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(29) The distribution and payment of amounts due to individual rightholders or, as the case may be, to categories of rightholders, should be carried out in a timely manner and in accordance with the general policy on distribution of the collective management organisation concerned, including when they are performed via another entity representing the rightholders. Only objective reasons beyond the control of a collective management organisation can justify delay in the distribution and payment of amounts due to rightholders. Therefore, circumstances such as the rights revenue having been invested subject to a maturity date should not qualify as valid reasons for such a delay. It is appropriate to leave it to Member States to decide on rules ensuring timely distribution and the effective search for, and identification of, rightholders in cases where such objective reasons occur. In order to ensure that the amounts due to rightholders are appropriately and effectively distributed, without prejudice to the possibility for Member States to provide for more stringent rules, it is necessary to require collective management organisations to take reasonable and diligent measures, on the basis of good faith, to identify and locate the relevant rightholders. It is also appropriate that members of a collective management organisation, to the extent allowed for under national law, should decide on the use of any amounts that cannot be distributed in situations where rightholders entitled to those amounts cannot be identified or located.

(40) In the online music sector, where collective management of authors’ rights on a territorial basis remains the norm, it is essential to create conditions conducive to the most effective licensing practices by collective management organisations in an increasingly cross-border context. It is therefore appropriate to provide a set of rules prescribing basic conditions for the provision by collective management organisations of multi-territorial collective licensing of authors’ rights in musical works for online use, including lyrics. The same rules should apply to such licensing for all musical works, including musical works incorporated in audiovisual works. However, online services solely providing access to musical works in sheet music form should not be covered. The provisions of this Directive should ensure the necessary minimum quality of cross-border services provided by collective management organisations, notably in terms of transparency of repertoire represented and accuracy of financial flows related to the use of the rights. They should also set out a framework for facilitating the voluntary aggregation of music repertoire and rights, thus reducing the number of licences a user needs to operate a multi-territory, multi-repertoire service. Those provisions should enable a collective management organisation to request another organisation to represent its repertoire on a multi-territorial basis where it cannot or does not wish to fulfil the requirements itself. There should be an obligation on the requested organisation, provided that it already aggregates repertoire and offers or grants multi-territorial licences, to accept the mandate of the requesting organisation. The development of legal online music services across the Union should also contribute to the fight against online infringements of copyright.

(41) The availability of accurate and comprehensive information on musical works, rightholders and the rights that each collective management organisation is authorised to represent in a given territory is of particular importance for an effective and transparent licensing process, for the subsequent processing of the users’ reports and the related invoicing of service providers, and for the distribution of amounts due. For that reason, collective management organisations granting multi-territorial licences for musical works should be able to process such detailed data quickly and accurately. This requires the use of databases on ownership of rights that are licensed on a multi-territorial basis, containing data that allow for the identification of works, rights and rightholders that a collective management organisation is authorised to represent and of the territories covered by the authorisation. Any changes to that information should be taken into account without undue delay and the databases should be continually updated. Those databases should also help to match information on works with information on phonograms or any other fixation in which the work has been incorporated. It is also important to ensure that prospective users and rightholders, as well as collective management organisations, have access to the information they need in order to identify the repertoire that those organisations are representing. Collective management organisations should be able to take measures to protect the accuracy and integrity of the data, to control their reuse or to protect commercially sensitive information.

(42) In order to ensure that the data on the music repertoire they process are as accurate as possible, collective management organisations granting multi-territorial licences in musical works should be required to update their databases continuously and without delay as necessary. They should establish easily accessible procedures to enable online service providers, as well as rightholders and other collective management organisations, to inform them of any inaccuracy that the organisations’ databases may contain in respect of works they own or control, including rights — in whole or in part — and territories for which they have mandated the relevant collective management organisation to act, without however jeopardising the veracity and integrity of the data held by the collective management organisation. Since Directive 95/46/EC of the European Parliament and of the Council grants to every data subject the right to obtain rectification, erasure or blocking of inaccurate or incomplete data, this Directive should also ensure that inaccurate information regarding rightholders or other collective management organisations in the case of multi-territorial licences is to be corrected without undue delay. Collective management organisations should also have the capacity to process electronically the registration of works and authorisations to manage rights. Given the importance of information automation for the fast and effective processing of data, collective management organisations should provide for the use of electronic means for the structured communication of that information by rightholders. Collective management organisations should, as far as possible, ensure that such electronic means take into account the relevant voluntary industry standards or practices developed at international or Union level.

