SAA welcomes reintroduction of private copying levies in Spain
On 4th August, the private copying levy system will be re-introduced in Spain following years of court cases and insufficient compensation from the state budget.
In 2011 the Spanish government stopped the levy system that compensates rightholders for the private copying of creative works, previously on blank cassettes or discs and now on memory cards, mobile phones and hard drives. This change saw the compensation for private copying collapse from €115 million to just €5 million while the cost of devices to consumers remained constant.
In 2013 a group of Spanish collective management organisations, including SAA member DAMA took the Spanish government to court and submitted a complaint to the European Commission for infringement of the 2001 Copyright Directive. The Spanish case was referred to the CJEU (Case C-470/14, EGEDA v. Administracion del Estado) which ruled on the case on 9th June 2016 recommending that the state system be declared void and the Spanish Supreme Court enacted this on 10th November 2016.
On 3rd July the private copying levy system was reinstated by Royal Decree with a provisional non-precedential list of devices and tariffs. The definitive list of devices and tariffs will be confirmed next year.
You can see SAA’s infographic describing how private copying levies work here.