Taking into account ANEM's written objections to the Proposal of unique Tariff of collective organizations OFPS (Organization of phonogram producers of Serbia) and PI (Organization for collective administration of performing rights), the Commission on Copyright and Related Rights gave a negative opinion on this Tariffs Proposal and ordered repeated negotiations between the collective organizations and ANEM, as the representative association of broadcaster, within legal deadline (30 days of receipt of the Opinion), or that these organizations submit a new proposal to the Commission.

The Commission provided the Opinion, arguing that the Tariff Proposal that is applied to broadcasters, did not include the rights that these organizations have license for their collective exercise issued by the Intellectual Property Office.

The Commision's Opinion was submitted to ANEM on January 10, 2012.

ANEM believes that the provisions of the Advertising Law, pertaining to advertising and sponsorship on television and radio, are insufficiently precise, which may be the reason for having several hundred misdemeanor trials currently led against broadcasters in Serbia. Hence, on December 30, 2011, ANEM addressed a letter to the Republic Broadcasting Agency, calling on the regulator to pass the proper document to provide for such more detailed rules, since the agency is authorized for that under the Advertising Law and the Broadcasting Law.

ANEM believes that the absence of such rules presents a source of legal uncertainty for several reasons. Firstly, a whole array of violations of the Advertising Law pertains to various rules applying to specific types of genres of programs; for that reason, the RBA ought to publish the criteria under which it has classified the programs by genre, since it often happens that the same program is classified differently by the broadcaster and the RBA. Secondly, some concepts from the Broadcasting Law and the European Convention on Cross-border Television differ, since Serbia ratified that Convention after the adoption of the Advertising Law. Thirdly, when providing for more detailed rules on advertising and sponsorship on television and radio, the RBA should also take into account the Interpretative Communication of the European Commission from 2004, as this document provides for an additional explanation of the meaning and the scope of the Convention.

ANEM believes that, by passing the appropriate document, the RBA should regulate no less than the following: define the concepts of "a full hour of aired program" and "daily aired program" because they may be interpreted differently. The Agency should define the conditions for a recognizable separation of commercial slots and TV sales slots from other programming content with sound and picture. It should determine more closely the conditions for advertising during live transmissions of sporting events that do not involve breaks, as well as the conditions for new advertising techniques that are not expressly regulated either by the Advertising Law or the Convention, such as the split screen or virtual sponsorship. The RBA should determine more precisely the meaning and scope of the concepts of direct advertising of sale, purchase or lease of product and services of the sponsor or third party, namely of the special reference to these products and services in sponsored programs. Finally, ANEM believes it is also necessary to regulate the issue of inserting advertisements specifically intended for viewers in Serbia into cable and satellite channels available in the domestic cable and satellite DTH offer.

In its letter, ANEM also pointed to its readiness to cooperate and provide the necessary support to the RBA in order to suitably resolve the aforementioned issues, aiming at encouraging the development of broadcasting and productivity in the area of media and television in the Republic of Serbia.

This advocacy activity was supported by the Civil Rights Defenders.

In the course of 2011, the Ministry of Justice announced several times that defamation and insult would be removed from the Criminal Code of Serbia. Although the possibility to criminally prosecute a journalist for defamation and insult has a deterrent effect on freedom of expression and is undeniably one of the generators of self-censorship in the Serbian media, ANEM believes that decriminalization per se is insufficient to significantly improve the situation on the media scene. It is therefore necessary for this measure to be accompanied by other measures that will further improve the protection of freedom of expression in Serbia.

Namely, the fact is that journalists in Serbia typically fare better when privately prosecuted for defamation than in litigation for damages. At the same time, the experience of countries that have already decriminalized defamation and insult shows that this move was shortly followed by a spike in the number of litigations for damages in media-related cases. The amount of damages that was awarded was on the increase too.

The practice of civil courts in Serbia shows that the provision of Article 18 of the Constitution of the Republic of Serbia, under which human and minority rights are guaranteed and implemented in accordance with the universally recognized rules of international law, is insufficient to ensure legal protection of media and journalists' rights before national courts, which would be at least comparable to that enforced by the European Court of Human Rights in the implementation of Article 10 of the European Convention on the Protection of Human Rights. There are many reasons for such a state of affairs, including the fact that the most significant decisions of the ECHR are still not being sufficiently translated in Serbian language, thus remaining unavailable to judges that should act upon them, let alone to the media and journalists that could invoke such decisions in legal proceedings.

In view of the above, on December 30, 2011, ANEM addressed a letter to the Government of Serbia, the Ministry of Justice and the Ministry of Culture, Media and Information Society, urging them to consider other necessary steps aimed at enhancing the right to freedom of expression in Serbia. In the said letter, ANEM called for the amendments to the Public Information Law and provided nine concrete proposals for such amendments, aiming at ensuring greater security and protection of journalists with respect to freedom of expression.

In addition to these proposals for amending the Public Information Law, ANEM emphasized in the aforementioned letter that it was necessary to translate as many pertinent freedom of expression-related decisions by the ECHR as possible in Serbian language and to publish these decisions in the most appropriate manner.

These ANEM proposals were supported by other media and journalists' associations from the media coalition - NUNS, UNS, NDNV and Local Press, so they have joined to this letter.

This advocacy activity was supported by the Civil Rights Defenders.

The Research on the national media situation for the purposes of the Project "Serbia 2011 - Report on the Media Situation based on CoE Indicators for Media in a Democracy", has been jointly implemented in the last few months by ANEM, NUNS, NDNV and Local Press. The starting point of the research methodology and the analysis of the collected material is the list of 27 Indicators of Council of Europe, representing fundamental European standards in the field of freedom of expression. These Indicators comprise an array of media and journalist freedoms guaranteed by or promoted in other CoE documents.

In the scope of this comprehensive research of the situation of the media in Serbia, ANEM and its partners in implementation of this project, NUNS, NDNV and Local Press, have collected data pertaining to media pluralism, privatization, circulation and audience, journalists and their social and economic situation, access to information of public importance, the functioning of public broadcasting services, the functioning of regulatory bodies for broadcast media and of the self-regulatory body for print media, violations of media freedom, legal proceedings against media and journalists, as well as against attackers on journalists, transparency of media ownership, ranking Serbia with regard to freedom of press, allocation of budget funds for the media, the revenues of media, etc. In addition, while conducting surveys with representatives of various groups, each association has collected a significant number of responses to the questionnaires from media owners and editors, representatives of minority media and minority communities, as well as representatives of political parties on the national, provincial and local level. Almost 40 in-depth interviews were conducted with relevant interlocutors from the media sector and competent bodies. The research also included the analysis of the current media-related legal framework and the application thereof in practice, along with the analysis of its compatibility with CoE standards stemming from Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. That part of the research was produced by ANEM's legal expert team (law office "Zivkovic&Samardzic" from Belgrade) and the Local Press team (Dragan Lazarevic Law Office, Kragujevac).

