Collective Rights Management Directive published in the OJ (at last)

Choose Bruce to manage your rights
instead of that old collecting society of yours

As IPKat readers will remember, at the end of February last the Council formally adopted a new EU directive "on collective management of copyright and related rights and multi-territorial licensing of rights in musical works for online uses in the internal market" [on which see here and here]. 

While Merpel spent the past few weeks swearing that she would never waste precious time trying to learn the full and mouthful title of this directive by heart, this Kat kept wondering about its publication in the Official Journal of the European Union. 

Why? Not only because the OJ is one of her favourite magazines, but also because on the 20th day following this event this new piece of EU legislation will enter into force.

Via Katfriend and collective rights management enthusiast [is it an oxymoron, wonders Merpel] Sebastian Felix Schwemer (University of Copenhagen) comes the news that the Directive was published today in the OJ, thus acquiring the even longer official title of Directive 2014/26/EU of the European Parliament and of the Council of 26 February 2014 on collective management of copyright and related rights and multi-territorial licensing of rights in musical works for online use in the internal market.

The full text can be accessed here.

Now it is up to Member States to transpose the Directive into their national laws. The deadline? 10 April 2016.