The structure and role of collective management companies in protecting the rights of creators and performers in french law

Abstract

Without any doubt, France is the first country to have achieved the collective management of creators and performers' literary and artistic rights. The management of artistic and literary property right is administrated within collective management civil companies (receipt and distribution companies); however, these companies are inspired by some rules of business companies. The structure of collective management companies in French law has some properties compared to other civil companies. The role of right management can be described in one sentence as "the optimized right management which the authors and other literary and artistic law holders benefit from". This role is expressed through three different contractual relations; the relation between the collective management company and its members, the relation between these companies and the users, and the relation between the collective management companies together. In some cases, the transfer of French law's experiences to Iran's law can be considered useful with regard to the characteristics of the domestic law and cultural needs.

Keywords

• collective management companies
• receipt and distribution companies
• civil company
• copyright
• related right