About organization
The Serbian Film Authors’ Organization is a non-profit organization whose goal is the collective realization of property copyrights for film authors and other rights holders. UFUS AFA PROTECTION protects the rights of film (and television) authors: directors, screenwriters, cinematographers and authors of animated films on the basis of the contract they have concluded with UFUS AFA PROTECTION or on the basis of the Law on Copyright and Related Rights (composers exercise their rights through SOKOJ).
What rights does UFUS AFA PROTECTION protect?
The general rule is that no property copyright authorization can be exercised without the permission of the author. The author, or the copyright holder, has the absolute, exclusive, erga omnes right to prohibit or allow others to use his work
Film authors are the owners of their works, therefore they are authorized to allow or prohibit anyone from duplicating these works, showing them in cinemas, broadcasting, rebroadcasting, communicating in public places, making them available interactively (video on demand), etc.
They can exercise their rights individually or collectively and this mostly depends on the very nature of certain forms of exploitation.
Individual Realization of Property Copyrights
Thus, the right to reproduction, cinematography, broadcasting and making them available in an interactive way are exercised individually, since in those situations it is relatively simple for the rights holder and the user to enter into direct negotiations on the terms of use.
Collective Realization of Property Copyrights
However, certain property rights cannot be exercised individually, so they are exercised collectively. Such is the case with rebroadcasting.
What is the rebroadcasting of film works?
Even though our law creates some confusion because it unnecessarily distinguishes between rebroadcasting and cable rebroadcasting, rebroadcasting essentially represents any simultaneous communication of a film work to the public in an unaltered and complete form by a person other than the TV station that originally broadcasts the film work.
In practice, rebroadcasting is done via cable system, IPTV, over-the-top services (OTT) or direct to home (DTH) service.
Why is it impossible to exercise the right to rebroadcast film works individually, in contrast to the right to screen or broadcast them in cinemas?
Well, because operators appear as beneficiaries of the right to rebroadcast film works, who simultaneously distribute a large number of television programs within which an even greater number of film works are broadcast.
The operator is not familiar with the programming scheme of each channel it distributes in its offer, thus, it has no knowledge of whose works it is rebroadcasting, so it is not even able to obtain the right to rebroadcast film works in a direct relationship with the author or another rights holder.
For this reason, our legislation stipulates the obligation to exercise the right to rebroadcast exclusively in an organization for the collective exercise of copyright.
Whose work does UFUS AFA PROTECTION protect?
Based on the law and the license of the Intellectual Property Office, UFUS AFA PROTECTION is authorized to “prohibit or permit the rebroadcasting and cable rebroadcasting of film works” for all domestic and foreign cinematic works.
Namely, there are three categories of
authors/rights holders of film works, namely:
– domestic
authors – members of UFUS AFA PROTECTION,
– domestic
authors who are not members of UFUS AFA
PROTECTION
– and foreign authors.
Domestic authors – members of UFUS AFA PROTECTION
Domestic authors - members of UFUS AFA PROTECTION exclusively assigned their rights to UFUA AFA PROTECTION, with the permission to conclude contracts with users of copyright works (operators) on the non-exclusive assignment of those rights on their behalf.
Domestic and foreign authors who are not members
UFUS AFA PROTECTION protects the rights of both domestic and foreign authors who are not their members, given that the legal assumption established in our law is that the organization has the authority to act on behalf of all domestic and foreign copyright holders in regard to those rights and those types of subjects of protection that are covered by their activity, i.e. their permit.
This represents a so-called extended license, an institute which is generally accepted in the international regulation of collective protection of copyright and related rights.
