Acum's chiefs Yorik Ben David and Reuven Ratson talking to Ran Geffen about life under the Anti Trust Commissioner and cutting edge technology in copyright administration. A snap shot of Israel's Copyright Society.

RG: In the past year the Anti Trust Commissioner has declared ACUM as a monopoly.  How did this declaration affect the market place, ACUM's members and the organization itself?

YBD: As far as the market is concerned the declaration has given ACUM's clients a reason to delay the payment of royalties, claiming that as long as ACUM is declared a monopoly it has no legal ability to enforce copyright law thus there is no need to pay.  In addition ACUM could not file any legal actions against infringers until receiving temporary license of activity from the Commissioner. All of the aforementioned has made the collection of royalties a hard task and has diminished ACUM's ability to collect income.

Today, after receiving the temporary conditions, ACUM can act subject to the conditions inflicted by the Commissioner.  However, there are some aspects in those conditions, especially our ability to enforce the law, that narrows ACUM's potential legal actions.  The effect of those limitations will only be known in time. 

The members of ACUM have the feeling that the State does not understand the issues that the writers are facing in a time when the property of writers is being ignored by a lot of users.  The fact that ACUM's activity has been limited raises the question who will collect the royalties and who will fight their battle.  However, today members have ability to act independently and collect the rights directly from broadcasters, record companies and all other types of clients.  In fact a very limited number of members have chosen to use this option and usually this option has been used in places where ACUM finds it hard to collect royalties or in places where the writers think they can get a higher rate than ACUM's rate.

We in ACUM have to abide by the conditions of the Commissioner and we have to adjust work flows and create new ones. 

RG: One of the major issues promoted by ACUM in the past year relates to agreements with broadcasters is called the "Formula".  Can you explain what the philosophy is behind it and its components?

RR: The main idea behind the formula is that a broadcaster would pay royalties only for the actual use of protected works in ACUM's repertoire.  The new component is an additional payment for synchronization rights of existing works.  Here are the principles of the formula:

1.The basic tariff is 10% pro rata based on the timing of the broadcast of copyrighted work from the total time of the broadcast.

2. The two elements are being taken into consideration when calculating the timing of copyrighted works.

a)  Was an existing work synchronized in an audio visual production of the broadcaster.  If so, the actual timing of the broadcast would be multiplied by two.
b) If a musical composition was commissioned to be synchronized in an audio visual of the broadcaster the timing of the composition will remain unchanged.

3. Anytime in the future where the production (this applies only to local productions) will be broadcast the timing ratio will remain unchanged.  In fact the double payment for synchronization of an existing work will remain for perpetuity subject to the number of times it will be broadcast.

RG: In order for the "Formula" to work ACUM needs to make major improvements in the quality of data being registered in ACUM's database.  What do you do in order to ensure this?

RR: ACUM developed in co-operation with the broadcasters reporting platforms that will ensure accurate reports in digital formats.  We strive to get to the point where any manual labour that requires time and effort  will disappear.  Amongst the developments that ACUM did in the past year was an online system where the broadcaster can build cue sheets directly from ACUM's database.  The other functions of the system enable the broadcaster to edit music based programs, retrievement of statistics regarding users of works and custom categorizing of ACUM's database.  All the reports are being done on ACUM's servers and the system is available online regardless of location.

In some of the radio networks ACUM is now conducting a pilot which includes installing a system of digital reporting of radio music line ups.  The system also includes a barcode reader that recognizes the cd's that are stored in the radio stations archive thus creating a live warehouse of works that are identified in ACUM's database. 

ACUM is also using a "finger printing" system that was developed by the Israeli company called Idioma  that gives full recognition to radio station broadcasts, giving ACUM the ability of 100% accuracy in reporting and tracking.

ACUM is currently developing matching programs that will be able to identify copyrighted works from digital text files of music line ups provided by broadcasters.

RG:  Do you have any additional means of supervision?

YBD: ACUM is going to conduct a pilot with another Israeli technology company called M Wise who has developed a royalty enforcement system for all means of digital downloads (all types of ring tones and digital downloads).

RG: How do you handle the registration of ownership of compositions issue?

RR: ACUM will enable its members to register works in the CWR format.  Major publishers such as Sony and EMI have requested us to use this method of registration and we will make it available to anyone subject to the quality of information provided by the members.  An additional development is that ACUM's members will have the ability to register agreements online.  Faze one of the system will launched by 31 December 2005.