Expert consolidation and analysis of collected data and information is currently underway, which will demonstrate to what extent and in what manner each of the 27 indicators is being adhered to in the national media legislation and practice, namely to what extent is Serbia close to or far from European standards in the field of freedom of expression. The expert report on that topic will soon be presented and made available to the public.

This project is supported by the Civil Rights Defenders. 

On December 21, 2011, ANEM organized a joint press conference with NUNS, UNS, Local Press and Media Association, titled "The Year behind Us - Used or Missed Opportunity for Media Sector?" At the conference, held in UNS Press Center in Belgrade, the representatives of five media and journalists' associations that were very active in the past year regarding the implementation of reforms in the media sector, informed the public about their views and assessments of what had marked the media scene in 2011, what was good or bad, and what tasks and challenges still awaited the media community in the upcoming period. The conference speakers were: Sasa Mirkovic (ANEM President), Ljiljana Smajlovic (UNS President), Zoran Sekulic (representative of the Association of Media), Vukasin Obradovic (NUNS President) and Dejan Miladinovic (Chairman of the Local Press Managing Board). Slobodan Kremenjak, ANEM lawyer, Stojan Markovic, owner and chief editor of Radio "Ozon" and "Cacankse novine" from Cacak and Ljubica Markovic, Director of the news agency "Beta", also spoke at the conference, attended by more than 30 representatives of stakeholders - the media, journalists, competent authorities, international organizations and donor community.

All speakers agreed that the past year had been extremely difficult for the media and journalists in Serbia and that the expectations of the media community, that the adoption of the Media Strategy would announce a changed Government policy toward the media sector, had been betrayed. According to representatives of the associations, a recent government's announcement of the plan to allocate 368 million dinars from the public budget for 2012 to the News agency "Tanjug", newspaper "Panorama", "Radio Jugoslavija" and "Jugoslovenski pregled", shows that the state does not intend to comply with the Strategy's key postulates related to the withdrawal of the state from media and introducing the project financing of the media content of the public importance as of January 1, 2012. Sasa Mirkovic (ANEM), Vukasin Obradovic (NUNS) and Zoran Sekulic (Association of Media), addressed this topic specifically. Vukasin Obradovic (NUNS) said that by this move, the state acted contrary to the provisions of the Law on State Aid Control, and that this type of state subvention fell under illegitimate state aid, because it directly distorted the market, while the other two agencies on the market were put in an unfavorable position, which was very dangerous in terms of maintaining the plurality of the media market. What is the biggest concern of the association is that the government is the central figure in the media market and plans to keep this position, whereas the media are put in a position where, directly or indirectly, depend on the state and the people in power; the future of media scene, media and journalists in Serbia depend on the role of the state on the media market. According to Ljiljana Smajlovic (UNS), another recent event that illustrates the fact that the state does not intend to honor its commitments made in the Strategy is the announcement of sale of ownership of newspapers "Politika", "Dnevnik" and "Vecernje novosti" to the owners of "Kurir". Raising the question of the origin of "Kurir"'s money for buying "Politika" (since it would be a sum 40 times larger than the annual profit of "Kurir"), she said that it was possible that people close to the government would "cement media ownership" and the origin of funds they would use for buying the media would remain unknown.

Representatives of the associations expressed their concern over the genuine intentions of the state regarding the introduction of project financing of the media content. Dejan Miladinovic (Local Press) spoke about activities of the associations (ANEM, NUNS and Local Press), aimed at agreeing with the authorities on finding ways in which project financing could be enabled in local communities. However, according to Miladinovic, the recommendations regarding the implementation of project financing forwarded by authorities to local self-governments have not been applied, while the latest government's moves do not give encouragement that the Media Strategy (which envisages the introduction of this type of funding) would be consistently implemented in this respect, which would affect the local media the most.

Representatives of associations also agreed that this year was very unfavorable for media freedoms. This issue was particularly addressed by Ljiljana Smajlovic (UNS), who reminded that this was the year in which editors were sacked due to political pressures (editors-in-chief of "Magyar Szó" and "Alo"), journalists were under 24-hours police protection (Vladimir Mitric, Brankica Stankovic and Veran Matic), and the Prosecutor in Novi Sad filed charges against two journalists for allegedly revealing state secrets.

As another example illustrating the way the government treated the media, the speakers referred to a recent event, when, during the visit of the President Boris Tadic and the Prime Minister Mirko Cvetkovic to the Kragujevac Fiat Factory, only state agency "Tanjug" was allowed to report, while access was denied to other reporters. Commenting this incident, the director of news agency "Beta" Ljubica Markovic said that many independent media in Serbia again felt unwelcome by the government as if they were back in those years when they had been in opposition and that there was a doubt about the willingness of the state to implement what it was provided for in the Strategy and particularly, to give up the control of the media.

The topics of particular importance to electronic media were also discussed, such as digitalization, the Law on Cinematography and relation of broadcasters and collective organizations for the protection of copyright and related rights. Sasa Mirkovic (ANEM) spoke about the deferral of digitalization, its implementation in phases - by region, instead of, as it was originally planned, in one day, which was one more failure by the Government to implement yet another Strategy it had adopted. Mirkovic also referred to the Law on Cinematography, currently in the parliamentary procedure; this law practically implies that the electronic media in Serbia would finance cinematography by reallocation of the part of the funds that regulators receive from broadcasters' fees to the film production. As a problem, he also mentioned disturbed relations between broadcasters and collective organizations for the protection of copyright and related rights. He particularly addressed the issue of tariffs and the obligations of broadcasters to submit lists of broadcast musical works and phonograms to these organizations.

Slobodan Kremenjak, ANEM lawyer, talked about the last decision of the Commission on Copyright and Related Rights, namely the decision brought after the failure of re-negotiations of SOKOJ and ANEM as the representative association of broadcasters. The Commission has decided to accept the tariff proposed by SOKOJ. Although it has included some of the ANEM requests (discounts for regular payments, the application of territorial principles in determining fees, which takes into account the different development of certain regions), this tariff is essentially very unfavorable, especially for smaller media, because the minimum fee is now increased. Stojan Markovic, editor in chief of Radio "Ozon" from Cacak, who was sued for alleged failure to submit program lists to OFPS, spoke about this issue, which many stations across Serbia is facing. He especially talked on uneven practice of the courts when it comes to indictment for this commercial offense, as yet another proof of legal uncertainty of the media in Serbia. He also spoke about the new tariffs of collective organizations as disputable, both because of high fees and because of contracts signed by broadcasters with the organizations, namely the contracts that regulate their relations in other way. In his opinion, all this presents an effective way to suppress the local media.

