Copyright and Related Rights (Amendment) Bill 2025: Report and Final Stages
Dail Éireann — 2026-01-21
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Niamh Smyth (FF), Cavan-Monaghan

I thank all the Deputies on the committee because we had some robust debates on this matter, which I appreciate. I welcome the representatives of RAAP, who are in the Gallery. I thank them for the engagement they have had with the officials in my Department on this. I know they were sincerely meant and very meaningful.
I thank Deputy Ó Snodaigh for these amendments. The sharing of equitable remuneration or royalties between producers and performers, when music is played or performed in public, is required by international, EU and national copyright law. This Bill clarifies how this sharing takes place in the case of disputes. It also grants the role of the final arbiter to the Circuit Court rather than the Controller of Intellectual Property Office of Ireland.
The purpose of the Bill is to address the findings of the Court of Justice in its judgment of September 2020 with respect to deficiencies in Ireland's transposition of Article 8(2) of the rental and lending directive. The manner in which these licence fees are collected does not fall within the scope of the judgment nor of the Bill. It is already clearly set out in Irish law in the collective rights management regulations, which transpose the EU directive on collective rights management, that any deductions made by collective management organisations must be justified and documented. This wording is already contained in those regulations. These deductions are subject to further scrutiny by the competent authority within the Intellectual Property Office of Ireland. Inclusion of this wording is, therefore, not necessary. Rights holders have the freedom to choose their collective management organisations and to assign rights to them.

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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