Aengus Ó Snodaigh (Dublin South Central, Sinn Fein)

While I would usually welcome any move to address some of the lacunas in our copyright law which ensure that creatives do not get their just desserts, there are parts of this Bill that concern me. We only got sight of it for the first time last Friday, and I have made a complaint to the Government Whip about that. The convention is that Bills are produced at least two weeks before they are discussed. That is not a political charge but applies to all TDs. If TDs, including backbenchers and Opposition Deputies, are to do their work properly they need time to address issues contained in legislation.

While this is a short Bill, it provides for fundamental change in terms of the approach to copyright. As the Minister of State mentioned in his introduction, the Irish High Court referred a question to the CJEU for a preliminary ruling on a case taken by the Recorded Artists, Actors and Performers, RAAP, and Phonographic Performance Ireland, PPI. At question in case C was ensuring that those involved were properly funded and proper rights were given. The approach that the Government is taking here is as a result of some of the findings of that court. While the Minister of State is trying to present this legislation as a tidying up of the law and arguing that it is technical a technical measure arising from the case taken by RAAP, the Bill in fact sets out to fundamentally alter how disputes around copyright in music and sound recordings are resolved. Previously, the Controller of the Intellectual Property Office had oversight but all of a sudden we are moving towards the Circuit Court having oversight. That is hugely challenging and is not fully explained here. Indeed, I do not think most people have grasped that fundamental change. Hopefully the Minister of State will elaborate on Committee Stage as to why such a fundamental change is being presented as a minor one. It could have huge cost implications for creatives.

Another concern is the fact that the Government is moving to a system of individual cases. People will have to take individual cases rather than have representative organisations take cases on their behalf. Again, that is a fundamental change. The approach up to now has been mediation and arbitration because once something goes to the courts and the courts have oversight, things become a lot more legalistic and costly. The parties who generally have the funds to take that approach are big companies and those with wealth behind them rather than individual creatives who are producing or writing the music or who benefit in some way from copyright or related laws.

As important as copyright is, this is not an emergency situation. As a result, we could have teased matters out further. I know that pre-legislative scrutiny was waived by the relevant committee, but I do not think it was informed of the fundamental changes provided for in this Bill. If pre-legislative scrutiny had been undertaken, we could have heard various voices comment on this and the Minister of State would have had an opportunity to explain in greater detail the wide-ranging changes that are proposed. The stakeholders should have been consulted. I will continue to engage with them in the coming weeks before we get to Committee Stage, unless that is fast-tracked as well.

I have already spoken to quite a number of stakeholders across the music sector since the Bill was published. While there is consensus that it is broadly welcome that the Government is finally acting on the RAAP case, many of the key players in the sector feel completely blindsided by some of the changes that the Minister of State has suggested, especially in relation to the courts and who can take cases. Why were stakeholders in the industry, particularly the individual representative organisations for creatives, not consulted before the proposed overhaul contained in the Bill was put forward?

The court case made its findings a number of years ago. We have had enough time in which to tease out exactly how to progress this issue and give full effect to the ruling without blindsiding people.

It is worth noting the objectives of the Bill as laid out in the explanatory memorandum. The first objective is that the 2006 copyright rental and lending directive be fully transposed. That is vital. The directive sets out that authors and performers have an unwaivable right to equitable remuneration. We have been making the case for some time that the right to fair remuneration under EU law copyright law must be respected. Last week, the Dáil passed First Stage of the Bill I introduced to ensure respect for the copyright of performers in the film sector when granting tax relief. My proposal was on foot of a campaign by Irish Equity and the cross-party recommendations of the budgetary oversight committee.

Respect for the legal rights of workers should not be optional for employers. Amid all the other scandals engulfing RTÉ, I have heard disturbing reports of the national public broadcaster requesting that performers waive their unwaivable rights to future residual payments by way of so-called buy-out contracts. I raised this directly with RTÉ representatives at the media committee last week. It is worrying that just as the RTÉ solicitor and head of the regulatory section began telling me categorically that the organisation does not engage in this practice, RTÉ's director of video cut her off mid-sentence to state that there are different forms of different contracts which might be required. I did not get what I wanted, which was that RTÉ would be able to fundamentally state that it is not involved in such buy-out contracts. What sort of culture of omertaexists in RTÉ if its own solicitor is cut off while explaining to an Oireachtas committee exactly what has been happening regarding the buying out of people's rights?

