Article 54: Assignation of Administration

(1) Authors may assign the administration and/or protection of their rights to a collecting society established exclusively to engage in the functions of administering and protecting all or part of the economic rights. Likewise, collecting societies may perform those functions for a person to whom the author has granted a right as a gift, for a general proxy, for an heir or for a foundation set up by an author. A collecting society may have any form of company status. Where a collecting society is registered as an incorporated company all of its shares shall be nominal. All other matters pertaining to the company status of collecting societies shall be regulated pursuant to Article 24(2) and (4) of Law No. 1746/1988. The notification provided for under Article 24(4) of Law No. 1746/1988 shall be issued only by the Ministry of Culture. A collecting society may have the status of an urban cooperative pursuant to Law No. 1667/1986. Where a collecting society has the status of an urban cooperative the following provisions shall apply:

a) wherever, in Law No. 1667/1986, competence is granted to the Ministry of Finance, that competence shall be transferred to the Ministry of Culture

b) by way of derogation from the principle of locality, the cooperative may be established and function on a nationwide basis

c) all members of the cooperative may be legal entities

d) the articles of association of these cooperatives may provide for the following:

aa) terms, internal procedures and bodies that will decide on the entry, withdrawal of exclusion of a partner, which depart from the terms, procedures and bodies provided for by paragraphs (4), (5), (6), (7) and (8) of Article 2 of Law 1667/1986

bb) that, in the event of the withdrawal or exclusion of a partner or non acquisition of the capacity of a partner by the heirs, there is no claim by the partner or the heirs for the return of their cooperative shares or for payment of the value thereof, or that there is a claim for return of the par value of the shares only

cc) the possibility to aquifer an unlimited number of elective shares by the partners

dd) that cooperative shares cannot be transferred between living persons

ee) categories of partners either without a voting right or with a number of votes per partner which is independent of the number of compulsory or elective shares of each partner

ff) the restriction of the right of subparagraph (b) of paragraph (2), Article 4 of Law 1667/1986 for the protection of the lawful interests of the collecting societies

gg) that, apart form the sum of their shares, the new partners have no obligation of payment and contribution proportional to the net assets of the cooperative or that they have such obligation for a limited time after the establishment of the cooperative

e) these cooperatives are always of limited liability and the partners are not personally liable for the debts of the cooperative

f) a presidential decree issued on suggestion of the Minister for Culture may regulate the matters of Articles 5, 6, 7, and 8 of Law 1667/1986, as well as all matters of internal relations of these cooperatives, in accordance with the provisions applicable in the member states of the European Union concerning the collective management of organizations operating in an identical or similar form.

(2) In cases of unaltered and unabridged secondary transmissions of radio and television programs by cable or other physical means, administration by collecting societies shall be obligatory for the rights of authors.

(3) The title (of a collecting society) may be established by a transfer of such economic rights for which protection is sought, or by grant of appropriate powers of attorney. The title shall be established in writing and shall be for a specified period which shall never be longer than three years. The agreement establishing the title shall specify precisely which of the author’s works are included under the title as suitable for exploitation. In case of ambiguity, it shall be presumed that the agreement embraces all the author’s works, including any works he may create during the term of agreement, which shall in no case be longer than three years.

(4) Before commencing operations, a collecting society which has undertaken or proposes to undertake the administration or protection of rights stemming from the economic right of authors shall lodge a statement to that effect with the Ministry of Culture together with a copy of its rules providing at least the following information:

a) the amount of the society’s share capital

b) if the society has company status, its articles of association or deed of association

c) the name of the responsible spokesman of the society and the names of the persons responsible for its administration, all of whom shall be of proven professional repute and without convictions for felony or misdemeanour against ownership or property

d) the number of authors who have assigned to the society the administration of rights stemming from their economic right

e) the legal form through which the title of administration has been effected

f) in each case, duration of the title

g) the principles governing the distribution of remuneration to right holders and the proposed dates and manner of distribution

h) the level of management expenses as well as any element necessary to ensure the viability of the collecting society and the efficiency of its operations.

The Ministry of Culture shall check the statement and rules lodged by the collecting society and, provided that the information therein contained demonstrates compliance with the requirements of this Law, grant approval for the society’s operations. Any subsequent alteration of the collecting society’s rules shall be submitted to the Ministry of Culture for approval. No alteration to a society’s rules shall be valid without the approval of the Ministry of Culture, and in a case where such approval is either not sought or not granted the rules as initially approved shall continue to apply in their entirety.

