Copyright Levies: Transposition of Austria’s Copyright Act Amendment 2015 completed

Already one year ago, on October 1, 2015, Austria’s Copyright Act Amendment 2015 entered into force. The major amendment was the introduction of copyright levies on digital storage. Five month later, in March 2016, collecting societies and industry associations finally agreed on tariffs for storage media and devices newly in scope ranging from as little as EUR 0.35 for memory cards up to EUR 5.00 for computers. These tariffs are applicable retroactively from October 1, 2015. However, there are claims for levies on these products for considerably longer retroactive periods. Therefore negotiations had to be continued for the period up to September 30, 2015. It took negotiating partners another 2 months to find an agreement for periods between 2012 and 2015. Although the rates are quite similar (there is no tariff for memory cards, digital picture frames and smart watches), they are applied retroactively for devices sold as of January 1, 2013, January 1, 2012 for mobile phones respectively. Moreover, Austrian collecting society Austro-Mechana (AUME) has published a list of “compliant” companies. This so called whitelist is in line with paragraph 1.6 of the contract between collecting societies and industry. Contractors on this list have registered, reported and paid copyright levies in time. For more information regarding the general agreement, the framework contract or the list of compliant companies, please contact us at contact@1cc-consulting.com.