href":"https:\/\/ipoa.ge\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/27717\/revisions\/27718"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipoa.ge\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/27811"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/ipoa.ge\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=27717"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipoa.ge\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=27717"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/ipoa.ge\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=27717"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}