House of Representatives unanimously adopts BMDA reform bill

Morocco’s House of Representatives unanimously adopted the bill reforming the Moroccan Copyright Office (BMDA) THIS Monday in a plenary session.

This law modernizes the governance of the BMDA and establishes transparency in the collection and distribution of copyright revenues, in addition to promoting the financial and moral protection of creators.

The Minister of Justice, Abdellatif Ouahbi, who presented this bill on behalf of the Minister of Culture Mehdi Bensaid, said that this text aims to strengthen and consolidate the missions entrusted to the BMDA, by providing mechanisms to accompany the changes and challenges that the sector is experiencing at national and international levels.

This law aims to modernize the management and administration of this institution and establish transparency and good governance in the collection and distribution of copyright, in addition to promoting the financial and moral conditions of creators, carry out programs of continuous training of human resources, and implement the conventions and international agreements signed by Morocco in this field, he stressed.

Under the new law, the BMDA is now a collective management body rather than a simple office under the sector of communication, noted the Minister, emphasizing the importance of this new legal status, which opens the way to a transition period before establishing another more advanced status.

“Once the Office would have proved its ability to become a strategic public institution in the field of culture and communication,” a change in status is provided for.

The bill includes several new features, in particular the creation of a board of directors with all the prerogatives necessary for the management of the BMDA, in addition to a council of orientation and monitoring, charged with advisory missions with the objective of promoting and protecting copyright and related rights.

Among the contributions of the new text, there is an entire chapter devoted to the rules of management of copyright and related rights, setting, in particular, a period of two months for the payment by the Office of the royalties collected in favor of creators and registered copyright holders.

This period begins at the end of the financial year, after the collection of revenues resulting from the exploitation of these rights.

Moreover, the BMDA will proceed to the publication on its website the list of the works concerned by these rights, making them public domain.

Another chapter of this law is devoted to the organization and the financial control of the Office, stipulating in particular that the budget of the BMDA is divided between a budget of investment and management and a budget for collective management of the copyright and the similar rights.

Similarly, the text provides for the creation of a social fund for the benefit of authors and holders of copyrights, in order to enable them to benefit from a social security system.

The law was passed after months of back and forth between the Ministry of Culture, Moroccan artists and artist unions, who strongly opposed the reform, claiming it jeopardizes the principle of artistic and creative freedom.