The announcement of the decriminalization of defamation and insult was assessed as another important event in the media scene in 2011 year. According to ANEM lawyer, Slobodan Kremenjak, this announcement should have been welcomed, but we should bear in mind that this measure, if not in conjunction with changes in other regulations, could have a negative effect, which would be reflected in an increase in number of litigations against the media and journalists. Stojan Markovic, owner and editor-in-chief of "Cacanke novine", which was sued for defamation and insult by a politician, spoke about how the legislation and practice of the courts allowed that defamation and insult libel made by the media were punished twice through criminal and civil proceedings separately and that many thrive on at the expense of media in this way.

As yet another problem in the media sector, the following topic was also discussed: the monopoly in the media advertising market of agencies owned by individuals close to the government, which has significantly affected the functioning, as well as freedom of the media. This, however, is something that is not publicly discussed, because of the possible consequences and more widespread self-censorship in the media.

Representatives of the associations agreed that the media scene in 2011. was marked by numerous problems, and that the few positive developments were overshadowed by events that had demonstrated that the state had no intention to implement reforms in the way it had committed to in the Media Strategy. Concerned about the future of media reforms, the associations predict that next year would put even greater challenges before them and that they, as representatives of the media community, consider it their duty to work even more closely together in the future period and to use all lawful means in order to fight for the rights and interests of the media, journalists and the entire profession.

Recently adopted Media Strategy has only affirmed that some legal provisions regulating public information are conflicting and legally colliding, which is causing a serious disorder in the functioning of the public information system, whereas the state has committed by the Strategy to eliminate these contradictions in its legislation. However, contrary to this commitment, on December 8, 2011, the Government adopted and submitted to the Parliament for adoption, without conducting a public discussion, the Draft Law on Cinematography which, instead of acknowledging these provisions of the Strategy, has created new collisions with existing solutions, as it is in direct conflict with the Strategy as well as the applicable articles of the Broadcasting Law and the Law on Electronic Communications.

Namely, Article 18, paragraph 1, points 3 and 4 of the Draft Law provides for the film industry incentives with funds acquired from the regulatory bodies, that is, as much as 20% of the funds of the Republic Broadcasting Agency (RBA) and 10% of the funds of the Republic Agency for Electronic Communications (RATEL), charged from broadcasters and telecommunications operators by these regulators. These provisions are in direct conflict with the provisions of Article 34 of the Broadcasting Law, which does not provide for the Agency to foresee redundancies in its financial plan, apart from reserves for incidental expenses and pre-determined purpose of acquired balance. The above provisions are also contrary to the provision of Article 66 of the Broadcasting Law, which stipulates criteria for determining the fee, none of which is the allocation of funding for local film industry inducement. The proposed solution is in direct conflict with Article 27 Law on Electronic Communications, stipulating that the balance between revenues and expenditures of the Agency for Electronic Communications be paid into the budget for the support and development of electronic communications and information society.

Considering that for these reasons this Draft Law is in direct conflict with the applicable regulations in the field of broadcasting and recently adopted Media Strategy, as well as that the burden of illegal incentives for cinematography development will fall onto the electronic media, ANEM issued a statement on December 14, 2011, urging the Serbian Parliament not to adopt the Draft Law on Cinematography in the version sent to the Government for approval. ANEM statement was supported by other associations, NUNS and UNS, which had joined ANEM appeal in their joint statement issued on December 15, noting their agreement with ANEM opinion.

Subsequently, on December 20, 2011, ANEM forwarded its written Remarks on Article 18 Paragraph 1 Points 3 and 4 of the Draft Law on Cinematography with proposed amendments to the Speaker and the Secretary of the National Parliament, the Chairman and the Secretary of the Parliament's Culture and Information Committee, presidents of all parliamentary groups, as well as to the Minister and the State Secretary of the Ministry of Culture, Media and Information Society, urging them to do all in their power to delete, with the corresponding amendment to Article 18, points 3 and 4 from the paragraph 1 of the said article.

In its statement and letter, ANEM noted that the fee, paid by broadcasters for the acquired right to broadcast the program, had the sole purpose to provide financial independence of the Republic Broadcasting Agency, whereas meddling of the state in the this fee by reason of its allocation for other purposes, undermined the independence of the Broadcasting Agency. ANEM also pointed out that such a Government's proposal for ensuring funds for inducement of domestic film industry was not only in conflict with applicable legal provisions, which had put independent regulatory bodies under financial strain, but was also passed without any analysis of the impact on the financing of work of independent regulatory bodies, as well as on the sectors of broadcasting and electronic communications in Serbia as a whole, which could have serious negative effects on their functioning.

ANEM considers it absolutely unacceptable that the burden of domestic film industry incentives falls onto the electronic media, including radio stations that do not air cinematographic works at all, whereas television stations, even when they air these works, are already paying the broadcasting fee in an amount determined by the market, together with due taxes, including deduction tax on income of foreign copyright owners when buying foreign cinematographic works, ranging up to 20%.

On November 25, 2011, ANEM organized the panel discussion titled "Media Strategy -What's next?" in Nis Media Centre, where five representatives of media and journalists' associations informed the public in the south of Serbia about stands of this media coalition on the adopted Media Strategy and its solutions, as well as on the further steps of these associations regarding the implementation of the said document. Speakers at the panel discussion were: Sasa Mirkovic (ANEM President), Vukasin Obradovic, (IJAS/NUNS President), Petar Jeremic (Chairman of JAS/UNS Executive Board), Zuzana Serences (member of the IJAV/NDNV Managing Board), and Dejan Miladinovic (Chairman of Local Press Managing Board). The panel discussion was attended by many participants, primarily journalists (Tanjug, Beta, FoNet, Blic, RTV Krusevac, Radio Beograd, RTV Pink, NIS TV and radio stations - RTV 5, NTV, TV Belle Amie, City Radio Nis), as well as representatives of journalists' and media associations and civil sector.

The whole report on this event is available in the attachment below.

This event is realized with the support of the Fund for an Open Society, Serbia (FOSS).

