Regarding your contribution registration for productions of the open budgets broadcast between 2010 and 2012, you will have time until 2019 to complete these. The first distribution for such budgets (with the exception of the recordings not used for broadcasting purposes) shall take place as soon as at the end of 2017, the closing/final distribution will be made in 2020.

We are going to release further sub-budgets in the coming months for registration purposes in a step-by-step process and will inform you in each case in a timely manner.

Together with the associates in the Associates’ and Delegates’ Assembly, the delegates will decide on all important issues in future; this includes passing a resolution on all distribution plans. Based on the new Act on Collective Management Organisations (VGG), the delegates will replace the GVL Board in its activities within the Associates’ and Delegates’ Assembly and shall, in this context, perceive their right to participate as representatives of the members.

Artists may enter into a rights administration agreement with GVL online. Provided that GVL has received a complete set of all documents prior to 31 January 2017 (postmark), the contractual conclusion can be backdated to 2010. Concluding a contract with GVL is free of charge.

Associates and members will be represented in a joint committee and carry out their activities in the Associates’ and Delegates’ Assembly. It will replace the Board, which has been the previous representative institution for members. To this end, members are going to elect delegates as their representatives into the Associates’ and Delegates’ Assembly. Delegates (and substitutes) will be elected from within group assemblies - hitherto the rights holders' assembly.

For distribution year 2015, GVL pays out remuneration for the first time. A total of EUR 56.1m is available to artists who are entitled to receive payments. Of this amount, about EUR 11m will be paid out. The remaining EUR 45.1m will be withheld until the final distribution for distribution year 2015 as so-called “reserved remuneration”.

The VGG entered into force on 01 June 2016 and replaced the previous Copyright Administration Act. With the implementation of the EC Directive, generally mandatory standards, many of which are already applied in Germany, are now established for collective management organisations.

 In the course of the new legislative regulation, GVL would like to take the opportunity to inform its members on the following rights:

For artists who contributed to jingles and commercials on the radio and on TV, individual contributions in non-fictional formats (TV), music in radio plays and readings (radio) and recordings not used for broadcasting purposes, which have been released in the distribution years 2010 to 2012, GVL will provide the initial productions for the registration from 02 January 2017 onwards.

The new online form guides the user through the registration process - step by step: Once the user has completed entering and checking the necessary data for contractual partners, the electronically generated pdf document, including the allocated personal contract number, can be printed off in duplicate and be posted to GVL. The contract number will help to speed up processing of individual issues in future. As soon as GVL receives the posted documents, the artist receives an e-mail confirming the progress of the process regarding the conclusion of the agreement.

As of now, GVL shines a light into the complex subject of a collective management organisation by means of a new, animated video. “When we created the explainer video, we took those questions on board that interested parties and members kept asking us: For example, how GVL differs from other collective management organisations, say Guido Evers and Tilo Gerlach, the Managing Directors of GVL.

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.