Re: Video Rental

On Thu, 26 Oct 1995, Roberto Leiva wrote:
>
> Dear colleagues:
>
> I'm an attorney practicing in Costa Rica, Central America. Our
> copyright regulations require the purchaser of home videos (for
> example a video rental store or club) to have permission from the
> copyright owner in order to be able to rent the material to its
> customers. My understanding is that the regulations in the US are
> different in this respect. Am I right? Are there other
> jurisdictions with similar regulations to ours in Costa Rica?
>
> Sincerely,
>
> Roberto Leiva (rleiva[_at_]sol.racsa.co.cr)

Roberto,

Here's the situation in Europe (European Union):

The European Community Directive on Rental and Lending Rights and on Piracy (92/100/CEE, Official journal of the EC n# L 346/61) provides for member states to implement (among other things) a rental right for authors in relation to various subject-matters of protection, but also for performers and producers in relation to phonograms (sound recordings) and videograms.

These had to be implemented before July 1st, 1994.

Roughly, the system is as follow:

The Rental and Lending rights apply to all copyrighted works, except architectural works, designs and software (a rental right is provided for software in the 1991 EC Directive on software protection). A member state can choose not to implement the Lending right (lending only), in which case authors and performers shall obtain an "equitable remuneration" (art 5).

For the rationale of the Directive, see E.C. Commission Green Paper (Doc.Com.(88) 172 Final, Brussels June 1988, Chapter 4).

Concerning now the situation of Member states in 1992 (some have implemented the directive, but most are still working on special points, like the U.K. for example):

A rental right was granted to authors in Denmark (Law of May 31, 1961, by way of exception to the exhaustion principle), Italy (Law of April 22, 1941, but only in relation to sound or audiovisual recordings), Portugal (Law of March 14, 1985) and Spain (Law of November 11, 1987). The British CDPA 1988 grants a rental right in relation to softwares and to sound recordings and films producers). The German Law granted authors a right to remuneration (Law of September 9, 1965, art. 17). In France authors seem to have a rental right ("droit de destination" deducted from IP Code provisions), and such a right is expressly granted to sound recording and videogram producers). Nothing provided for in Greece, Ireland, Luxembopurg and Holland. I do not remember the situation in new E.U. members.

(to people of the List from these countries: correct me if I'm wrong)

The most comprehensive book on the subjet is J.Reinbothe and S.Von Lewinski, The EC Directive on rental and lending rights and on Piracy, Sweet and Maxwell 1993.

Hope that helps,

get back to me if you need more details,

Pascal Kamina
Univ. of Cambridge
Trinity College
Cambridge CB2 1TQ
Pk10005[_at_]hermes.cam.ac.uk   Received on Sat Oct 28 1995 - 11:19:07 GMT