What is the media situation in Serbia in 2011, how far or close we are from the European standards in the field of freedom of expression and information and media freedom, what are the most important problems in the media sector and shortcomings of media legislation and practice, what are the priorities to improve the media situation - these are some of the questions that ANEM, in cooperation with its partners from the media sector, will strive to find the answers to through this project, using a list of 27 Indicators of the Council of Europe for media in a democracy[1]. It will serve as a suitable basis for the analysis of the media situation in Serbia, as it contains a wide range of media and journalistic freedoms guaranteed or promoted by other Council of Europe standard-setting texts. ANEM partners in implementation of this project are the media and journalists' associations, IJAS (NUNS), IJAV (NDNV) and Local Press, together with Research Associate at the Institute of Social Sciences, Belgrade, Jovanka Matic, PhD, as the research team leader, as well as legal expert team of ANEM (law office "Zivkovic & Samardzic", from Belgrade) and Local Press (law office Dragan Lazarevic, from Kragujevac). The project is realized with the financial support of the Civil Rights Defenders.

The main project activities are comprehensive research and analysis of various aspects of the functioning of media and working conditions for journalists, the media regulatory framework and practices and media environment. The research is conducted by using different methods - collecting the data from existing available sources, conducting surveys among representatives of different groups (media owners, editors, representatives of political parties, representatives of minority media, etc.), in-depth interviews with relevant interlocutors in the media sector, government and competent authorities, the analysis of the existing media legal framework and its application in practice, with analysis of its compatibility with the Council of Europe standards arising from Article 10 of the European Convention on Human Rights. All collected and processed data will be professionally analyzed and evaluated in accordance with the aforementioned Indicators of the Council of Europe, while the results of the analysis will serve as a basis for drafting the Report on the media situation in Serbia. It will include the findings and expert opinion on the degree of achievement and respect for media and journalistic freedoms, for each of the 27 CoE's Indicators for media in a democracy, as basic principles - the European standards in the area of freedom of expression. The Report will be available to public in electronic form on the websites of associations, as well as in print version, in the form of the Publication, to be distributed to the relevant authorities and institutions, national and international organizations, media and other interested parties. In order to promote this Report and Publication, a round table will be organized, with participation of representatives of competent authorities, media, journalists, experts, international and donor community and other stakeholders. The round table will also serve to discuss the results, findings and conclusions of the Report.

With this project, ANEM and its partners want to contribute to improving of the media situation in Serbia. Specifically, the Report, resulting from the prior comprehensive research and analysis of the media situation in Serbia, will represent not only a basis for understanding the current situation in the media sector, but also for facilitating the identification of shortcomings of media legislation and practice, thus enabling decision- makers, authorities, the media sector and other stakeholders to define and take appropriate measures to remedy them. In addition, the Report will contribute to focusing the attention of the public and all relevant social actors to the problems in the exercising media and journalistic freedoms, as well as the importance of implementation of European standards and values ​​in the field of media policy, which assume that freedom of expression is an essential requirement of democracy. Also, this project will serve to create a model for future implementation of the regular annual analysis and evaluation of the media situation in Serbia. Finally, work on a project like this is important for the media associations to strengthen their capacity to monitor, assess and analyze the media situation and thus better meet the challenges faced by media sector, but also to increase their visibility and impact on the overall development of the media sector.

This project is supported by the Civil Rights Defenders. 

[1] Parliamentary Assembly of Council of Europe (PACE) adopted on 3 October 2008 the Resolution 1636 (2008) and Recommendation 1848 (2008), commonly named as "Indicators for media in a democracy", which are based on the same report. Indicators are presented in the first ANEM Monitoring Publication.

The press conference titled "Media Strategy - What's Next?" was held on October 6 in Belgrade Media Center, in organization of ANEM. Speakers at the press conference were the representatives of six media and journalists' associations who discussed the issue of adoption of the Media Strategy at the session of the Government of the Republic of Serbia held on September 28, 2011. Its adoption was preceded by the long process in which media and journalists' associations had an important role, namely the associations that composed the media coalition (ANEM, NUNS, UNS, NDNV and Local Press) and the Association of Media. These associations also had the representatives in the seven-member expert working group of the Ministry of Culture, Media and Information Society, that had created, in the beginning of June 2011, the text of the Draft Strategy, subject to a public debate that followed until July 15, 2011. After the debate was concluded, the Ministry's Sector for media completed its text of the Proposal of the Draft Media Strategy during the summer and forwarded it to the new working group, established by the Prime Minister, for final suggestions. This newly formed working group completed its text of the Proposal of the Media Strategy on September 8, 2011, which was, without allowing the public to get acquainted with the contents of this document, forwarded to competent bodies for further opinion, and then, with certain changes, to the Government for adoption.

The aim of organizing this press conference was to inform the public of the positions of six media and journalists' associations on the adopted Media Strategy and its solutions, as well as of the further steps of these associations regarding the implementation of the Strategy. The conference speakers were: Sasa Mirkovic (ANEM President), Zoran Sekulic (representative of Association of Media and member of the Prime Minister's Working group for drafting Proposal of the Media Strategy), Vukasin Obradovic (NUNS President), Ljiljana Smajlovic (UNS President), Dinko Gruhonjic (NDNV President) and Dejan Miladinovic (President of the Local Press Managing Board). The conference was attended by a great number of journalists (Hlas ľudu, FONET, Tanjug, Kurir, AFP, RFE, Vecernje Novosti, Radio Beograd, PG Mreza, BETA, TV Forum), representatives of journalists' and media associations, Ministry of Culture, Media and Information Society, domestic institutions (Serbian Chamber of Commerce), academic community as well as international organizations, donor community and diplomatic corps (Fond for an Open Society, OSCE, British Embassy, Austrian Embassy, Embassies of Poland, Slovakia, Netherlands, IREX, Civil Rights Defenders, Medienhilfe).

The whole report on this press conference is available in the attachment below.

This event is realized with the support of the Fund for an Open Society, Serbia (FOSS).

Nine months after organizing the meeting and the press conference, by which it had initiated the implementation of coordinated and synchronized actions of regulatory bodies (RBA, RATEL) and competent state authorities (Ministry of Culture, Media and Information Society, Public Prosecutor's Office, Ministry of Agriculture, Trade, Forestry and Water Management, Ministry of Interior and Provincial Secretariat of Economy) in fighting against "broadcasting piracy", ANEM is summing up the results of this fight, based on the monitoring of these activities and information received from the competent authorities, that are the following:

According to latest RATEL's data, there are 56 illegal FM and TV stations that illegally use radio-frequency spectrum. RATEL has been continuously undertaking appropriate measures for detecting such stations and stopping their operations. It has also initiated appropriate procedures for sanctioning the owners of the said radio stations. The list of illegal broadcasters is available on RATEL website.

