Directive 93/83/EEC
History
European Union directive

Title	Directive on the coordination of certain rules concerning copyright and rights related to copyright applicable to satellite broadcasting and cable retransmission
Made by	Council of the European Union
Made under	Arts. 57(2), 66 & 100a
Journal reference	L248, 1993-10-06, pp. 15–21
Date made	27 September 1993
Came into force	6 October 1993
Implementation date	1 January 1995
Preparative texts
Commission proposal	C255, 1991-10-01, p. 3 C25, 1993-01-28, p. 43
EESC opinion	C98, 1992-04-21, p. 44
EP opinion	C305, 1992-11-23, p. 129
Reports
Other legislation
Replaces	—
Amends	—
Amended by	Directive 2019/789 of 17 April 2019
Replaced by	—
Current legislation

The Satellite and Cable Directive (frequently shortened to SatCab Directive^[1]), formally the Council Directive 93/83/EEC of 27 September 1993 on the coordination of certain rules concerning copyright and rights related to copyright applicable to satellite broadcasting and cable retransmission, is a European Union directive that governs the application of copyright and related rights to satellite and cable television in the European Union. It was made under the internal market provisions of the Treaty of Rome.

Satellite broadcasting

An author has the exclusive right to authorise or prohibit the broadcasting of his or her works by satellite (Art. 2). This right may only be subject to a compulsory licensing scheme when the satellite broadcast is simultaneous with a terrestrial broadcast [Art. 3(2)]. Satellite broadcasting is assimilated to terrestrial broadcasting for the purposes of related rights (rights of performers, phonogram producers and broadcasting organisations) (Art. 4): the protection of these rights is governed by Directive 92/100/EEC.^[2]

Cable retransmission

The main effect of the Directive is to stipulate that cable retransmission must be on the basis of contractual, not statutory, licences with copyright holders, although existing statutory licence schemes were permitted to remain in force until the end of 1997 (Art. 8). These licences may only be granted or refused by collecting societies [Art. 9(1)], which effectively makes such societies compulsory: a collecting society may be deemed to be mandated to manage the cable retransmission rights of a copyright holder in the absence of any expressive agreement [Art. 9(2)]. Broadcasting organisations are free to exercise their own related rights to license or prohibit the cable retransmission of their own broadcasts (Art. 10). The Directive also provides for mediation in disputes between cable operators and collecting societies (Art. 11) and for measures to prevent abuse of monopoly powers (Art. 12).

Implementation

Implementation of the Directive by Member States
	Austria	Urheberrechtsgesetznovelle 1996 No. 151
	Belgium	Loi du 30 juin 1994 relative au droit d'auteur et aux droits voisins, chapter III
	Bulgaria	unknown
	Cyprus	unknown
	Czech Republic	Law No. 121/2000 Coll. of 7 April 2000 on Copyright, Rights Related to Copyright and on the Amendment of Certain Laws
	Denmark	Act on Copyright 1995 No. 395
	Estonia	unknown
	Finland	unknown
	France	Loi n^o 97-283 du 27 mars 1997 portant transposition dans le code de la propriété intellectuelle des directives du Conseil des Communautés européennes n^os 93/83 du 27 septembre 1993 et 93/98 du 29 octobre 1993
	Germany	Law of 08.05.1998
	Greece	Law No. 2557/1997, Official Journal A271/1997
	Hungary	unknown
	Ireland	unknown
	Italy	Decreto legislativo del 23/10/1996 n. 581, attuazione della direttiva 93/83/CEE per il coordinamento di alcune norme in materia di diritto d'autore e diritti connessi applicabili alla radiodiffusione e alla ritrasmissione via cavo, Gazzetta Ufficiale
	Latvia	Autortiesību likums (2000-04-06)
	Lithuania	Autorių teisių ir gretutinių teisių įstatimas N. VIII-1185 (1999-05-18)
	Luxembourg	Loi du 8 septembre 1997
	Malta	Copyright Act, 2000
	Netherlands	unknown
	Poland	unknown
	Portugal	Decreto-Lei n. 333/97, de 27 de Novembro de 1997
	Romania	unknown
	Slovakia	Copyright Act of 1997-12-05 (No. 383/1997)
	Slovenia	Zakon o avtorskih in sorodnih pravicah (1995-03-30)
	Spain	Ley 28/1995, de 11 de octubre, de incorporación al Derecho español de la Directiva 93/83/CEE, del Consejo, de 27 de septiembre, sobre coordinación de determinadas disposiciones relativas a los derechos de autor y derechos afines a los derechos de autor en el ámbito de la radiodifusión vía satélite y de la distribución por cable
	Sweden	unknown
	United Kingdom	Copyright and Related Rights Regulations 1996 No. 2967

