FIMI: SIAE stickers violate copyright Rome - No doubt, no hesitation: the Federation of Italian music, long time critic of the whole question
SIAE , has taken an official position clear. According to FIMI legislation for the affixation
on media should be scrapped as soon .
FIMI has said during a hearing at the Ministry of Culture, explaining to subscribe also the position taken by both the European Court of Justice that the European Commission, that the SIAE conflict with Community law. The Federation insists on this point, emphasizing how violation of EU rules impact on transparency, but above all, the SIAE
hinders the principle of free movement of goods within the EU .
The music industry detail this aspect, so important for the current business of producing industry: the EC Treaty, FIMI recalls, "prohibits the Member States to enact legislation capable of hindering, directly or indirectly, actually or potentially, intra-Community trade. There is no doubt that the configuration for affixing the SIAE as a requirement violates this fundamental principle of the Single Market. "
The reference is obvious: the current system contrassagnatura forces producers who spread works covered by copyright of "altering the packaging of products and support additional labeling costs for those products for sale on the Italian market." In other words: the Italian market end products
diversified than those distributed in other markets, with additional costs and timing defect is not the will of the authors or publishers but rather to satisfy the requirement of marking provided to the Company of the authors and publishers.
not alone. FIMI points out that the manufacturers of the above should also use separate distribution channels
to avoid media in Italy do not end up with no markings. "Furthermore - continued FIMI - Distributors EU import CDs, DVDs or music non-Italian in a given Member State, and that at some point wish to re-export to Italy, would be discouraged from doing so because of the burden of additional costs and , that the purchase and affixing the SIAE in the packaging of CDs and DVDs behavior. "
The Federation has also reminded the Minister that the European Court of Justice has not only already rejected the SIAE in the past but has already done several times against
the labeling requirements in other areas, such as on certain food products conditioned by a labeling required by Belgian law, which ended up stamps weigh on producers by altering the free market.
And there are no exceptions
, FIMI ear, because "the legislation sull'apposizione mark in no way promotes public policy or the interests of consumers and is not necessary for the protection of intellectual property. On the contrary, 'obligation to affix the SIAE not expressed any need for protection. we consider that in order to obtain the SIAE is sufficient clearance by the applicant in which he claims to respect the rules on copyright. The law does not require any prior verification by the SIAE that the applicant is a holder of copyright or has been authorized by the holder of those rights. Neither the SIAE conducts no independent verification to ensure that a product on which the mark should be affixed is genuine. The mark therefore has no relation to the legality of the product. "
The reasons for the permanent removal of the heavy tax include the fact that, according to FIMI,
violates the copyright, criminal law and the Italian Constitution . The reason: It is in the judgments of the Supreme Court, where it shows a striking paradox: "Art. 171bis back the penalty only to the absence of the SIAE on media containing computer programs, without any relation with the actual originality of the product. In other words, the original manufacturer that bestow legal products in terms of discharge of copyright but no mark could be held liable for breach of Article. 171bis Instead the counterfeiters who have stamped the SIAE (true or false) about illegal products will not suffer any penalty. This reverses the meaning and purpose of criminal law on copyright, making it even counterproductive. "