The Trade Inspection of the Ministry of Agriculture, Trade, Forestry and Water Management has also, in line with the agreement reached on the meeting held on December 2, 2010, has implemented a series of activities by participating in the joint action of preventing the work of "pirate" radio stations, on which it informed ANEM in its letter on September 5, 2011. Within its legal competencies, and based on the letter and enclosed documentation that it had received from RBA, the Trade Inspection carried out control among advertisers that advertise on 12 "pirate" radio stations. The control was performed over 81 advertisers, the Inspection brought 10 decisions on banning of the advertising, filed 20 requests for initiating misdemeanour procedure with the competent court and evidenced one entity that had been advertised without being properly registered for conducting operations, against which a court procedure has also been initiated. The letter also said that, during the control, advertisers were informed on the fact that the carrier of their advertisements was a "pirate radio station", according to which the majority of them seized further advertising even during the inspection control. In addition to the above said, the inspection control noted that certain "pirate radio stations" had been advertising and organizing fraudulent quizzes, which "Telekom Srbija" AD had been informed of, after which it stopped delivering the service "telephone land lines with an additional price" to legal entities that advertise on "pirate radio stations".

According to information available to ANEM, other authorities, the Ministry of Interior and the Public Prosecutor's Office in particular, have also been actively participating in the joint action on preventing the work of illegal broadcasters, each within the scope of its competency. By September 2011, against more than 65 persons in 65 cases (in 29 legal cases in 2010 and 36 cases in 2011) the investigations have been initiated or the motions for indictment filed, for the criminal offence "unlicensed practice of a profession" stipulated by the article 353 of the Criminal Code. In February 2010, in his official letter to Ministry of Interior, ANEM has suggested the application of article 353 of the Criminal Code for the effective stopping illegal broadcasting.

However, the results of the hitherto activities in fighting illegal broadcasting of RTV programs indicate that this problem has not been completely solved. Therefore, ANEM will continue to monitor the situation in this field and actively cooperate with competent state authorities and regulatory bodies until this problem is completely solved, about which it will timely inform all interested parties.

The renegotiations of ANEM with SOKOJ on the tariff of SOKOJ fees for musical works broadcasting are currently underway. The reason for reopening negotiations lies in the fact that the Commission on Copyright and Related Rights has given a negative opinion on the SOKOJ's proposal of the tariff in part related to broadcasters and has instructed SOKOJ to repeat the negotiations with the representative association of users within the legal term, or submit a new proposal of the tariff. In this procedure before the Commission for Copyright and Related Rights for the obtaining of opinion on the SOKOJ's proposed tariff, ANEM has acted as a representative association of broadcasters - users of musical works. In June 2011, ANEM submitted its written opinion on the proposed tariff of SOKOJ to the Commission and further elaborated on it at the meeting - consultations with the Commission. Following the said meeting, the Commission gave its Opinion, acknowledging the most of ANEM remarks.

On August 5, 2011, the Commission for Copyright and Related Rights has delivered to ANEM its own Opinion on the proposed tariff of SOKOJ. The Commission found that the fee given in the SOKOJ's proposal had not been determined in accordance with the rules for determining the tariff prescribed by the Law on Copyright and Related Rights. The Commission assessed that the proposed tariff of SOKOJ was contradictory and that the manner, in which the fees were to be charged, or their amount, could not be accurately and clearly determined from SOKOJ's proposal. Given that the Commission has given a negative opinion on the proposed tariff, SOKOJ is obliged, in the legally prescribed time, to repeat the negotiations with the representative association of users, or submit a new tariff proposal, which must include the fee determined in accordance with the Law and contain the exact amount of the fee, together with clearly and precisely specified manner of determining the said fee.

In repeated negotiations, ANEM will seek to reach agreement with SOKOJ that would be in the best interest of broadcasters and which will determine the fee in accordance with the Law. New negotiations should be completed in the course of September 2011.

Undeveloped advertising market in Serbia makes the state aid, direct or indirect, extremely important for the survival of the numerous media outlets. However, the absence of regulation in this area leads in practice to an uneven position of media as well as to non-transparent spending of budget funds earmarked for the public information, especially at the local level. In the absence of transparent and non-discriminatory conditions for state aid to media, these funds may be abused not only with the aim to disrupt competition on the media market, but also as a control and pressure mechanism of the government against the media.

With the belief that it is necessary to establish a system of allocation of the budget funds for public information in order to overcome the aforementioned problems, ANEM submitted to the Ministry of Culture, as early as in January 2011, its written Proposals for regulating that system. Furthermore, owing to ANEM activities and written proposals, together with NUNS and Local Press, two competent ministries - the Ministry of Culture, Media and Information Society and the Ministry for Human and Minority Rights, Public Administration and Local Self-Government - furnished in June 2011 to all local governments the recommendations for the allocation of local budget funds intended for public information of local interest. Although these recommendations have not taken into account all requests of our associations, they represent the first attempt to regulate the system of budget financing of the media on a project basis. Moreover, in all discussions that have taken place in relation to the adoption of the Media Strategy, together with other journalists' and media associations, ANEM insisted on a substantial change of the manner of financing of the public interest, based on assurance that  financing of such interest should be enabled through projects accessible to all media under equal conditions and not through ownership, namely through the model of public companies that would be in charge of realizing the public interest.

Resuming its activities in this field and in line with the highest international standards set by the Indicators for Media in a Democracy adopted by the Parliamentarian Assembly of the Council of Europe (Resolution 1636 (2008)) and building on the released Draft Strategy for the Development of the Public Information System in Serbia until 2016, ANEM has produced written Suggestions for the amendments to the Public Information Law of the Republic of Serbia that are related to regulating the system of financing of the public interest in the media sphere from the state budget funds.

These amendments would consist of a change to Article 5 of the Public Information Law, the name of which would now read "The Public Interest in the Media Sphere" and which would define the list of what the public interest in the media sphere should be and the number of situations in which state aid may be permitted, including the aid for exercising the rights to information of special categories of persons (national minorities and ethnical groups, as well as persons with special needs). On the other hand, by adding a new Article 5a, the system of state aid would be regulated as a single system, regardless if the aid is allocated directly pursuant to the Public Information Law or if it is allocated by the province, on the basis of regulations determining the competences of the province, or by municipalities and cities pursuant to provisions of the laws governing local self-government, or if the aid is allocated in accordance with regulations concerning the system of public services, namely the work of public companies and performing activities of general interest.

