Summary

The regulation of the author’s contract has existed in the Copyright Act since its entry into force on 12 December 1992. To a large extent, the original provisions of the author’s contract were didactic and explanatory. Some of the provisions of the author’s contract belonged dogmatically rather to the field of the law of obligations.

The rules on the author’s contract in the Copyright Act have been amended several times. The most important packages of amendments to the regulation of the author’s contract can be broadly divided into two. The first relates to the adoption and introduction of the Law of Obligations Act. The second conceptual package of amendments to the regulation of the author’s contract relates to the adoption and implementation of the DSM Directive in national law.

The article focuses in particular on Chapter 3 of the DSM Directive, which regulates the provision of fair and proportionate remuneration to authors and performers. Included in this objective are provisions related to fair remuneration, the obligation to provide information, the amendment and termination of the contract, which together are referred to as the principles for ensuring fair remuneration. Before discussing the principles in detail, the article analyses their personal and material applicability. In fact, the out-of-court settlement of disputes on the principles of fair remuneration before the copyright committee is also related to this topic, but due to the limited space of the article, it will not be discussed.

The authors base their treatment of the topic mainly on the DSM Directive, the Copyright Amendment Act (transposition of copyright directives) enacting the DSM Directive, the explanatory memorandum and preparatory materials of the latter, and scientific literature.