2024-03-12 23:16:09
The immediate withdrawal of the unconstitutional and anti-community provisions included in the draft law of the Ministry of Culture “Measures for the preservation and promotion of the intangible cultural heritage, the protection and strengthening of Greek-language song and the orchestral musical performance of Greek-language song and the protection and dissemination of of the Greek language, in the context of the preservation and promotion of the intangible cultural heritage”, which has been put into consultation, the Panhellenic Federation of Hoteliers (POX) requests in a letter
In the letter addressed to Ms. Lina Mendoni, Minister of Culture, communicated to Ms. Olga Kefalogiannis, Minister of Tourism and Mr. Akis Skertsos, Minister of State, the president of POX, Mr. Yannis Hatzis, after emphasizing that “…We reasonably expected that the Ministry of Culture would assume its part of the responsibility, in order to rationalize the relevant charges and to cure the pathologies of the existing situation. In particular, to establish a clear framework for collective negotiations to determine the remuneration of the OSDs and to create a common entity that will collect these fees and distribute them to the OSDs”, requests “…to withdraw the disputed provisions, which in addition to issues of constitutionality and compatibility with Community law that they raise, are sure to bring the opposite of the expected results and to legislate, as we have been asking for years, a clear framework for collective negotiations to determine the wages of OSDs”.
More specifically, POX proposes “..as a first step, the integration into the draft law under consultation of the regulation that was included in article 45 (“Remuneration for public performance of music in commercial establishments”) of law 4481/2017, as it was filed in Parliament and which finally, for reasons we do not know, withdrew before its vote”.
The letter
POX’s letter reads as follows:
“Since the year 1993, when the law 2121/1993 came into force, until today the Greek state carefully avoids to include in a clear framework the relations between beneficiaries of intellectual-related rights and users.
Despite the absence of a specific legislative framework, our sector, through XEE, has managed to reach an agreement with almost all of the OSS. In fact, in order to facilitate the process of payment – collection of the fees, it has created a special electronic platform for calculating the relevant charges, which the majority of the OSS has joined.
We reasonably expected that the Ministry of Culture would assume its part of the responsibility, in order to rationalize the related charges and cure the pathologies of the existing situation. In particular, to establish a clear framework for collective negotiations to determine the remuneration of the OSDs and to create a joint entity that will collect these fees and distribute them to the OSDs.
Instead, with the provisions of your Ministry’s draft law, which was put to consultation a few days ago, on the application of a quota to the publicly performed musical repertoire, the prevailing climate of confusion is exacerbated. At the same time, the competitiveness of our tourist product is burdened even more and our businesses are asked to shoulder an incomprehensible bureaucratic burden.
This regulation is not consistent with the framework of principles and values of a modern liberal European democracy.
We note that relevant legislative regulations of other European states, which are also mentioned in the “Analysis of the consequences of the regulation”, which accompanies the draft law, concern exclusively the obligations of state-licensed radio and television stations and certainly not of hotel companies.
With the proposed regulation, your Ministry is imposing on our businesses the music they must use on their premises, directly interfering with their business freedom. At the same time, it obliges us to source the specific music and the used repertoire directly from the OSDs, since obviously in the event that the company chooses radio, television and online rebroadcasting of musical works, neither compliance with the quota can be ensured, nor is it possible to obtain registration of publicly performed musical works in order to draw up the formats required to check compliance with this specific obligation.
Also, it is more than certain that if the specific regulations are finally implemented, they will be at the expense not only of our members and our customers, but also of the copyright holders themselves. Because obviously businesses will prefer to remove music from their common areas, rather than implement this specific, truly incomprehensible, regulation that burdens them both financially and administratively.
We therefore ask you to withdraw the disputed provisions, which, in addition to the issues of constitutionality and compatibility with Community law they raise, will certainly bring the opposite of the expected results and to legislate, as we have been asking for years, a clear framework of collective negotiations to determine the remuneration of the OSDs.
In this regard, we propose, as a first step, the incorporation into the draft law under consultation of the regulation that was included in article 45 (“Remuneration for public performance of music in commercial establishments”) of law 4481/2017, as it was submitted to the Parliament and which finally , for reasons unknown to us, was withdrawn before its vote.
Source money-tourism.gr