Copyright and Related Rights (Amendment) Bill 2025: Report and Final Stages Dail Éireann — 2026-01-21 ============================================================ Aengus Ó Snodaigh (SF), Dublin South-Central I move amendment No. 1: In page 3, between lines 13 and 14, to insert the following: "Amendment of section 38 of Principal Act 2. In subsection 1(b)(i) of section 38 of the Principal Act, to insert the following after "programme service to a licensing body": "for the purpose of remunerating jointly the copyright owner in the sound recording and the performer(s) whose performance(s) are incorporated in the sound recording, in respect of such playing or inclusion".". These amendments relate to issues that were previously raised on Committee Stage. I and some of the organisations involved had written to the Minister of State in the hope that during the gap between Committee Stage and Report Stage, she would take the time to consider and address the issues with her own amendments on Report Stage. There is not a huge number of issues but they are very pertinent to those who are performers. We did not see ministerial amendments so we have gone ahead and tabled amendments reflecting the work done by Recorded Artists Actors Performers, RAAP, and AEPO-ARTIS, the Association of European Performers' Organisations, which represents more than 500,000 performers across Europe. Both organisations made submissions to the Minister. RAAP has been a lot more concise in this submission because we teased out a lot of the issues on Committee Stage. RAAP sent its submission to the Minister and it had hoped there would be an answer at the very least. A more affirmative answer would have been in the form of amendments to address the clear problems that are still in the Bill. In fairness to both organisations, they offered constructive proposals to improve the wording. The key is to ensure full compliance with the European law. The only reason we are here is because the courts have found that we were not in compliance. We believe that a few minor changes will put us in compliance and I will come back to this. In the amendments I tabled I have echoed the requests of both organisations. We believe there is gravity in this and some of those from RAAP have joined us in the Gallery tonight. They are disappointed that the debate has been guillotined to one hour. Perhaps it will be enough and perhaps the Minister will accept the amendments and we will all be happy with the hour. At the very least, we want to get on the record what the amendments seek to achieve and to make sure, if they are not accepted tonight, that the debate will continue. Perhaps the Minister can look at them again before the Bill goes to the Seanad. I thank RAAP and its legal adviser for the amendments and for the comprehensive notes supplied with the proposed amendments. I will concentrate a lot on this today. Amendments Nos. 1 and 2 deal with two substantial points. Amendment No. 2 proposes to delete words from section 208 of the principal Act and amendment No. 1 proposes to insert wording in section 38 of the principal Act. These are to clarify the revenues collected by the licensing body acting on behalf of the recordings and by the performers whose performances are being incorporated therein. The change proposes to make explicit the effect that the existing provisions of the Act, namely, the payments made under section 38, represent payments for both the copyright owner of the sound recording and the performers whose performances are incorporated in it. It is useful to remove doubt at this point, should any exist, to facilitate simple and efficient collection and the sharing of that right. The amendment expresses what is required under Article 8(2) of Directive 2006/115/EC, namely, the payment of a single, equitable remuneration to be shared. The additional wording proposed in amendment No. 2 bookends the proper transposition of the right to be shared in providing that performers have the right to a share of all payments collected under section 38. The correction of the qualification criteria to provide a common qualification for the right means that there would be no distinction between the sums paid and payable under section 38 and the sums from which the performers' share gets paid. The condition as to the justifiable nature of the costs of collection and their documentation needs to be introduced to avoid any possibility that these protections provided for in section 10(3) of the collective rights management, CRM, regulations might be argued not to apply in circumstances where the collective management organisation, CMO, is collecting licence revenues for rights holders that are not its members. If the Bill puts the producer's CMO in a position of collector of revenues for rights holders that are not its members, then the attendant requirement of transparency and reasonableness off the cost of collection should follow. It is in some ways a bit convoluted but the key is to ensure that we are transposing legislation in the proper fashion, that we do not fall foul of it, and that it is very clear to ensure there is no doubt and to prevent any arguments in the future that would require the Controller of Intellectual Property or, if the Minister of State gets her way, the Circuit Court to deal with them. --- Source: Houses of the Oireachtas. Licensed under CC BY 4.0 (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/). The Official Report is revised after first publication; the fetch timestamp below identifies the version quoted. Record URI: https://data.oireachtas.ie/akn/ie/debateRecord/dail/2026-01-21/debate/main Retrieved: 2026-08-31T01:00:51+00:00 Sitting date: 2026-01-21