On August 25, 2011, ANEM submitted its written Suggestions to the Ministry of Culture, Information and Information Society and the Ministry for Human and Minority Rights, Public Administration and Local Self-Government, as well as to the Culture and Information Committee of the Serbian Parliament, along with a proposal to launch a procedure for introducing the aforementioned amendments to the Public Information Law.

This advocacy activity was supported by the Civil Rights Defenders.

The Strategy for Switchover from analogue to digital broadcasting of radio and television programs in the Republic of Serbia determines April 4th, 2012, as the date for full switchover to digital terrestrial TV broadcasting. However, to this day, only 7 months before the transition date, the rights and obligations of licenses holders as well as the procedure for licenses adjustment in the process of digital transition have not been defined yet. Although, according to the Action plan for the Strategy, these issues should have been regulated by the Rulebook on switchover from analogue to digital broadcasting of radio and television programs and multiplex access in digital terrestrial broadcasting, the said Rulebook, brought in February 2011, have regulated none of these issues due to inconsistency of the Law on Electronic Communications and the Broadcasting Law. Deeming such position unacceptable for broadcasters, ANEM has prepared its written suggestions by which shortcomings of legal acts could be overcome and submitted them to the Ministry of Culture, Media and Information Society on August 25, 2011, calling on the Ministry to consider these suggestions and start the proposed consultations without delay.

The essence of ANEM suggestions is the following:

• The simplest way to solve the issue of licenses adjustment is their changing, which should be done based on inter-party negotiations and reached agreement between licenses holders, the Republic Broadcasting Agency, the Public company "Broadcast equipment and communications" and the Ministry of Culture, Media and Information Society.
• In order to reach such an agreement, it is necessary to provide licenses holders with an opportunity to obtain more favorable conditions for distribution and broadcast, that is access to the multiplex of the Public company "Broadcast equipment and communications" (reducing the costs of broadcasting), as well as remaining broadcasting licenses in force, but also the possible extension of their validity according to the provision of the Article 59 clause 3 of the Broadcasting Law. 
• Having in mind that switchover to digital broadcasting would change the service zones of many licenses holders, as they would cover wider zones from ones they have licenses for, RBA could offer lower fees for broadcasting license and extension of its validity in return for undertaking of appropriate obligations when it comes to the program (program quota for the program of regional and local interest in the regions for which original licenses have been issued), or acceptance of the obligation of restraining from broadcasting programs specifically aimed at regional or local areas that have not been covered by the service zones of original licenses.
• Successful completion of the negotiations would imply: conclusion of the contract between licenses holders and the Public company "Broadcast equipment and communications", by which the conditions for distribution and broadcasting, namely access to the multiplex, would be regulated in a manner acceptable to all parties and reaching an agreement on amendments and changes to the program elaboration which are considered as an integral part of a license for program broadcasting in line with the Rulebook on license issuing. By this, licenses holders would be enabled to return licenses voluntarily in return for the right to access to multiplex and an agreement in which this right and all accompanying rights and obligations would be clearly defined and regulated in a way acceptable to all parties.
• Reaching of above said agreements would create a legal situation in which the Republic Broadcasting Agency, in accordance with the provisions of the regulations governing general administrative procedure, could replace the existing licenses by acting at the request of a party - a license holder.

This advocacy activity was supported by the Civil Rights Defenders.

The Draft Strategy for the development of the public information system in the Republic of Serbia until 2016 is the result of the Protocol on Cooperation signed between the Ministry of Culture, Media and Information Society and media/journalists' associations, namely the Association of Independent Electronic Media (ANEM), the Independent Journalists' Association of Serbia (NUNS), Journalists' Association of Serbia (UNS), Independent Journalists' Association of Vojvodina (NDNV), the Association of Media and Local Press. Based on the Protocol, signed on April 18, 2011, a Working Group of the Ministry was formed, consisting of seven members - three proposed by five associations - NUNS, UNS, ANEM, NDNV and Local Press, two by the Association of Media and two by the Ministry, whose task was to produce and submit the Draft Media Strategy proposal to the Ministry by June 1. The working group had submitted to the Ministry the text of the Draft within the set deadline, at which point the Minister decided to put it, without any changes made to the text, to a public debate. The Ministry organized 6 round tables within the public debate, which lasted from June 8 to July 15, 2011, in cities throughout Serbia, and in that period, the interested parties addressed their written comments and suggestions on the Draft Strategy to the Ministry. After the request of five media associations (ANEM, NUNS, UNS, NDNV and Local Press), on July 12, the Ministry of Culture, Media and Information Society published all comments, suggestions and proposals of interested participants in the public debates (counting 31) on its website.

For ANEM purposes, Jelena Surculija, MA and coordinator of the working group of the Ministry of Culture, Media and Information Society, conducted an analysis of the published comments of the participants in the public debate on the Draft Media Strategy, which would also serve to media coalition (ANEM, NUNS, UNS, NDNV and Local Press) in the future procedure of adoption of the Media Strategy.

This analysis was produced with the support of the Fund for an Open Society Serbia (FOSS)

Taking part in public consultations on the Draft Rulebook on technical requirements for equipment and program support for lawful interception of electronic communications and electronic communications data retention, on August 11, 2011, ANEM submitted to the Ministry of Culture, Media and Information Society its written opinion on the draft of this Rulebook.

Deeming that the Rulebook, if adopted in the proposed text, would seriously challenge the exercise of the constitutionally guaranteed rights to personal data protection, freedom of opinion and expression, media freedom and the right to information, in its opinion, ANEM suggested to the Ministry to withdraw the Draft Rulebook, namely to prepare a new text of the draft, which would be fully in line with the constitutionally guaranteed secrecy of correspondence and other means of communication, as well as other fundamental human rights that have not been sufficiently taken into account in the preparation of the Draft.

ANEM believes that the Draft Rulebook provides for too broad competence to intercept electronic communications, as well as unclear rules on who and under what circumstances has the right to access electronic communications data, retailed by operators, which represents a threat to the respect and exercise of human rights, especially rights to freedom of expression, since, among other things, they limit the right of the media and journalists to effectively protect the confidentiality of their sources.

The main ANEM objections to the Draft Rulebook include the following:

• By adopting the Rulebook in the proposed text, the rights to confidentiality of journalists' sources of information under Article 32 of the Public Information Law would be particularly affected, as it would leave the space for disclosure of data regarding the source of information in any case, not only in the cases provided for by the Law. That would jeopardize not only the right of every citizen to be truthfully, completely and timely informed on issues of public importance, but also the functioning of the media in a democratic society.
• Provisions of the Draft Rulebook that establish a national monitoring center, in charge of activation and management of secret surveillance of electronic communications, which are handed over to the Security-Information Agency (BIA), are utterly unacceptable and explicitly contrary to the provisions of the Law on Electronic Communications that regulate the procedure for enforcing lawful interception electronic communications and legal access to the withheld data.

