Copyright licensing societies -also known as collective management
organisations - acting on behalf of their members have as their main
objective the negotiating or granting of copyright licences which
authorise the terms of use of a work of more than one copyright owner.
In broad terms, the principle role of the Controller as laid down in
the Copyright and Related Rights Act, 2000 (No. 28 of 2000)
is to
decide, where the parties cannot agree between themselves, the terms
and conditions of licences offered by, or licensing schemes operated
by, collective licensing bodies in the copyright and related rights
area. In addition, the terms of a licensing scheme proposed
to be operated by a licensing body may be referred to the Controller
for determination, by an organisation which claims to be representative
of persons who claim that they require licences. Furthermore,
anyone who considers that they have unreasonably been refused a licence
by a collecting society or considers the terms of an offered licence to
be unreasonable may refer the matter to the Controller.
The Controller's statutory responsibilities in relation to references
and applications relating to copyright licensing schemes are set out in
Chapter 16 of the Copyright and Related Rights Act 2000 and in
particular in Sections 149 to 166.