Press releases

In line with its usual schedule - GVL’s Rights Holders’ Assembly took place last Friday, 5th of May 2017, in Berlin. 327 GVL rights holders voted directly and 712 rights holders via proxy to elect 22 delegates from a pool of 52 candidates. With this election, the previous Board members were replaced by the new delegates in their capacity as rights holders’ representatives. They jointly represent the interests of all rights holders together with the associates of GVL in the new Associates’ and Delegates’ Assembly. Furthermore, a record level in terms of collections for 2016 was announced - projected to be well in excess of EUR 200m for the first time.

The Gesellschaft zur Verwertung von Leistungsschutzrechten (GVL) concludes its financial year 2015 with a total revenue of EUR 161.8m. This represents a slight decrease of 0.9% compared to 2014. The decline results mainly from the effect of back payments in the previous year: In 2014, the conclusion of a general agreement on the private copying levies on PCs concluded with the majority of the hardware industry led to a back payment in the two-digit millions range (including back payments for previous years). If GVL was to eliminate this one-off effect, it can actually report an increase of its income in 2015.

The GVL Board calls upon members of the German Bundestag not to approve the governmental draft of the Collecting Societies Act (VGG) in its current version. On the contrary, the parliamentarians should rather return to the original objective of the legislative draft, which was to support and strengthen creatives and their producers, and to finally correct the drastic maldevelopments related to blank media levies by the device manufacturers and importers.

After negotiations spanning several years, collective management organisations gathered under the um-brella of the central collection and distribution organisation for private copying levies in Germany (ZPÜ), amongst them GVL, reached an agreement with the manufacturers and importers represented by BITKOM on the remuneration level for copying levies for mobiles and tablets.

On 29 October 2015, the Higher Regional Court Munich decided that the tariff payable to performing artists and producers of sound recordings for playing sound recordings in dance schools shall only be 20% of the GEMA tariff payable to music authors.

GVL can look back on a successful financial year 2014: Total returns for 2014 amount to EUR 163.4m and are thus EUR 12.9m higher than in the previous year (+ 8.5%). This noticeable gain of returns is mainly due to increased claims for copying remuneration (EUR 35.1m compared to EUR 22.9m in the previous year), as well as back payments for private copies made on personal computers for the period 2011-2013.

In its annual business report, GVL can refer to a positive financial development during the last year: The total returns 2013 amount to EUR 150.5m and are thus EUR 3.5m higher than in the previous year (+ 2.4 percentage points).

Die Gesellschaft zur Verwertung von Leistungsschutzrechten mbH (GVL) verzeichnet endlich den Eingang der für die Jahre 2011 bis 2013 bislang ausstehenden Vergütungen für auf PCs hergestellte Privatkopien.

GVL achieved a partial success in its demand for fundamental equality of performers and authors when presenting the case to the Federal Court of Justice.

GVL introduced a new logo and corporate design in order to make its successful development and modernisation visible to the outside world.