Macedonia: Willing Authors Needed

03 May 2006

Macedonian Law on Copyright and Associated Rights was adopted by the Sobranie of the Republic of Macedonia (the Parliament) in 1996. After several rounds of changes and amendments, dictated primarily by the demands of the international organizations and, above all, the European acquis communautaire in the field of protection of intellectual property rights, the Law today doesn't differ at all from similar regulations in the other countries of the Balkans or Europe, for that matter.

In terms of protection of rights of authors and copyright owners for a given work, Macedonian Law is fully compliant to the corresponding international norms and the international law. Naturally, that is true also for the provision that states that, unless the author explicitly defines restrictions and freedoms for use of his/her works, the copyrights shall be considered exclusive and the provision that prohibits �all unauthorized copying, reproduction and public performance...�, already mentioned in this dossier on several occasions, enters into force.

Vanco Kosturski, a barrister that specializes in copyright protection believes that "...Macedonia does have an immaculate Copyright Law...", but adds that the true problem lies with its implementation, of the lack thereof.

In his view, the most important role given to this Law in the process of its drafting and adoption was the fight against piracy, in which the state has invested both sufficient and insufficient funds and efforts, while its activities remain sporadic.

One proof of this contradictory situation is the fact that, at least twice per year, the competent inspectorates of the Ministry of Culture invite the press to witness the destruction of seized pirated films and music and yet, to buy the latest releases of the film and music industry, you don�t have to roam the shady, crime ridden neighbourhoods of Skopje and hand around with unsavoury characters. It would suffice to take a stroll around the central square in Skopje and you will find all you need at more than acceptable prices.

The other problem in the field of copyrights, very much present in the other countries of former Yugoslavia, is the relationship between ZAMP (Association for Copyright and Small Rights) and the authors and performers of music in Macedonia. (The situation is almost identical to the one in Croatia, so we would refer you here to the overview of situation regarding copyrights and Creative Commons in Croatia).

Speaking of Creative Commons (CC) and their localization for Macedonia, the things are slowly moving forward, thanks primarily to the free software movement and the efforts to localize the GNU/GPL licence.

We were told at Metamorphosis, a foundation for sustainable information science solutions, that after almost one year of contacts and negotiations, the agreement with Creative Commons was finally signed at the beginning of this month (April 2006). According to the agreement, Metamorphosis will act as local affiliate of CC for Macedonia and shall implement the process of localization of licenses.

Metamorphosis says that the current Law on Copyrights will present no obstacle, whatsoever, and is fully open for the CC licences, so that the organization has already started the work on the creation and establishment of a working group that will work on the legal segments of the project, i.e. the preparation of the legal forms for the different licences available under CC.

It is expected that the creation of a core-group of authors prepared to offer their works under CC licence might prove far more difficult. However, Metamorphosis has already started the negotiations with several NGOs and cultural organizations in Macedonia to establish such group of authors, as well as the creation of technical capacities (archives and databases) for exchange of music, video, film and other digital works.

The Foundation is convinced that there is already some interest for exchange and offer of work under CC licences, especially among authors of electronic music and several video-artists.

Finally, the Foundation is optimistic and believe that the whole work on the localization of licences should be completed by the end of this year, and it is likely that it may actually be done by the end of October 2006.