Notes and references

Literature

Auer, Günter (1997), "Die Umsetzung urheberrechtlicher Richtlinien am Beispiel der Satellitenrichtlinie", in Dittrich, Robert (ed.), Beiträge zum Urheberrecht V, Wien: Manz, pp. 19–40, ISBN 3-214-07718-X
Castendyk, Oliver; Albrecht, Martin von (1992), "Der Richtlinienvorschlag der EG-Kommission zum Satellitenfernsehen: Eine Stellungnahme aus der Sicht der Praxis", Gewerblicher Rechtsschutz und Urheberrecht, Internationaler Teil, 41 (10): 734–739
Cohen Jehoram, Herman (1994), "The EC Copyright Directives, Economics and Authors' Rights", International Review of Intellectual Property and Competition Law, 25 (6): 821–839
Desurmont, Thierry (1993), "Chronique de la Communauté Européenne", Revue internationale du droit d'auteur (RIDA), 155: 88–161
Dreier, Thomas (2010), "Satellite and Cable Directive", in Walter, Michel M.; Lewinski, Silke von (eds.), European Copyright Law: A Commentary, Oxford: Oxford University Press, pp. 391–498, ISBN 978-0-19-922732-7
Dreier, Thomas (1996), "The Cable and Satellite Analogy", in Hugenholtz, P. Bernt (ed.), The Future of Copyright in a Digital Environment: Proceedings of the Royal Academy Colloquium (Amsterdam, 6–7 July 1995), Den Haag: Kluwer, pp. 57–65, ISBN 90-411-0267-1
Dreier, Thomas (1991), "Broadcasting and copyright in the internal market: the new proposal by the EC Commission concerning cable and satellite broadcasts", European Intellectual Property Review (EIPR), 13 (2): 42–46
Hugenholtz, P. Bernt (2016), "Council Directive 93/83/EC (Satellite and Cable Directive)", in Dreier, Thomas; Hugenholtz, P. Bernt (eds.), Concise European Copyright Law (2nd ed.), Alphen aan den Rijn: Kluwer, pp. 309–334, ISBN 978-90-411-2879-9
Hugenholtz, P. Bernt (2016), "Making the Digital Single Market Work for Copyright: Extending the Satellite & Cable Directive to content services on line", in Franzosi, Mario; Pollicino, Oreste; Campus, Gianluca (eds.), The Digital Single Market Copyright: Internet and Copyright Law in the European Perspective: Conference proceedings, Milan, 4–5 November 2015, Ariccia: Aracne, pp. 51–65, ISBN 978-88-548-9441-9
Hugenholtz, P. Bernt (2009), "SatCab Revisited: The Past, Present and Future of the Satellite and Cable Directive", in European Audiovisual Observatory (ed.), Convergence, Copyrights and Transfrontier Television, Strasbourg, pp. 7–19((citation)): CS1 maint: location missing publisher (link)
Kern, Philippe (1993), "The EC "common position" on copyright applicable to satellite broadcasting and cable retransmission", European Intellectual Property Review (EIPR), 15 (8): 276–283
Khan, Bryan (2023), "Copyright in Broadcast Transmissions and the Investment-Protection Rationale", in Bonadio, Enrico; Goold, Patrick (eds.), The Cambridge Handbook of Investment-Driven Intellectual Property, Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, pp. 203–226, ISBN 978-1-108-83919-8
Lund, Astri M. (1997), "Satellittoverføring av fjernsyns- og radioprogram", in Hagstrøm, Viggo; Lødrup, Peter; Aarbakke, Magnus (eds.), Ånd og rett: Festskrift til Birger Stuevold Lassen på 70-årsdagen 19. august 1997, Oslo: Universitetsforlaget, pp. 695–714, ISBN 82-00-12697-8
McKnight, Elizabeth (1995), "Exclusive licensing of television programmes: the Cable and Satellite Directive", Entertainment Law Review, 6 (7): 287–291
Pichler, Marie-Helen (1994), "EG-Richtlinie über Urheberrecht, Satellitenrundfunk und Kabelweiterverbreitung vom 27. September 1993", Medien und Recht (MR), 12 (2): 54–56
Rosén, Jan (2021), "The Satellite and Cable Directive", in Stamatoudi, Irini; Torremans, Paul (eds.), EU Copyright Law: A Commentary (2nd ed.), Cheltenham: Elgar, pp. 151–179, ISBN 978-1-78643-779-2
Schulte zu Sundern, Friederike (2019), "Die Aktualisierung der SatCab-RL und ihre Umsetzung in nationales Recht: Ein erster Überblick", Zeitschrift für Geistiges Eigentum, 11 (4): 452–484, doi:10.1628/zge-2019-0028, S2CID 239369967
Ullrich, Jan N. (2009), Urheberrecht und Satellitenrundfunk: Kollisionsrecht und materielles Recht, Berlin: Berliner Wissenschafts-Verlag, ISBN 978-3-8305-1693-4