Collective rights management ordered by law in Hungarian and French copyright law ; La gestion collective des droits des auteurs : ses formes imposées par la loi hongroise et française

The complex mechanism of the collective management of copyrights seeks to facilitate lawful uses of protected works by associating the authors. It can therefore be seen as a strong asset when negotiating licenses granted to (mainly professional) users, and a useful mechanism for monitoring uses through the collection and distribution of license fees and levies. Paradoxically though, collective management imposes also a limitation on the exclusive rights of authors in the broad sense, because it restricts the exercise of economic rights. This latter feature is much more highlighted when the collective management proceeds from the initiative of the legislator.Our thesis is a reflection on the ambiguity of collective management of copyrights ordered by law. The collective exploitation of economic rights is first and foremost a restriction on the exclusive rights of the authors meant to reconcile their interests with those of the public. It should be mentioned, however, that the introduction of collective management by law may sometimes prove the only means of exploitation of works. In this case, the submission of the solution to the special regime of limitations would lead to a result that is contrary to the objective of the collective management.The aims of this specific research focus lies in the fact that the legislator is considering collective management as a response to some questions of today’s copyright law, such as the use of orphan works or digital uses of out-of-commerce books. It is in that sense essential to analyse the details of collective management as ordered by law, and its place within the wider copyright system. This is particularly important because the concept of collective management, as it results from French and Hungarian laws, is not uniform. It includes (i) the mandatory collective management of exclusive rights, (ii) the collective management of statutory licenses or rights to remuneration, (iii) extended collective management, and (iv) the collective management with possibility of ...