Non Music DVD | Recommendation - September 2003

Preliminary comments

Societies subject to a statutory and compulsory licence or to a court/arbitration proceeding are not bound by the present recommendations in accordance with Article 7(4) of the BIEM Statutes.

The following aspects may have influence on royalty calculation in regard to all of the recommendation

• the representation or non-representation of other categories of right owners;
• the necessity to license synchronisation right, where such right exists.

General remarks:

• to introduce provisional scheme to be used until 31 December 2004;
• this scheme only applies to normal sales and not to rental;
• the license agreements should contain the provision that the license is considered granted only after payment of the royalty;
• the question of international negotiations through BIEM should be investigated;
• any possible new technology discount can only be considered at the BIEM level.

The following wording was agreed by the committee for DVD with non-music prevailing content:

• a. Audio-visual productions : such as TV programs, educational and training programs, etc.
• b. Feature Film : Film videos covering motion pictures on video (films on video) TV-films on video, TV-series on video and video films produced for video exploitation. Cartoons and animated Films can also be feature films.

Given the fact that the licensing conditions in force for this kind of usage are very different from country to country, it is not possible at this moment to recommend a coherent licensing structure. Societies are therefore recommended to negotiate with their users a rate for DVD that recognizes the greater quality and value of the usage as compared to pre-existing formats.