Purpose of the company
Who is GWFF?
GWFF - Gesellschaft zur Wahrnehmung von Film- und Fernsehrechten mbH is a collecting society admitted by the German Patent and Trademark Office according to the Copyright Act.
In 1982, GWFF was formed by film and television producers in order to administer and collect the remuneration claims due to them and to film authors under the Copyright Act in the case of reproduction and secondary use.Why has GWFF been formed and what is GWFF doing?
In view of the manifold possibilities of use triggered by the technical development, the producers, actors and film authors often are no longer able to themselves assert the rights in and to their cinematographic and television works because they often do not know where and by whom their works are used. In addition, certain remuneration claims, for example for carrier media and recording device levy (Section 54 UrhG) or for the rental and lending of video cassettes (Section 27 UrhG), may be asserted only by collecting societies according to the German Copyright Act.
Also those who intend to use these protected works cannot reasonably be expected to identify the rightholders for a film and to negotiate a transfer of the rights with each of them.
Therefore, the authors and the holders of neighboring copyrights transferred their rights to collecting societies, i.e. organizations which are then able to grant the required authorization not only for an individual work but for an extensive repertory, to monitor public events and to collect the agreed remuneration.
GWFF receives the remuneration from those who use the intellectual property of the producers and the film authors, and GWFF distributes these amounts to those who have a right thereto. GWFF thus acts as trustee.
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