The protection of copyright and neighboring rights has been legislatively established all around the world. National legislations and bilateral or international treaties ensure the worldwide protection of rightholders. They also allow the establishment of collecting and administrating societies that undertake, on behalf of their members, to supervise the right application of the applying rules and attribute the exploitation rights to their members.
Explanation of Terms
With the creation of a song two rights are derived for its creators: the moral right, meaning the right of the creator to protect his personal bond with the song and the financial right, meaning his right of financial exploitation of his work.
With the primary creation of a song, the composer, the author and the recording producer (record company) possess the copyright on this musical work. Followingly, the interpreter(s) and the musician(s) give to the song the form that we can listen to in a sound carrier (record, cassette, CD, etc). The interpreter(s) and the musician(s) possess the neighbouring rights of the phonogram, meaning the specific set of sounds and voices as this has been recorded.
In Cyprus there are two collecting societies/licensing bodies for the licensing of copyright, which are GRAMMO representing recording producers and PRS, representing composers and authors.
Therefore, the user is required to obtain, before use, the license from both GRAMMO and PRS representing copyrights holders (recording producers and composers/ authors respectively), and to pay the remuneration to the neighboring rights owners (interpreters and musicians).