Mobiles and USB memories will pay the new digital canon

Government and management entities discuss a reformulation of the rate to be approved urgently

   Change of draft in the digital canon, which may release a partially unpublished model that would support the rate on the sale of mobiles and USB sticks. The government and the management entities are discussing the pact of a new model that would pass the rate to compensate the creators for private copies of their work in the price of mobile phones and other media and recording devices. This was advanced Thursday by sources familiar with an agreement "far from being closed," according to sources from the Ministry of Culture.

"There is a working document but we are in an initial phase of the discussion and we must make it clear that this is not a return to previous formulations of the digital canon without juridical fit", point from Culture. "We must continue negotiating with the sector and the other ministries involved and many changes could still be made," they insist.

   It would be, however, a system similar to the one that was in force until 2011, although with variations. The money to compensate the authors would come out of the sale price of the electronic supports or recording devices of contents subject to intellectual property, this is recordable CDs, mobile phones, or USB memory.

The text would include criteria to establish the amount to be paid, such as the intensity of use of the devices and supports, their storage capacity, the impact of the copy on the sale of the original work or the digital or analogical nature of the reproduction. It says that there is no obligation of compensation when the damage to the author is minimal. But the big question is in the figure that the creators would perceive and that several studies place between 50 and 80 million euros.

According to the formula under discussion, companies and public administrations would be exempt from the fee and natural and legal persons would have the option of requesting reimbursement if they show that the copies they make have professional purposes. This is established in a draft of the royal decree "which is only a document of work", insists Culture.

The regulations would establish the possibility of modifying tariffs and criteria according to changes in the digital environment and technologies. It establishes another exemption for «those who have the authorization to carry out the corresponding reproduction of works, artistic performances, phonograms or videograms, as appropriate, in the exercise of their activity».

The new and necessary canon is expected to enter into force at the beginning of 2017, but it will be difficult since the reports of the ministries involved and the final approval of the Council of Ministers are necessary. When the final text of the Royal Decree is approved, it will have to be developed through a ministerial order.

Until now the canon was paid through the General State Budgets, as imposed by the reform approved by the Government in December 2011. A measure that was annulled in November by the Supreme Court, after the Court of Justice of the Union European Commission failed in June to contravene Community regulations.

The annulment caused a legal vacuum that makes the establishment of a new valid system urgent. Established in 1996, the canon was updated to the digital environment in 2006 by the socialist government, but suffered repeated judicial setbacks. In 2011 the Provincial Court of Barcelona established that only physical and non-legal persons should pay it, so that the National Court annulled the ministerial order regulating its amounts. The Executive of the PP to introduce a new model, driven by the then Secretary of State for Culture, José María Lassalle, and who knocked down in June the Court of Justice of the EU, and the Supreme, a month ago.