(43) Industry standards for music use, sales reporting and invoicing are instrumental in improving efficiency in the exchange of data between collective management organisations and users. Monitoring the use of licences should respect fundamental rights, including the right to respect for private and family life and the right to protection of personal data. In order to ensure that these efficiency gains result in faster financial processing and ultimately in earlier payments to rightholders, collective management organisations should be required to invoice service providers and to distribute amounts due to rightholders without delay. For this requirement to be effective, it is necessary that users provide collective management organisations with accurate and timely reports on the use of works. Collective management organisations should not be required to accept users’ reports in proprietary formats when widely used industry standards are available. Collective management organisations should not be prevented from outsourcing services relating to the granting of multi-territorial licences for online rights in musical works. Sharing or consolidation of back-office capabilities should help the organisations to improve management services and rationalise investments in data management tools.

(49) It is necessary to ensure the effective enforcement of the provisions of national law adopted pursuant to this Directive. Collective management organisations should offer their members specific procedures for handling complaints. Those procedures should also be made available to other rightholders directly represented by the organisation and to other collective management organisations on whose behalf it manages rights under a representation agreement. Furthermore, Member States should be able to provide that disputes between collective management organisations, their members, rightholders or users as to the application of this Directive can be submitted to a rapid, independent and impartial alternative dispute resolution procedure. In particular, the effectiveness of the rules on multi-territorial licensing of online rights in musical works could be undermined if disputes between collective management organisations and other parties were not resolved quickly and efficiently. As a result, it is appropriate to provide, without prejudice to the right of access to a tribunal, for the possibility of easily accessible, efficient and impartial out-of-court procedures, such as mediation or arbitration, for resolving conflicts between, on the one hand, collective management organisations granting multi-territorial licences and, on the other, online service providers, rightholders or other collective management organisations. This Directive neither prescribes a specific manner in which such alternative dispute resolution should be organised, nor determines which body should carry it out, provided that its independence, impartiality and efficiency are guaranteed. Finally, it is also appropriate to require that Member States have independent, impartial and effective dispute resolution procedures, via bodies possessing expertise in intellectual property law or via courts, suitable for settling commercial disputes between collective management organisations and users on existing or proposed licensing conditions or on a breach of contract.

(52) It is important for collective management organisations to respect the rights to private life and personal data protection of any rightholder, member, user and other individual whose personal data they process. Directive 95/46/EC governs the processing of personal data carried out in the Member States in the context of that Directive and under the supervision of the Member States’ competent authorities, in particular the public independent authorities designated by the Member States. Rightholders should be given appropriate information about the processing of their data, the recipients of those data, time limits for the retention of such data in any database, and the way in which rightholders can exercise their rights to access, correct or delete their personal data concerning them in accordance with Directive 95/46/EC. In particular, unique identifiers which allow for the indirect identification of a person should be treated as personal data within the meaning of that Directive.

(53) Provisions on enforcement measures should be without prejudice to the competencies of national independent public authorities established by the Member States pursuant to Directive 95/46/EC to monitor compliance with national provisions adopted in implementation of that Directive.

(54) This Directive respects the fundamental rights and observes the principles enshrined in the Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union (‘the Charter’). Provisions in this Directive relating to dispute resolution should not prevent parties from exercising their right of access to a tribunal as guaranteed in the Charter.

(55) Since the objectives of this Directive, namely to improve the ability of their members to exercise control over the activities of collective management organisations, to guarantee sufficient transparency by collective management organisations and to improve the multi-territorial licensing of authors’ rights in musical works for online use, cannot be sufficiently achieved by Member States but can rather, by reason of their scale and effects, be better achieved at Union level, the Union may adopt measures in accordance with the principle of subsidiarity as set out in Article 5 of the Treaty on European Union. In accordance with the principle of proportionality, as set out in that Article, this Directive does not go beyond what is necessary in order to achieve those objectives.

(56) The provisions of this Directive are without prejudice to the application of rules on competition, and any other relevant law in other areas including confidentiality, trade secrets, privacy, access to documents, the law of contract and private international law relating to the conflict of laws and the jurisdiction of courts, and workers’ and employers’ freedom of association and their right to organise.

(57) In accordance with the Joint Political Declaration of 28 September 2011 of Member States and the Commission on explanatory documents , Member States have undertaken to accompany, in justified cases, the notification of their transposition measures with one or more documents explaining the relationship between the components of a directive and the corresponding parts of national transposition instruments. With regard to this Directive, the legislator considers the transmission of such documents to be justified.

(58) The European Data Protection Supervisor was consulted in accordance with Article 28(2) of Regulation (EC) No 45/2001 of the European Parliament and of the Council and delivered an opinion on 9 October 2012,