In addition, ANEM has supported the objections of the Commissioner for Information of Public Importance and Personal Data Protection that particularly call attention to the unacceptability of arranging secret surveillance of user's location, i.e. location of mobile terminal equipment, but also to many other ambiguities and omissions in the Draft Rulebook that need to be removed prior to its adoption.

Much similar to the case of SOKOJ's tariff, the procedure for determining a unique tariff of collective organizations OFPS (Organization of phonogram producers of Serbia) and PI (Organization for collective administration of performing rights) has continued before the Commission for Copyright and Related Rights, after last year's failed negotiations with ANEM. The procedure is currently in the phase of obtaining opinion of the Commission on the Proposal of a unique tariff, supplied by the managing boards of these collective organizations based on written agreement. In that procedure, ANEM, as a representative association of broadcasters - users of their protected objects, was recently asked to provide its opinion on the Proposal in writing, following which, the Commission would give its opinion. Depending on this, the Proposal of the unique tariff of OFPS and Pi for broadcasters would either be enforced, or, if not the case, the negotiations with ANEM would be repeated or else, a new proposal of the tariff would be provided to the Commission for opinion.

ANEM submitted its written opinion to the Commission on August 5, 2011, in which it pointed out that the Proposal of the unique tariff of fees for broadcasters by OFPS and PI included the rights not falling under the competence of these organizations, as well as that the fees had not been established in line with the rules for determining the tariff as prescribed by the Law.

The main objections of ANEM to the proposal of the unique tariff of OFPS and PI are the following:

• the amount of fee cannot be determined proportionally to the importance that the use of object of protection from the repertoire of the organization has for the income of the user, since, according to this Proposal, the fee shall be determined on the basis of use of music repertoire, whereas the license of OFPS and PI for collective exercise of rights does not cover the entire "music repertoire", rather its part referring to performing recorded on released sound carriers and phonograms
• calculating base for the fee has not been clearly defined in the Proposal, or aligned with the applicable regulation prescribing the classification of business activity, thus opening a space for the tariff to also include the rights for which OFPS and PI do not have the license for collective exercise
• the range of fees has been increased comparing to range existing within the valid tariff frame, as well as to the initial proposal of OFPS and PI, with which the negotiations are led; there is, however, no justified reason for such increase in fee range, particularly taking into consideration the tariffs of collective organizations of the states which have the similar value of gross domestic product to the GDP of the Republic of Serbia. With that, the percentage has been associated with the use of music repertoire in the program, which is unacceptable, as it ought to be linked to the commercially released phonograms
• given that not a single reliable mechanism for establishing the use of organizations' repertoire in the programs has been found yet, and that this Proposal of tariff implies the linkage of fee to the percentage of use, ANEM proposes the thematic assortment of TV channels to be used as a corrective in determining the fee, whereas for the radio, the use of music repertoire to be measured during radio stations' prime time
• the determined minimal fee is inappropriately high, while there is no scaling ratio for its determining for different regions in Serbia in line with the different level of their development, which should have been taken into consideration while forming this fee

Five media and journalists' associations (ANEM, NUNS, UNS, NDNV and Local Press) that comprise the media coalition gathered in joint efforts to improve Serbian media scene through the adoption of a quality Media Strategy, took active part in public debate on the Draft Strategy for Development of Public Information System in the Republic of Serbia until 2016, held from June 8 to July 15, 2011.

During the public debate, apart from the active participation in the round tables organized by the Ministry of Culture, Media and Information Society, the associations had also prepared their joint proposals and suggestions to the Draft Media Strategy and submitted them to the Ministry on July 15, 2011.

The letter, containing proposals and suggestions to the Draft, restated the position of the media coalition that the text of the Draft Strategy represented a significant step toward the regulation of media sphere and improvement of freedom of expression standards.

Here, the associations draw attention to their joint stands and arguments with regard to what should be the purpose and the postulates of the Media Strategy, which the media coalition insisted on from the very beginning of the work on this document. The associations will continue to stand up for the main principles and solutions from the Draft and insist on their inclusion into the final text of the Strategy, to be adopted by the Government.

Enclosed are the proposals and suggestions to the Draft Strategy for the Development of Public Information System in the Republic of Serbia until 2016, forwarded by associations to the Ministry of Culture, Media and Information Society. 

 This activity is realized with the financial support of the Fund for an Open Society, Serbia (FOSS).

Under the new Law on Copyright and Related Rights, which entered into force on December 24, 2009, the tariffs of collective organizations for the protection of copyright and related rights shall be determined by negotiation between these organizations and the representative associations of the users of objects of their protection, whereas, if these negotiations do not result in a written agreement, the further negotiating procedure will depend on the Commission for Copyright and Related Rights. Namely, the Commission gives opinion on the proposed tariffs which shall, after the failed negotiations, be determined by collective organizations alone. This will determine whether such tariff will be enforced or the negotiations for its determining be repeated. Representative associations will also give their opinion on the proposed tariffs to the Commission.

As negotiations between ANEM, as the representative association of broadcasters - users of musical works, and SOKOJ were completed almost a year ago, without reaching agreement on tariffs, the process had entered into the phase in which the Commission submitted SOKOJ's proposal of the tariff to the representative association of users for opinion. Due to a delay in the formation of the Commission and slow pace of work of the Commission after its constitution in the end of last year, ANEM had received a request from Commission for Copyright and Related Rights at the beginning of May 2011, for giving an opinion on the proposed tariff of fees submitted by SOKOJ, with the time limit of one month to comment on this proposal.

Responding to the request of the Commission for Copyright and Related Rights, ANEM submitted its written opinion on the proposed tariff by SOKOJ on June 6, 2011. Later that month, on June 30, ANEM representative elaborated on the Association's arguments and opinion on the proposed SOKOJ's tariff at the meeting - consultations with the Commission for Copyright and Related Rights.

