Copyright payments

1 AAS provides on its website, free of charge, standard contract forms for the conclusion of relevant copyright contracts between the author and the ordering person, which specify, inter alia, that the payment shall be made through the agency of AAS.

2 Concerning the conclusion of a contract, the parties may consult AAS, free of charge, either personally or otherwise. This concerns especially the question of taxation of royalties, which are due to several types of taxation or contribution charges; and AAS’s standard contract forms are adapted to those types.

3 On the basis of a contract submitted in person, by post, by fax or by mail, AAS shall issue, on behalf of the author, to the ordering person an invoice for the royalties due; as a rule, it does so the same working day when it receives the contract or an invoice order.

4 The ordering person pays the invoice by money transfer to AAS’s bank account. The latter, not later than the next working day, withholds and transfers income taxes and other public contributions (for pension and health insurance) of the author, including the submission of the relevant administrative forms, whereas AAS transfers the remaining net amount of the royalties to the author’s bank account.

5 Having transferred the royalties and having accounted the public charges, AAS sends to the author a written notice with a specification thereof (“statement of account of royalties”).

6 AAS shall keep, instead of the ordering person, an annual record of the royalties received and data for income tax assessment for each author and shall submit, once a year (by the end of January for the previous calendar year), their summary to the authors and to the tax authority.

7 In case of payment delays AAS shall send to the ordering person, upon request by the author, up to three consecutive reminders. If the invoice nonetheless remains unpaid, AAS provides legal assistance to the author for the judicial recovery of the invoiced sums due, which however is subject to a payable service.

For the described services (points 1 to 7), AAS charges the author a commission as a  percentage of the invoiced gross amount on the invoice and deducts it from his net royalty. In stipulating the clause “net pay off” in the contract, the burden of this commission (and of other public charges) can be transferred to the ordering person; such a clause is, however, not possible in the case of income from the activities of self-employed authors. The amount of commission depends on the type of income and personal circumstances on the author’s side and amounts to:

• 2,5% in income from activities of domestic self-employed authors,
• 3,0% in income from another contractual relationship and income from the transfer of economic rights of domestic authors and their heirs,
• 4,0% for authors who are VAT-payers and who themselves provide for keeping VAT records, regardless of the type of income,
• 5,0% for VAT payers whose VAT records are managed by AAS, regardless of the type of income,
• 5,0% for authors, foreign residents, regardless of the type of income.
• 5,0% for payments from abroad – outside the EU

Discount
• 0,5% for amounts over 4.000,00 EUR
• 1,0% for amounts over 8.000,00 EUR
The discount does not apply to foreign residents or payments from abroad

Surcharge
• 50% on the basic commission for amounts below 100,00 EUR
• 100% on the basic commission for amounts below 50,00 EUR

Notes
1. VAT is charged at the rate of 22% on the commission amount.
2. The quoted commission shall apply if it is agreed by written agreement, that the payment of the royalty shall be processed through the agency of AAS.
3. AAS’s agency service (the transfer of royalties) shall be deemed to have been made and shall be charged on the date, when the net amount is credited to the bank account of the author.
4. If the royalty is agreed upon in a net amount, the commission shall be calculated from the gross amount of such royalty; to determine a discount, the invoiced net amount (above EUR 4.000,00 or above EUR 10.000,00) shall be taken into account.
5. If one invoice is issued for several co-authors at a time, the invoiced gross amount shall be divided by the number of co-authors in order to determine the amount of the commission.