Confidence and trust in the operation of collective management organisations, such as RROs, is built and maintained by strong and effective operations coupled with transparent and open governance.

One of IFRRO’s key objectives is to support its members in developing and maintaining their operational and governance systems. Our services to members in this area include developing guidance documents and resources, such as those on agreements with other RROs, training and technical support, information exchange about business developments and innovation and development support.
 
Collective licensing
 
IFRRO has developed a number of tools to assist our members build their governance systems. This include a Code of Conduct, which reflects the standards of conduct and behaviour that is expected of members of the IFRRO community in their interactions with rightsholders and users of copyright content. IFRRO has also developed a guidance document for its members which highlights the importance of the relationship with other RROs to effective and strong governance.

Code of Conduct
Relationship between RROs

IFRRO is also closely involved with the work its international partners are taking to build capacity and establish good governance standards in the collective management sector. We are a member of the WIPO working group that has developed the WIPO CMO Toolkit and we also work closely with other regional organisations such as ARIPO and OAPI in Africa and CERLALC in Latin America on capacity building and awareness of governance issues.

IFRRO also actively participates in seminars and events to build confidence and raise awareness of the importance of good governance, including those conducted by the USPTO, most recently in Georgia and in Africa, in cooperation with ARIPO.
 
IFRRO's member RROs operate in a variety of different legal and cultural contexts and within those contexts, manage different repertoires of copyright content. Some RROs focus their activities on a single type of copyright material, such as those specialising in newspaper, music or visual artworks. Others are more generalist, representing a cross section of copyright content.

IFRRO facilitates the sharing of experiences, and lessons learned amongst these different organisations through our active and engaged member committees and working groups. These groups meet regularly and the meetings are open to all IFRRO members.

IFRRO also organises events and conferences, such as our annual International Conference, at which emerging issues of importance to the publishing industry are explored and discussed.

We also develop tools and guidance documents for our members, in such important areas as data privacy and agreements between RROs.


 
Many of IFRROs members are newly established. Often their operational context can be challenging. IFRRO prioritises support for those emerging CMOs, to enable them to grow and build their activities to ensure that they network of CMOs in the text and image sector is truly global.

We have established four regional committees (in Europe, Africa Asia Pacific and Latin America and the Caribbean) to enable members from those regions to share experiences and learn from each other. We also provide advice and technical assistance to emerging members, including targeted support to build capacity in repertoire management, licensing and business development.

We have recently concluded an agreement with the Norwegian RRO, Kopinor to manage a part of their development fund, which will enable IFRRO to expand our development work and support newly established RROs all around the world.

We also partner with other organisations, for example our successful partnerships with WIPO in Asia and Africa. We work with other governmental organisations such as ARIPO, OAPI and CERLALC in building capacity for effective and efficient collective management in the counties of interest to them. We also participate in the development programs managed by other organisations such as Norcode.
IFRRO’s members provide regular and transparent reports to IFRRO, and to other IFRRO members, through their contributions to the IFRRO directory, and the Status Reports, in which they share information about their activities, business and legislative developments and other aspects of their operations of interest to the IFRRO community.