(5) The Ministry of Culture shall monitor the operations of collecting societies to ensure that they comply with the provisions of this Law and with their rules. Each collecting society shall, when requested, surrender its accounts to the competent department of the Ministry of Culture for inspection and submit any other information that is necessary for the effective monitoring of its operations. Except when a collecting society is a non profit organization, its accounts shall be subject to inspection by sworn auditors regardless of its company status.

(6) Where a collecting society is found to have perpetrated a serious violation of the Law or of its rules, or continues to perpetrate such a violation despite being admonished by the Ministry of Culture to desist, the Minister of Culture may impose on the collecting society, without prejudice to the applicability of other penalties, an administrative fine of from 500,000 to 10 million drachmas. Matters pertaining to monitoring, the interviewing of alleged perpetrators of violations, the procedure for the imposition of fines and adjustments to the above financial amounts shall be determined by presidential decrees issued on the recommendation of the Minister of Culture.

(7) Wherever the term rules appears in this Law it shall have the meaning of the term as it is used in paragraph (4) of this Article.

(8) The condition of article 54 paragraph 4 item h of the present law is not required when the collecting society meets the following three requirements:

a) it pursues its objectives without profit for itself

b) it is composed of, administered and controlled solely by the creators themselves and is enabled to elect or appoint to its board of directors or supervisors, if any, certain persons who, due to their position or speciality, may provide remarkable services to the said society, provided that the participation of the latter does not interfere with the administration and control of the society by its members’ and

c) the members of the said society would be forced to assign the management and protection of their rights to collecting societies that do not meet the above two requirements (a and b).

(9) In the event of serious violation or repeated violations of the law or rules and, specifically, in the event of non fulfilment of the conditions of article 54 paragraph 4 on the basis of which the operation of a collecting society was authorised, the Minister of Culture may, on motion made by the Copyright Organization, provisionally or finally revoke the authorisation of operation of the specific collecting society.

Article 55: The Competence of Collecting Societies

(1) Collecting societies shall have the competence to perform the following functions:

a) concluding contracts with users specifying the terms of exploitation of works and the remuneration payable

b) securing for authors the percentage fee referred to in Article 32(1) of this Law;

c) collecting remuneration and distributing it among authors as necessary

d) collecting and allocating among authors the remuneration referred to in Article 18(3) of this Law

e) effecting all administrative, judicial and extrajudicial tasks necessary to secure lawful protection of the rights of authors and other right holders, notably taking legal steps and court actions, lodging of complaints and serving writs, appearing as civil plaintiffs, seeking the prohibition of acts deemed to infringe rights whose protection is assigned to them and requesting seizure of unlawful copies pursuant to Article 64 of this Law

f) obtaining from users all information needed for the computation, collection and allocation of remuneration

g) carrying out, in collaboration with public authorities or pursuant to the procedure referred to in Article 64 of this Law, all necessary checks at outlets for the sale, rental and lending of copies of works under their protection, and at public performances of works, in order to protect against infringements of the rights of authors. The establishment act of the collecting society can limit its competence to only part of the above-mentioned.

(2) A collecting society shall be presumed to have the competence to administer and/or protect the rights in all of the works or in respect of all of the authors concerning which or for whom a declaration of transfer to the society has been effected in writing, or for which it has been granted power of attorney. Where a collecting society operating with the approval of the Minister of Culture and 1 Tourism exercises the right to a single equitable remuneration as described in paragraph 1 Article 49 of this Law it shall be presumed that such collecting society represents without exception all beneficiaries, both national and foreign, and all their works. In such a case, the same shall be presumed where, for each category of beneficiaries there are more collecting societies, given that the rights are exercised by the competent collecting societies altogether (as added with article 46 Law 3905/2010). Regardless of whether its authorization rests on a transfer of rights or on power of attorney, a collecting society shall in all circumstances be entitled to initiate judicial or extrajudicial action in its own name and to exercise in full legitimacy all the rights transferred to it, or for which it holds power of attorney.

(3) When seeking the protection of the courts for works or authors under its protection a collecting society shall not be required to provide an exhaustive list of all of the works which have been the object of the unlicensed exploitation, and it may lodge only a sample list.