On 9th of February 2012, the Court of Justice (ECJ) has issued a preliminary ruling on the request made by the Handelsgericht Wien (Vienna Commercial Court), regarding the rights of the director and the producer of a movie. At a national level, the case involved the director and producer of a german documentary movie on photography during World War II (“Fotos von der Front”). The two parties had concluded an agreement recognizing their respective roles and assignment of copyright and related rights to the film, with the exception of some methods of exploitation (such as broadcasting to closed user groups and pay-TV), which had been the paid separately. The contract did not specify anything for some levies (for example, the fair compensation or taxes on recording material). The controversy arose when the filmmaker made available the movie online and decided to assign the rights for its distribution to a video-on-demand platform. The director claimed that this method of exploitation had been reserved to him by contract, and that, therefore, the contract and its copyright had been violated. The filmmaker instead, claimed that all the exclusive exploitation rights had been assigned to him. Moreover, he asserted he had paid the above mentioned statutory levies. The court has determined that, according to Austrian law, the rights of exploitation are directly and originally attributed to the film producer. Therefore, any agreements to enact the opposite effect was to be considered as void. The law provided, instead, that the legal rights on revenues were to be split equally between the producer and film director, but such provision could be waived. The doubts concerning the interpretation of the Court, led to the question of a preliminary judgment to the ECJ.
According to the ECJ, Community law requires Member States to grant exploitation rights to the director of a film together with the right to fair compensation. National laws may, therefore, establish a presumption of transfer of exploitation rights to the film producer, provided that the parties can otherwise agree. However, fair compensation may not be subject to a presumption of transfer.