The main objections of ANEM regarding the proposal of the tariff are the following:

The proposal of tariff does not provide for clear mechanisms of ensuring compliance with a legal requirement for the level of fee to match up the significance of the use of protected objects from SOKOJ's repertoire for the users' income. ANEM believes that the definition of the basis for calculation of fees in the proposed tariff is inaccurate and inconsistent with the applicable regulations, which leaves the open space for the tariff to include the rights outside SOKOJ's competency. More so, the proposed tariff does not identify the grounds for the reduction of the basis for calculation of fees, as accepted in international practice. Also, this proposal of the tariff does not clearly establish the grounds for justifying the determined lowest amount of fees for the use of protected objects from its repertoire, set in the proposal as extremely high. Finally, the Law on Copyright and Related Rights provides that the process of determining the tariff should take into account the tariffs of collective organizations of countries whose gross domestic product is of the approximate value of the gross national product of Serbia. However, from SOKOJ's proposal arises the conclusion that it had not taken this into account while determining the tariff, since it foresees much higher and unfavorable tariffs than in these countries.

ANEM expects that the Commission will soon issue its opinion on the SOKOJ's proposal of the tariff, which will either assess that such proposal is not in accordance with the law, or, if not the case, instruct SOKOJ to launch new set of negotiations with the representative association of broadcasters or submit new proposal of tariff to the Commission for opinion.

Here you can read the full text of ANEM opinion:

In the past year, ANEM, NUNS and Local Press had several consultations held with representatives of the Ministry of Culture, Ministry for Public Administration and Local Self-Government, Ministry of Finance and SKGO/SCTM about the possible ways of regulating the financing system of media from the budgets of local self-governments. In late August 2010, these media and journalists' associations prepared and forwarded to the said ministries concrete proposal of recommendations for regulating the system of financing local media that would establish a system of allocation of the budget funds on a project basis and in a transparent and non-discriminatory manner.

As a result of efforts of these associations, the two competent ministries - the Ministry of Culture, Media and Information Society, Ministry for Human and Minority Rights, Public Administration and Local Self-Government - have forwarded to local self-governments their recommendations, based largely on the proposals of the associations. These recommendations are available on the website of the Ministry of Culture, Media and Information Society.

However, although these recommendations are a step in the right direction just by the fact that they have been published by relevant ministries and sent to local self-governments, as well as the fact that they represent the first attempt to regulate the system of budget financing of media on a project basis, according to the associations, they are still an insufficient step and considerably different in their essence from the recommendations that were suggested by our associations.

The key problem of the text of published recommendations reflects in the fact that, despite already being non-obligatory, they have been further devalued by not being applied to all local budget funds for public information, but only to their undetermined part. In this way, it would be still possible to finance media, as before, regardless of any public competitions or any clearly-set and predetermined criteria, using non-transparent procedures that are detrimental to free market competition and favoring obedient media and those owned or controlled by local self-governments. Additionally, the recommendations - contrary to the associations' proposals - envision that members of the Commissions that decide on allocation of the funds have to be representatives of local self-governments as well, which seriously jeopardizes independence and autonomy of the Commissions themselves.

For this reason, ANEM, NUNS and Local Press reacted with a public statement, expressing serious doubts about the content of that document.

ANEM, NUNS and Local Press will continue to advocate for regulation of media financing at the local level by establishing a system of allocating budget funds on a project basis and through a transparent and non-discriminatory procedures in such a way that will encourage the development of local media.

In the end of 2010 and the beginning of 2011, legal proceedings for commercial offence of alleged not submitting the lists of broadcast phonograms to OFPS were initiated against many broadcasters across Serbia. These proceedings were initiated by OFPS by sending a series of complaints to RBA, which RBA, having been incompetent to deal with these complaints, forwarded to public prosecutors.

Working in the best interests of its stations, ANEM has undertaken a series of activities for solving this problem. Apart from the specific legal instruction, legal advice and other types of legal aid to stations as well as the public statement from January 24, 2011, two meeting were held at request of ANEM, both on February 10: the first, with the representatives of OFPS, which did not yield expected results in regard to the requested suspension of the proceedings, and the second, with the Intellectual Property Office, at which the representatives of ANEM presented all objections to the work and illegality of OFPS acts, also informing the Office on the initiated legal proceedings and their consequences for broadcasters. After that, on February 14, 2011, ANEM submitted its written request to the Intellectual Property Office for initiating the process of monitoring and control over the OFPS' acts, requesting undertaking urgent measures and protection of broadcasters from unacceptable treatment by OFPS. In its request, ANEM pointed at non-transparency, illegality and collision of the OFPS' acts regulating this issue, stressing, among other things, the following: non-conformity of the OFPS Rules about the notification of broadcast phonograms by the broadcasters with the OFPS Tariff, that prescribes that submitting the list in the OFPS form is only one of the alternatively envisaged ways of submitting the program files; the non-conformity of these acts with the relevant provisions of the Law on Copyright and Related Rights; legal uncertainty regarding the procedure of submitting the lists of broadcast phonograms, since the broadcasters are not aware which act they shall abide by; too wide authority of the collective organization to reject the complete list due to a minor omission or even to impose a fine. The said problem was the topic of the meeting held on March 2, 2011, with the representatives of Public Prosecutor's Office (PPO), at which it was agreed that PPO would issue, after considering all related facts, the instruction for all prosecutor's offices on acting in cases of legal proceedings for commercial offence initiated against broadcasters on the basis of OFPS' legal claims.

Acting on the ANEM request for performing monitoring and control over the OFPS' acts, the Intellectual Property Office found numerous irregularities in the work of OFPS and its acts, accepting almost all ANEM objections and requests. In accordance with its finding, the Office has also ordered the organization to remedy these irregularities, requesting from OFPS to bring into agreement, within the given deadline, the disputable articles of the Rules with the Tariff and the Law in accordance with the Office's instructions. The Office's notice to ANEM from April 6, 2011, containing all ascertained irregularities in the work and acts of OFPS and orders to OFPS, was submitted to the Prosecutor's Office by ANEM in order this Office could issue without delay the instruction for local prosecutor's offices on acting on legal claims related to commercial offence initiated against broadcaster for alleged not submitting the lists of broadcast phonograms.

At request of ANEM, the Intellectual Property Office organized the meeting on April 19, 2011, attended by the representatives of ANEM, RTS, national broadcasters, OFPS and SOKOJ, with the aim to discuss the improvement of the communication between OFPS and its users regarding the submitting the lists of broadcast phonograms. At this meeting, it was agreed, among other things, that possibilities for uniforming said lists of OFPS and SOKOJ needed to be considered, which would significantly facilitate the broadcasters' fulfilling of this obligations, which was in the interest of the collective organizations, too. After this meeting, the representatives of OFPS, SOKOJ and ANEM agreed to hold another meeting dedicated to this issue, that would be held in the beginning of May at ANEM premises.