The effort to reinforce the rights of performers under EU copyright law in Irish legislation is welcome. I support that aim of the Bill. I also support its second aim, which is to ensure copyright law is compliant with our international obligations under the World Intellectual Property Organization Performances and Phonograms Treaty and the Rome Convention. Nationals of other countries who have signed up to these treaties will now be able to vindicate their rights under Irish law. It is welcome and only right that we recognise the rights of other nationals who avail of those rights in Ireland. However, we need clarity from the Government that the principle of reciprocity will be respected. If Irish nationals from other contracting powers can vindicate their rights here, Irish nationals should also be able to vindicate their rights in those states. That might not need to be stated in the legislation. The Minister of State might clarify whether it is a given in the case of our signing up to these international obligations that all those we are respecting will also respect Irish nationals in such cases.

The third aim of the Bill is to provide for a default equal sharing of royalty payments between producers and performers of sound recordings. This is a commendable and hard-fought win for Irish performers. I commend RAAP on taking its case against the representatives of the major music labels and the State all the way to Europe and winning it. Practices introduced by major record labels had, in effect, reduced the share of earnings for sound recordings paid to performers from what should have been half to approximately 20%. I have heard over the years from recorders and performers about how they have been treated. RAAP, the Irish Music Rights Organisation, IMRO, and Hot Presshave highlighted these issues over the years. It fell on deaf ears in some ways because we were awaiting the ruling of the court, which was made in 2020. We have waited for this Bill and its introduction represents a good day for the music industry as a whole. It clarifies where the funding should go and I hope performers and producers will benefit accordingly. It will make things easier for all.

We welcomed the ruling at the time and we welcome that it is finally being implemented five years later. However, we have concerns, as already stated, regarding the fourth and final objective set out in the Bill, as detailed in the explanatory memorandum, which is to improve the dispute resolution process. I have not seen a clear explanation as to what was faulty about that process or what the problem was with the controller of intellectual property. In the briefing note on the Bill, the Minister indicates that the Department has concluded that the controller of intellectual property is unable to fulfil the function conferred on him by the Copyright and Related Rights Act as he is deemed not to have the necessary judicial competence to exercise that function. Rather than give additional powers to the controller, this function is to be shifted to the Circuit Court. Anybody who knows the courts system in Ireland knows it is slow, burdensome and costly. In recent years, the general trend has been to seek to ensure people do not end up in the courts system. In that context, the other approach of supporting the controller of intellectual property to perform his function would have been more appropriate.

The Minister is not removing all the functions of the controller under the copyright Act. He will still be able to resolve disputes regarding patents and designs, trademarks and copyright, just not in respect of sound recordings. This is odd because dealing with those other issues could also end up requiring the judicial competence we are told the controller does not have in regard to this particular issue. I have not encountered in any of the research I have done recently or in the past any complaints about the controller's role. I do not see what the problem can be. Usually, the approach is that if something is not broken, we should not fix it. I am concerned about this change. Many musicians and performers will see going to court and employing legal counsel to pursue royalties as simply being beyond their means. If securing a few thousand euro requires investing in a solicitor and a barrister to pursue the matter in the Circuit Court, the likelihood is that people will not pursue it.

The change in respect of the controller of intellectual property is not the only change. The long-standing framework enshrined in section 208 (4) to (9), inclusive, of the Copyright and Related Rights Act provides for an engagement to take place between a person responsible for playing or broadcasting a recording and a licensing body acting on behalf of copyright owners. These provisions are being deleted and replaced by new subsections (3A) to (3E), inclusive, which not only remove the role of the controller but also remove the role of the licensing bodies. An individual performer who may live off an incredibly precarious income will now have to make a case against an individual copyright owner, which may well be quite a wealthy record label. There is no explanation for this change. The Minister of State might address that when he responds.

The worst thing that can happen is that we discourage those who have particular rights from pursuing those rights where they have been wronged. I do not oppose the Bill but I am concerned at the direction being taken on those two points, namely, the move towards the Circuit Court for dispute resolution and the deletion of the role of organisations that represent artists or performers in respect of copyright.

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