(1) In order to contribute to the proper functioning of the internal market, it is necessary to provide for wider dissemination in Member States of television and radio programmes that originate in other Member States, for the benefit of users across the Union, by facilitating the licensing of copyright and related rights in works and other protected subject matter contained in broadcasts of certain types of television and radio programmes. Television and radio programmes are important means of promoting cultural and linguistic diversity and social cohesion, and of increasing access to information.
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(10) Given the specificities of the financing and licensing mechanisms for certain audiovisual works, which are often based on exclusive territorial licensing, it is appropriate, as regards television programmes, to limit the scope of application of the country of origin principle set out in this Directive to certain types of programmes. Those types of programmes should include news and current affairs programmes as well as a broadcasting organisation's own productions which are exclusively financed by it, including where the funds for the financing used by the broadcasting organisation for its productions come from public funds. For the purposes of this Directive, broadcasting organisations' own productions should be understood as covering productions carried out by a broadcasting organisation with the use of its own resources, but excluding productions commissioned by the broadcasting organisation to producers that are independent from the broadcasting organisation and co-productions. For the same reasons, the country of origin principle should not apply to television broadcasts of sports events under this Directive.
The country of origin principle should apply only when programmes are used by the broadcasting organisation in its own ancillary_online_services. It should not apply to the licensing of a broadcasting organisation's own productions to third parties, including to other broadcasting organisations. The country of origin principle should not affect the freedom of rightholders and broadcasting organisations to agree, in compliance with Union law, on limitations, including territorial limitations, to the exploitation of their rights.
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(15) To retransmit initial transmissions of television and radio programmes, operators of retransmission services have to obtain an authorisation from the holders of the exclusive right of communication to the public of works or other protected subject matter.
In order to provide legal certainty to the operators of retransmission services and to overcome disparities in national law regarding such retransmission services, rules similar to those that apply to cable retransmission as defined in Directive 93/83/EEC should apply.
The rules under that Directive include the obligation to exercise the right to grant or refuse authorisation to an operator of a retransmission service through a collective management organisation.
Under those rules, the right to grant or refuse authorisation as such remains intact, and only the exercise of that right is regulated to some extent.
Rightholders should receive appropriate remuneration for the retransmission of their works and other protected subject matter.
When determining reasonable licensing terms, including the license fee, for a retransmission in accordance with Directive 2014/26/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council (7), the economic value of the use of the rights in trade, including the value allocated to the means of retransmission, should, inter alia, be taken into account.
This should be without prejudice to the collective exercise of the right to payment of a single equitable remuneration for performers and phonogram producers for the communication to the public of commercial phonograms as provided for in Article 8(2) of Directive 2006/115/EC, and to Directive 2014/26/EU, in particular its provisions concerning the rights of rightholders with regard to the choice of a collective management organisation.
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(20) In order to ensure that there is legal certainty and to maintain a high level of protection for rightholders, it is appropriate to provide that when broadcasting organisations transmit their programme-carrying signals by direct_injection only to signal distributors without directly transmitting their programmes to the public, and the signal distributors send those programme-carrying signals to their users to allow them to watch or listen to the programmes, only one single act of communication to the public is deemed to occur in which both the broadcasting organisations and the signal distributors participate with their respective contributions. The broadcasting organisations and the signal distributors should therefore obtain authorisation from the rightholders for their specific contribution to the single act of communication to the public.
Participation of a broadcasting organisation and a signal distributor in that single act of communication to the public should not give rise to joint liability on the part of the broadcasting organisation and the signal distributor for that act of communication to the public.
Member States should remain free to provide at national level for the arrangements for obtaining authorisation for such a single act of communication to the public, including the relevant payments to be made to the rightholders concerned, taking into account the respective exploitation of the works and other protected subject matter, by the broadcasting organisation and signal distributor, related to the single act of communication to the public.
Signal distributors face, in a similar manner to operators of retransmission services, a significant burden for rights clearance, except as regards rights held by broadcasting organisations. Member States should therefore be allowed to provide that signal distributors benefit from a mechanism of mandatory collective management of rights for their transmissions in the same way and to the same extent as operators of retransmission services for retransmissions covered by Directive 93/83/EEC and this Directive.
Where signal distributors merely provide broadcasting organisations with ‘technical means’, within the meaning of the case-law of the Court of Justice of the European Union, to ensure that the broadcast is received or to improve the reception of that broadcast, the signal distributors should not be considered to be participating in an act of communication to the public.
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(24) In line with the principles of better regulation, a review of this Directive, including its provisions on direct_injection, should be undertaken after a certain period of time of this Directive being in force, in order to assess, inter alia, its benefits for Union consumers, its impact on the creative industries in the Union, and on the level of investment in new content, and hence also the benefits regarding improved cultural diversity in the Union.
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(26) Since the objectives of this Directive, namely promoting the cross-border provision of ancillary_online_services for certain types of programmes and facilitating retransmissions of television and radio programmes originating in other Member States, cannot be sufficiently achieved by Member States but can rather, by reason of the scale and effects, be better achieved at Union level, the Union may adopt measures in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity as set out in Article 5 of the Treaty on European Union.
In accordance with the principle of proportionality as set out in that Article, this Directive does not go beyond what is necessary in order to achieve those objectives. As concerns the cross-border provision of ancillary_online_services, this Directive does not oblige broadcasting organisations to provide such services across borders. Neither does this Directive oblige operators of retransmission services to include in their services television or radio programmes originating in other Member States. This Directive concerns only the exercise of certain retransmission rights to the extent necessary to simplify the licensing of copyright and related rights for such services and with regard to television and radio programmes originating in other Member States.
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