Issue link: https://digital.copcomm.com/i/1529989
20 M PS E . O R G BY BRENT FINDLEY MPSE OpEd S O U N D O F F Fighting for Royalties for Sound Editors I n the fall of this year, the international head of the Prague-based sound artists' rights group Ochranná Asociace Zvukaru-Autoru, z.s. (OAZA: The Protective Association of Sound Engineers-Authors) reached out to the Board of the MPSE to establish mutually beneficial lines of communication to raise awareness of our respective organizations amongst our members. Karel Ulm and I exchanged questions and answers, and I am intrigued by the ambition of OAZA and its goal of securing copyright acknowledgment and royalties for sound artists and engineers. What follows is a summary of our discussion, but really only scratches the surface of OAZA's history, accomplishments, and future potential. OAZA was founded in 2003 as a professional organization, with a voluntary membership of sound artists who participate in the creation of audio or audio-visual works. Since 2006, under the authority of the Ministry of Culture of the Czech Republic, OAZA has been conducting the management of the rights of authors of sound works such as audio engineers, sound designers, sound editors, sound mixers, mastering engineers, and other categories that create sound for film or music. Subsequently, the organization's primary mission has been to develop publicly beneficial activities to collectively protect and manage these rights as a copyright protection organization. Based in Prague, Czechia, OAZA currently represents more than 700 individual rights holders on contractual basis. And as a collective management organization, they represent many other right holders in obtaining terms for the use of their works in the Czech Republic. They may also issue licenses for use abroad, such as synchronization of licenses on a case-by-case basis, depending on the usage request. Additionally, OAZA has more than 30 contracts with similar collective management organizations from all over the world that are connected with OAZA through bilateral distribution of royalties. OAZA is authorized by the Czech Ministry of Culture as the only collective management organization for sound professionals to collect and distribute royalties on the basis of a wide scope of authors' rights. The recognition of the rights of the sound artist is still a rather complex discipline. Although OAZA has been in existence for more than 20 years, they still struggle with the recognition of sound authors' rights in some licensing segments. OAZA has established itself in fields of mandatory licensing terms, such as retransmission of broadcasting and that of public productions and is working on expanding the range of licensing segments. There are challenges, as broadcasters still dispute some of the works created by the protected authors, and commercial agreements sometimes require difficult negotiations. However, Karel and the Board of OAZA are proud that they succeeded in inking a contract with an association of commercial radio broadcasters that represents a total majority of commercial radio stations in Czechia. Joining on a preliminary basis in 2020, OAZA by 2022 had become a regular member of CISAC (International Confederation of Societies of Authors and Composers), OAZA is based in Prague. Photo by Dmitry Goykolov ˇ° °