Reaction to Open Letter of the Association of Filmmakers in BiH

Institute for Intellectual Property of Bosnia and Herzegovina rejects the tendentious, unfounded and, above all, untrue claims from the Open Letter of the Association of Filmmakers in Bosnia and Herzegovina addressed to the Council of Ministers of BiH and the Presidency of BiH, which refers to supposedly "arbitrary" revocation of the license defined by the Law on the Collective Management of Copyright and Related Rights.

License to the Association of Film Industry (UFI), number: IP-03-47-5-288/16, dated 21/04/2016 was issued in the administrative procedure conducted upon UFI's request, dated 12/08/2015, number: UP-03-47-5-09376/15, which was obviously filed before the appointment of the new management and was conducted pursuant to the provisions of the Law on the Collective Management of Copyright and Related Rights ("Official Gazette of BiH", No. 63/10) within legally prescribed deadlines.

Pursuant to the provisions of the same Law, at the same time, the license of the Association of Filmmakers in Bosnia and Herzegovina was revoked due to the conditions and criteria defined by the said Law.

Dissatisfied with the decision of the Institute, Association of Filmmakers (UFR) used admissible and inadmissible legal remedies, because relevant court instances did not make the decisions they expected.

UFR’s open letter is a pressure on the relevant judicial bodies that are expected to soon make certain decisions related to this issue.