Direct fees
In return for the authorisations given by the SCPP under general contracts of common interest, it receives fees directly from users.
The SCPP collects fees for the reproduction of its members’ music videos and their communication to the public directly from television stations, website publishers and public places.
The SCPP collects fees for the reproduction, public communication and supply of the sound recordings in its repertoire directly from the following:
- on-line service publishers;
- sound system operators in public places;
- interactive voice service publishers;
- interactive listening terminal publishers;
- suppliers and users of telephone music-on-hold.
The licence fees received from users depend on:
- the number of track titles the music-on-hold supplier includes for playing
- the number of visits made to the website
- the number of hours of music that the sound system operators reproduce for supply to end users
- sales revenue (with a guaranteed minimum per site) for satellite sound system users;
- the number of references reproduced for suppliers of music to businesses (such as suppliers of jukeboxes or background music systems and music services to business sites or users (e.g. compilation CDs, copying of music onto video etc)
- sales revenue for premium rate telephone services;
- the number of incoming or combined lines for telephone music-on-hold (collected by the SCPA).
Indirect fees
Under French law, certain uses of sound recordings and music videos are excluded from the producer’s exclusive licensing right. In these cases, there is no need for users to obtain authorisation. However, they do have to pay a fee. Several societies collect these fees and then transfer them to the collective administration societies representing the various rights owners (authors, producers and performers).
These societies then distribute the fees to their members.
When a sound recording is played on the radio, in a club or in a public place (restaurant, shopping mall, hairdressing salon, etc), the producer’s and artist’s permission is not required. In return for this statutory licence, the rights owners are entitled to a payment called “equitable remuneration”, collected by the SPRE and then transferred to the societies representing producers (50%) and performers (50%).
Fees for private audio copying are paid by manufacturers and importers of blank recording formats to the appropriate administration society: the Sorecop. These fees are then transferred to the societies representing authors (50%), producers (25%) and performers (25%).
- Private audiovisual copying
The society Copie France is responsible for collecting fees due for private copying from manufacturers and importers of blank visual recording formats. These fees are then transferred in equal shares to the societies representing audiovisual producers, authors and performers.