On several occasion the European Commission has come to examine reciprocal representation agreements under which the national collecting societies typically mandate to one another the management of their own repertories. Although it has not questioned the validity of the whole representation agreements, the Commission’s intervention highlighted the anti-competitive nature of the clauses and of the conclusive conduct aimed at preserving the existence of territorial barriers within the market and, therefore the existence of national monopolies which appeared to be no longer justifiable in light of the cross-border circulation of intellectual property and the new technologies that enable the remote monitoring of the actual use of said works. The CISAC case is particularly interesting because the General Court has partially reversed the Commission’s finding of art. 101 TFEU infringement by holding that collecting societies’ parallel conduct, allegedly aimed at partitioning the market, was not a concerted practice as it was justified by reasons related to a better enforcement of rights on a local level.
Società di gestione collettiva dei diritti fra tutela della proprietà intellettuale e diritto della concorrenza: brevi note a margine della pronunzia International confederation of societies of authors and composers (CISAC) c. Commissione europea
AREZZO, Emanuela
2014-01-01
Abstract
On several occasion the European Commission has come to examine reciprocal representation agreements under which the national collecting societies typically mandate to one another the management of their own repertories. Although it has not questioned the validity of the whole representation agreements, the Commission’s intervention highlighted the anti-competitive nature of the clauses and of the conclusive conduct aimed at preserving the existence of territorial barriers within the market and, therefore the existence of national monopolies which appeared to be no longer justifiable in light of the cross-border circulation of intellectual property and the new technologies that enable the remote monitoring of the actual use of said works. The CISAC case is particularly interesting because the General Court has partially reversed the Commission’s finding of art. 101 TFEU infringement by holding that collecting societies’ parallel conduct, allegedly aimed at partitioning the market, was not a concerted practice as it was justified by reasons related to a better enforcement of rights on a local level.I documenti in IRIS sono protetti da copyright e tutti i diritti sono riservati, salvo diversa indicazione.
