Hotel operator which provides televisions/radios is a user making a communication to the public

COPYRIGHT - NEIGHBOURING RIGHTS

Hotel operator which provides televisions and/or radios is a user making a communication to the public of a phonogram which may be played in a broadcast and is obliged to pay equitable remuneration.
 

"47. Having regard to the foregoing, the answer to the first question is that a hotel operator which provides in guest bedrooms televisions and/or radios to which it distributes a broadcast signal is a ‘user’ making a ‘communication to the public’ of a phonogram which may be played in a broadcast for the purposes of Article 8(2) of Directive 2006/115.

55. Having regard to the foregoing observations, the answer to the second question is that a hotel operator which provides in guest bedrooms televisions and/or radios to which it distributes a broadcast signal is obliged to pay equitable remuneration under Article 8(2) of Directive 2006/115 for the broadcast of a phonogram, in addition to that paid by the broadcaster."

Hotel operator which provides other apparatus and phonograms which may be played on or heard from such apparatus is also a user making a communication to the public of a phonogram and is obliged to pay equitable remuneration.
 

"69. Having regard to the foregoing, the answer to the fourth question is that a hotel operator which provides in guest bedrooms, not televisions and/or radios to which it distributes a broadcast signal, but other apparatus and phonograms in physical or digital form which may be played on or heard from such apparatus, is a ‘user’ making a ‘communication to the public’ of a phonogram within the meaning of Article 8(2) of Directive 2006/115/EC. It is therefore obliged to pay ‘equitable remuneration’ under that provision for the transmission of those phonograms."

Hotel operator does not fall under the private use exception.

"77. Having regard to the foregoing, the answer to the third and fifth questions is that Article 10(1)(a) of Directive 2006/115, which provides for a limitation to the right to equitable remuneration provided for by Article 8(2) of that directive in the case of ‘private use’, does not allow Member States to exempt a hotel operator which makes a ‘communication to the public’ of a phonogram, within the meaning of Article 8(2) of that directive, from the obligation to pay such remuneration."

IPPT20120315, CJEU, PPI v Ireland

C-162/10 - ECLI:EU:C:2012:141